Femmes Fatales | Jun 27 2014 |
Vintage Pulp | Oct 20 2013 |
Above is a Swedish poster for Edward Dmytryk’s Hämnden är rättvis, aka Crossfire, a really interesting film noir about an ex-soldier who is murdered, and his fellow ex-soldiers who are suspects. Police detective Robert Young tries to get to the bottom of the crime, but is increasingly baffled as he realizes the killing did not occur for any of the usual reasons—money, lust, revenge, etc. Different character recollections provide different information about the victim’s last hours, but only serve to underscore the apparent senselesslness of the crime. We can’t reveal the direction Young’s investigation turns without giving away the ending*, but we’ll mention that the movie won an award at Cannes—the Prix du meilleur film social, or Best Social Film.
*We’ve never worried about giving away endings before. Our capsule reviews are really just excuses to show the poster art and joke around. However, a few recent emails have revealed that some readers actually visit Pulp Intl. for viewing ideas, which just goes to show that after five years online you receive credibility whether you were looking for it or not. So even though recent scientific research shows that people enjoy stories more if they know the endings in advance, we’re going to be better about spoilers in the future. Promise.
Femmes Fatales | Jan 4 2013 |
One never hears her name mentioned today, but Italian actress Isa Miranda, née Ines Isabella Sampietro, was one of the most popular performers of her time. She was a star throughout Europe during the 1930s, and during World War II continued to act in Italian films. As a result, she is linked to fascist cinema, though is not known to be a fascist sympathizer herself. Ultimately she carved out a fifty year career and earned a Best Actress award at the 1949 Cannes Film Festival for René Clément’s Le mura di Malapaga. She’s seen here circa 1935.
Sex Files | Oct 30 2012 |
We mentioned a while back that we had found a stack of Japanese x-rated movie posters, so here’s another one today, a poster for Lasse Braun’s Sensations, starring Brigitte Maier. The art is by William Stok, and if the central figure’s meandering tongue isn’t enough to tell you this is a porn movie, the white substance on her breast and shoulder gives it away. That ain't supposed to be Béchamel sauce, folks. Sensations was made in Germany in 1975, had its world premiere at the Cannes Film Festival that May, and played in mainstream movie houses in the U.S. throughout the autumn and into the next year. Basically, it’s about an uptight American girl who travels to Amsterdam and gets her groove on. She’s reluctant at first, but as the movie churns along she begins to show more enthusiasm. This kind of sexual awakening plot was a staple of adult film back then, but the exotic setting was something new for American filmgoers, and they made the movie a major hit. Sensations premiered in Japan today in 1976, and you can see more Japanese x-rated posters here and here.
Modern Pulp | Dec 5 2011 |
Tanya’s Island may not be the best sexploitation flick of all time, but it’s surely one of the most earnest. Before she hooked up with Prince and became known as Vanity, Canadian actress D.D. Winters headlined this deeply Freudian beauty-and-the-beast psychodrama about a young actress who lucidly dreams of going to live with her painter boyfriend on a deserted island, only to discover that they are in fact not alone. The imaginary island’s other inhabitant is a sort of tropical sasquatch (but with soulful blue eyes), and within the reverie Tanya develops, her boyfriend becomes jealous and aggressive while the ape seems to take on increasingly more humanity.
Since this all takes place in Tanya’s head, some pretty interesting questions are being raised about the nature of female desire, as well as both the savage and civilized sides of man. Perhaps you’re rolling your eyes now, and that’s fair enough, but a big reason why these seventies skin flicks are great to watch is because the filmmakers took themselves so seriously. Writer/producer Pierre Brousseau even plastered the 1982 Cannes Film Festival with posters in hopes of generating attention for his movie. His strategy probably didn’t boost box office receipts much, but it did increase interest in his lead actress, resulting in her appearance in Playboy, and thence into the arms of Prince. Since Tanya’s Island is indeed about a woman searching for her prince charming, there’s a certain symmetry in this.
