| Femmes Fatales | Dec 1 2020 |
Any way you splice her she's pure perfection.
The above photo shows U.S. actress Geene Courtney posing with a fishing rod during November in Chicago, a city in which, that time of year, people's nasal hairs usually freeze into stalagmites after a few seconds outside. But during this particular November—1949 it was—Chicago was unusually warm, with the mercury at one point climbing to an amazing 76 Fahrenheit, or 24.5 Celsius. That quirk of the weather is why Courtney is in shorts and heels, rather than a parka and mukluks, and the result is one of sexiest vintage shots we've seen. As a side note, the only similarly named actress from the period we found online was Gene Courtney, with one “e”. She has credits starting from 1951, so Geene and Gene are probably the same person, equally beautiful.
| Femmes Fatales | Nov 16 2020 |
After seventy-three years she's finally lost her title.
We've seen this photo in numerous online spots, and why not? It's amazing. But none of those sites bother to explain the provenance of the image. We dug around, and it appears we're the first website to have done it. The Mystery Writers of America, which was founded in 1945 in New York City and soon expanded to other locations, in its early years used to throw what they called a Clues Party. In November 1947 the party was in Chicago, and the MWA awarded the title of Mystery Girl to the woman who performed best in a scream test—as opposed to screen test. Four contestants—Marybeth Prebis, Betty Rosboro, Bobby Jo Rodgers, and Portia Kubin—let fly with their most bloodcurdling screams, and the winner was Kubin, above. The MWA stopped throwing Clues Parties at some point, which seems a shame, but they established the coveted Edgar Award, so maybe that's an okay trade. Kubin was probably an aspiring actress but a glance at various online sources shows no film credits, which means this was her only shot at celebrity. But what a shot.
| Vintage Pulp | Jul 7 2020 |
A Haven for your deepest desires.
We're always on the lookout for GGA style art even when it doesn't occur on vintage book covers, and above you see an example—a promo poster for Annette Haven's adult flick Black Silk Stockings. We have no idea who painted this piece, but it could easily front a detective thriller or sleaze novel. It's also a very good likeness of Haven. We didn't watch the film but we know it's a vignette style story with all five segments involving black stockings. Of course plot is just a fig leaf. Sex is the point. You know what to expect.
Black Silk Stockings premiered in Chicago, Illinois today in 1978 (yes, in an actual cinema, if you can imagine a time when regular people used to be seen going inside to get boners—and even bonettes). John Holmes, John Leslie, and Linda Wong co-starred, along with Pulp Intl. mega femme fatale Desirée West. What do we mean by mega? Look here. And along those lines we searched for a photo of Annette Haven wearing the titular black silk stockings but had no luck. You'll have to make do with the stockingless shot we found.
Black Silk Stockings premiered in Chicago, Illinois today in 1978 (yes, in an actual cinema, if you can imagine a time when regular people used to be seen going inside to get boners—and even bonettes). John Holmes, John Leslie, and Linda Wong co-starred, along with Pulp Intl. mega femme fatale Desirée West. What do we mean by mega? Look here. And along those lines we searched for a photo of Annette Haven wearing the titular black silk stockings but had no luck. You'll have to make do with the stockingless shot we found.
IllinoisChicagoBlack Silk StockingAnnette HavenJohn HolmesJohn HolmesJohn LeslieLinda WongDesirée Westposter artcinemaxxx
| Intl. Notebook | May 6 2020 |
He's about to become an unneeded accessory after the fact.
Here's a photo we've seen around the internet for a while, a 1948 shot of a man in divorce court in Chicago begging his wife's forgiveness as her lawyer looks on. No other context was provided on any of the web pages we checked, but we have an idea of the details here. The soon-to-be-bachelorized husband is saying, “I made a terrible mistake, honey! It's just that she was young and smokin' hot and I thought you were going to be at your mother's another two days, but now that I've experienced unspeakable perversion and mind-bending sexual variations I didn't even know existed, I realize it's you that I really want!”
Meanwhile the attorney, who's almost smiling over this scene, is like, “Let me tell you why I love being a divorce lawyer. It's because your wife, like so many of my female clients, is hellbent on revenge, and has a hotel room booked on State Street, some bottles of Champagne waiting on ice, and three flavors of edible panties ready to be gnawed directly off her vulva. I'm heading over there with her right now. Call her Monday, and if you still want to reconcile, by then she'll probably be multi-orgasmic. She told me success turns her on, so it's a good bet. Oh, and your divorce agreement stipulates that you have to pay her legal fees, and I'll be billing by the orgasm. Okay, chat soon.”
| Mondo Bizarro | Jul 31 2019 |
John Dillinger's body—most of it anyway—to be exhumed in September.
At the request of his family, Great Depression-era gangster John Dillinger will be exhumed from the Indianapolis grave where he was buried in 1934 after being shot down by FBI agents outside the Biograph Theater in Chicago. There's been no official explanation for the request, however the dig should resolve a couple of pieces of Dillinger folklore. The first would be whether it's him in the grave at all—an urban legend that the FBI shot the wrong man has simmered since his death. And the second would be whether there's a cock attached to the corpse—a particularly odd legend suggests that Dillinger had a monster member that was somehow snipped before burial and whisked away by a morbid collector.
The rumor of body part theft is no surprise. Grave robberies had been a problem in the U.S. throughout the 1800s, and while these had waned by 1934, as a precaution Dillinger was buried under scrap iron and slabs of concrete covered by a layer of poured cement. The bit about him being hung like a mule is harder to trace. Some say it was caused by a morgue photo which appeared (if you really used your imagination) 
to show him with an erection, but being the subject of at least one Tijuana bible certainly didn't hurt either. In the dirty comic “A Hasty Exit,” which we think was published in mid-1934 before his death, Dillinger uses a massive unit to pleasure his girlfriend Evelyn Frechette and her pal Nellie. Of course, everyone in Tijuana bibles had dinosaur dicks, but we're speculating here.
