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Pulp International - Columbia
Hollywoodland Sep 16 2019
HEAT EXCHANGE
Good thing they were both professional actors. They could act like this wasn't weird.


We have a feeling this promo image of Glenn Ford and Gloria Grahame made for their 1953 film noir The Big Heat never got published. Handout photos such as these were provided by studios—in this case Columbia Pictures—to the press for usage when writing about various movies, but what newspaper or magazine would have used this? It's beyond provocative for back then, and in fact its bizarre, coercive feel would make the internet explode even today, were any two stars to pose in this way. Amazingly, promos for vintage thrillers often featured female stars sitting or kneeling within phallus range. In fact, we've seen enough to consider putting together a collection. We'll give that some thought while you glance at another example we shared a while ago.

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Vintage Pulp May 8 2019
CHANGE OF ADDRESS
Spanish art for Casa número 322 may have traveled far from home.


We already showed you a beautiful yellow French promo poster for 1954's Pushover, starring Fred MacMurray and Kim Novak. Above is a cool blue Spanish language promo. This piece is signed MCP, which is the imprimatur used by the Spanish artists Ramon Marti, Josep Clave, and Hernan Pico. So is this a Spanish poster? Well, most online sites say so. But the distributor for Mexico is listed as Columbia Films S.A., and you can see that graphic right on top of the poster. The S.A., by the way, stands for “sociedad anónima,” and is a corporate designation, kind of like Inc., or LLC. The movie's distribution company for Spain is on record as plain old Columbia Films, with no S.A., so we think this poster was used in Mexico, where the movie played as La casa número 322, “house number 322.” There's no exact Mexican release date known for it, but late 1955 is a safe bet. All that said, there's no way we can claim to be correct with 100% surety that this is a Mexican poster. We're extrapolating.

Columbia had distribution branches in various Latin American countries. Its Mexican hub was the most important because Mexico had the most developed Spanish film market in the world. Yes, more than Spain, which was still recovering from civil war. Though dubbed or subtitled versions of foreign movies were routinely shown in Mexico, locally produced flicks were about 20% more popular at the box office on average, according to a 1947 report circulated by the U.S. Consulate in Monterrey. In fact, Mexican films were the most popular in all Latin America, particularly Cuba. Even in Mexico City, where U.S. and European films were more popular than anywhere else in the country, Mexican films took up more than 40% of exhibition time—again as reported by the U.S. Consulate. Why was the consulate studying this? Just wait.

The Mexican movie market isn't as competitive today. The decline was due to three main factors: political pressure that forced Mexico to submit to so-called free trade in mass media, suspicious difficulties obtaining raw film stock from the U.S. for movie productions, and, of course, dirty business tactics by Stateside studios. So that's where the consulate came in—gathering intelligence for both the U.S. government and U.S. business interests. Armed with alarming data about local preferences for local product, U.S. studios forced Mexican exhibitors into “block booking” agreements, which meant that if cinemas wanted to exhibit the best Hollywood films they were also contractually obligated to take on the worst. This was repeated all over Latin America, and those bad films, which were more numerous than the good ones, ate up exhibition hours and kept Mexican films off screens. Pushover, at least, was one of Hollywood's better
 films.

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Femmes Fatales Oct 2 2018
TOP JEFF
In Hollywood a good name is half the battle.


She had one of the most memorable monikers in Hollywood history. She appeared in more than sixty films, scores of television shows, and probably a couple of dozen television movies too, and all without very much in the way of serious studio push. She did have a contract with Columbia Pictures, but many of her appearances were uncredited. Nevertheless she worked steadily for forty years, which a lot of bigger stars can't say. She was born Jean Marie Donnell but she acted as Jeff Donnell—not a name you'd easily forget—and this photo shows her in 1942.

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Hollywoodland Aug 5 2018
SHAMELESS SELF PROMOTION
What does Rita Hayworth wear under her skirt? Advertising!


This unique Columbia Pictures promo image was made for Rita Hayworth's 1952 thriller Affair in Trinidad. It reunited Hayworth with co-star Glenn Ford in a attempt to recapture the magic of their 1946 blockbuster Gilda. It didn't quite work, but this promo is inspired. 

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Vintage Pulp Dec 29 2017
THE FEMALE GAZE
She doesn't want to see, and you probably don't want her watching.


This poster of Sophia Loren was made to promote her drama Donna del fiume, aka The River Girl, and as we observed when we watched the movie a couple of years ago, only in cinema could backbreaking labor (harvesting rice by hand) make someone look like Loren. The poster is what we usually call panel length, which means it's about the right size to hang on a door, for instance in your bedroom. And Loren has exactly the facial expression you'd expect after seeing what you do in there. Columbia maybe should have manufactured a poster of her smiling and giving a thumbs up, but we love this promo anyway because even when Loren looks repulsed she looks great. Donna del fiume premiered today in 1954 and you can read what we wrote about it here.