But probably the only symmetry you’re really interested in is Vanity’s, so you’ll be happy to know she’s completely naked before the opening credits have finished and remains half or wholly bare through much of the film. And for our female readers, her boyfriend’s member makes a brief appearance as well (though we suspect you won’t find the man attached to that appendage particularly alluring). Soon after this film Vanity would become famous as a singer and consort, and in one of her most memorable songs she cooed: “Ooh yeah, such a pretty mess.” That neatly sums up Tanya’s Island. It premiered in the U.S. today in 1980.
Hollywoodland | Nov 4 2011 |
Since we shared a magazine cover of Jayne Mansfield yesterday, it seems a good time to also show you this photo of her at the Cannes Film Festival. We aren’t sure on the date—Mansfield went to Cannes more than once, but we’re thinking 1964 on this. In most of her Cannes photos, she’s cavorting on the Croisette in a bikini or hamming it up for the French press by dancing the “monkeybird”, but this shot shows a womanly, glamorous Mansfield with Mickey Hargitay and another escort, against a backdrop of journos and fans. The photo says: movie star.
Hollywoodland | Nov 11 2010 |
Two promo shots of French actor Alain Delon, circa 1960, when he was known as “the male Brigitte Bardot.” Delon was discovered in Cannes by a talent scout for American movie mogul David O. Selznick, but shunned Hollywood for a chance to be a star in France. In the end, he was a success there, in the U.S., and pretty much everywhere else too.
Modern Pulp | May 24 2010 |
Some people don’t get Roman Coppola’s 2001 retro-cool directorial debut CQ, and their criticisms are vehement enough that we started to question whether the film is actually any good, but we just watched it again this morning and reconfirmed its greatness. It’s about an American in Paris in 1969 working as a film editor on a sci-fi adventure called Secret Agent: Dragonfly. When the director and his replacement both leave the production, the editor—played by Lost’s Jeremy Davies—is tapped to finish the picture. He soon begins to fall for Dragonfly, but are his feelings for the ass-kicking fictional character or the fresh-faced actress who portrays her? With echoes of Blow Up, La Dolce Vita, Barbarella and Diabolik, as well as a convincingly sixties soundtrack provided by the group Mellow, CQ is an enchanting little piece of cinematic escapism. The only flaw we can find in it is that Secret Agent: Dragonfly isn’t a real movie. We’d line up to see it. CQ premiered at the Cannes festival in May 2001, and opened in the U.S. today in 2002.
Modern Pulp | Mar 22 2010 |
The above poster in Japanese was made for a 1993 movie titled Sonatine. We saw it a few years ago and were simply stunned by it. It’s a gangster drama that derives inspiration from the same Hong Kong crime films that inspired Quentin Tarantino. We’re talking about classics like Ringo Lam’s City on Fire and John Woo’s A Better Tomorrow. But the difference is Sonatine is doggedly introspective. There’s plenty of violence, but the overall mood is quiet and minimal, like the poster.
For example, Sonatine features a long interlude during which hired gun Aniki Murakawa—played by Takeshi “Beat” Kitano—enjoys some idyllic rest and recreation at the beach with his criminal cohorts. This section, wedged between the bookends of the film’s main story, was our favorite part by far, because it humanizes Murakawa, shows him to be a man capable of laughter, even dreams. But it also highlights his insatiable appetite for self-destruction, and the utter emptiness of his soul.
In the hands of a lesser director these sequences could have been nonsensical, but Kitano, handling the chores himself, constructs the pieces perfectly and you come away with real feeling for his anti-hero Murakawa. When the problems Murakawa avoided finally come to roost, we can’t help but cheer for him to win. But nothing is as simple as it seems in Sonatine, and nothing about it is predictable. Maybe that’s why it created a sensation at the 1993 Cannes Film Festival and make Kitano an international icon. Watch and you’ll see why.