It's possible the public won't find out why Dillinger is being
brought back above ground (though DNA testing to prove ancestry seems like a good bet), or whether all the famed gangster's parts are intact. We doubt most people actually care. But for us pulp followers the story is somewhat interesting, because Dillinger is an icon of the pulp era.
to show him with an erection, but being the subject of at least one Tijuana bible certainly didn't hurt either. In the dirty comic “A Hasty Exit,” which we think was published in mid-1934 before his death, Dillinger uses a massive unit to pleasure his girlfriend Evelyn Frechette and her pal Nellie. Of course, everyone in Tijuana bibles had dinosaur dicks, but we're speculating here.It's possible the public won't find out why Dillinger is being
brought back above ground (though DNA testing to prove ancestry seems like a good bet), or whether all the famed gangster's parts are intact. We doubt most people actually care. But for us pulp followers the story is somewhat interesting, because Dillinger is an icon of the pulp era.As a bonus, the story has also served as a reminder that we have many more filthy Tijuana bibles we need to upload. We'll get to that as soon as we can. In the meantime, while we all wait for that September exhumation to finally settle longstanding urban legends, you can satisfy your historical interest in John Dillinger by exhuming his Tijuana bible here.
| Vintage Pulp | Oct 29 2018 |
You can try to ransom me but my husband really doesn't answer the phone during football season.
In Who Has Wilma Lathrop? a Chicago high school teacher marries the woman of his dreams after a three month courtship, but wakes up one morning to find her missing, and immediately thereafter discovers she has a hidden past as a gangster's mistress and possible jewel thief. Suddenly that whirlwind romance doesn't seem like it was a good idea, but he loves her and has to locate her. He's smart and has some combat training, so he isn't totally helpless, but finds himself in deeper and deeper trouble. This is a recommended yarn from Day Keene set in the middle of a bitter Chicago winter. If you're lucky enough to find the above 1955 Gold Medal edition you'll get great art by Barye Phillips.
| Intl. Notebook | Sep 13 2018 |
An afternoon on the South Side.
The above photos show the Regal Cinema in Chicago one afternoon during the spring of 1941 as locals flock to see The Philadelphia Story, starring Katherine Hepburn, James Stewart, and Cary Grant. The shots were made by Farm Security Administration photographer Edwin Rosskam, who had been tasked with documenting life in Chicago's black belt, which is where racist housing practices forced African Americans to live. Most of Rosskam's photos made abundantly clear that the underclass status forced upon blacks by redlining—the utilization of mortgage and insurance practices to hem them into tightly packed areas—led to less than desirable conditions, but many of his shots showed joyous moments and bustling civic life. These images of people decked out for a matinee are examples. They're part of the Office of War Information Collection maintained by the Library of Congress.
World War IIChicagoLibrary of CongressFarm Security AdministrationThe Philadelphia StoryEdwin RosskamKatherine HepburnJames StewartCary Grantcinema
| Vintage Pulp | Aug 23 2018 |
Despite my reputation the odds are very much against you.
Above is a cover for 50-50 Girl by Thomas Stone for Chicago's Merit Books, published in 1952. The title refers not to the odds of getting the lead character in bed, but the fact that she's forced to share her favors with two men. It isn't a consensual agreement, technically, because she gives herself to man number two—a rich playboy—as the price of freeing her sister from her former manager, an amoral hustler named Eddie. The author Thomas Stone was actually none other than Florence Stonebraker, the brain behind more than eighty novels. Which is quite a feat, considering she didn't get published until she was forty-one. We have plenty from her in the website but our favorite is this one.
| Vintage Pulp | Jul 31 2018 |
Hello, ma'am. I'm from the ACME home security company and I'm selling new and improved shorter door chains.
The Fabulous Clipjoint is the 1947 debut novel by Fredric Brown, published originally as Dead Man's Indemnity in Mystery Book Magazine in April 1946. This edition came from Popular Library in 1948. The basic idea here is a hapless alcoholic is murdered in Chicago and his son and brother decide to find the killer or killers. As their investigation unfolds, the son learns his father wasn't hapless at all, but rather had lived a full life that included adventures in Spain and Mexico, winning a duel, romantic entanglements, and more. None of it has to do with why he died. It merely serves to awaken his son to the possibilities of life, and helps convince him to run off to join a carnival. A clipjoint, literally speaking, is a nightclub or strip bar where customers are promised everything, delivered little, and cheated down to their last dime. The clipjoint of The Fabulous Clipjoint is figurative. It's the city of Chicago, perhaps even the entirety of life itself. As a metaphor it's grand, but the novel is less so. It's competent, but Brown would do better later in his career. The cover art here featuring the world's most useless security chain is by Ed Grant, and fits nicely into our collection of women confronting trouble at their doors. See that here.
| Vintage Pulp | Jul 27 2018 |
I could stop coloring it, I guess. But then I'd be a brunette again, and that's worse than dying young.
Above, an uncredited cover for Blondes Die Young by Bill Peters. The author is aka William P. McGivern, and the book is hard boiled action in Chicago's jazz clubs and dope dens, as the sleuth protagonist Bill Canalli tries to track down the culprit who murdered his girlfriend. Who by the way has barely cooled to room temperature before slick Bill beds another woman, but what's a hard boiled guy to do? Anything to get to the bottom—of the case. The hero's treatment of this woman will raise some eyebrows in this day and age, but this is still an involving tale and we like that it doesn't get too moralistic about the drugs angle. And we got it for four bucks, which is an absolute steal. It was written in 1952 originally, with this Popular Library paperback edition appearing in 1953.
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