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Vintage Pulp Dec 15 2017
WEISS GUY
Tarzan gets fully dressed but remains king of the naked jungle.


A killer ape, eh? Since the film opens with crocodiles getting axed to death—in real life—killer humans is more like it. Well, these old African wilderness flicks are never kind to animals, whether chimps, big cats, or what-have-you. The point of the croc massacre is that they're sick and have to be put down. Nobody can understand what's wrong with them, but it turns out an evil white scientist is testing bioweapons on wild animals. Wait—did we single him out as white? The distinction is meaningless, since everyone in the film is white or white-ish. That's what happens when deepest, darkest Africa is in reality a backlot in Simi Valley. In any case, someone needs to figure out why the crocs are sick. Who can do it? Why Jungle Jim, of course, played by Johnny Weissmuller. After years running around in a loincloth as Tarzan he got chubby enough that his body needed to be covered, so he slid into a new role as the khaki-garbed, pith-helmeted Jim, and for thirteen films did more or less the same things he did in twelve Tarzan films except yodel and swing on vines. The killer ape of the title is actually an ape/man hybrid, played by 7'7'' ex-wrestler Max Palmer in a pimp's fur coat and a putty nose. He lurches around uprooting trees like a one man lumber company and absorbing bullets with no ill effects. But though he's bulletproof, he isn't Weissmullerproof. Really, who among us can claim to be? The man subdued an entire continent, so certainly one pimped out wrestler isn't going to offer much resistance. Killer Ape is preposterous, but at least it has numerous unintentional laughs. It premiered in the U.S. today in 1953.

Stand back everyone. When I strip down to my fifteen-year-old Tarzan loincloth you don't want to be anywhere downwind, trust me.


So I had wardrobe trim this coat to expose my knees. Even during my wrestling days these sweet babies were my calling card.


Cut! Max, the camera is over here to your right. Can we get a hairdresser to trim the man-ape's bangs, please?


The name is Jungle Jim! Call me Junk Food Jim one more time! Just once! I dare you!


You know, even with this highly authentic costume I'm still not feeling very African. Maybe some cornrows.


Hah hah, no, you're light as a feather, Carol. A feather that's been packing in high calorie Columbia Pictures catering for a few weeks, but still feather-like.


Just like you, Tarzan, I wear nothing under my costume. When I sit on your big ugly head those bristly things covering your eyes will be my nuts.

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Mondo Bizarro Dec 13 2017
FOUND FOOTAGE
Bad dog! Drop it! Daddy doesn't wanna play! Stay the hell back!


We've had a couple of found body parts stories on Pulp Intl., such as the Ohio heart and the Michigan heart. Today we have the Vancouver foot. Earlier this month Canadian hiker Mike Johns was walking along the southern coast of Vancouver Island when his dog became highly interested in something tangled up in a patch of sea kelp. Everyone who owns a dog dreads these finds, which nearly always turn out to be something no right-minded human would ever normally touch, but which dogs—loveable creatures that they are—immediately want to play fetch with. In this case the discovery was especially unpleasant, as it turned out to be a human foot. The subsequent game of fetch would have looked a lot like a man running desperately away, with his dog in eager pursuit. At least if it had been us.

But what makes the story extra curious is that the foot is the thirteenth found in British Columbia in ten years. Speculation online has of course focused on the sinister, such as serial killers, but medical experts say simply that when bodies in the water decompose, a sneaker will prevent rot and provide buoyancy, allowing easterly currents to reunite foot with terra firma in western Canada. Investigators ruled out foul play in the other foot cases, and results are pending on unlucky thirteen. Every good story needs art, and Johns provided that above, snapping a photo after taking the leg/foot home with him because he feared the tide might claim it before police arrived. We're just hoping he made the dog carry it for him. It's the least the hound could do after screwing up a perfectly good walk.

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Musiquarium Aug 24 2017
MIDNIGHT HOURGLASS
When the clock strikes twelve Jayne's ready to party.


Curvy Jayne Mansfield stars on these LP covers from the 1960s that caught our eye because of the clock striking midnight on all of them. You would think these are all from the same company, but no—Smashing Hit Parade, for example, is an album that despite its English name actually came from Japan's Union Records. The platters contain songs such as “Hello Mary Lou” by the Brooklyn Bluegrass Collective, and “Tonight, My Love, Tonight” by Dany Locker. Regardless of the musical content, the real attraction here is Mansfield. We'd love to see what she looks like around 3 a.m. 

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Femmes Fatales Aug 2 2017
NOVAK IN TIME
She had every reason to smile.


This photo shows U.S. star Kim Novak and it appeared in the men's magazine Escapade in April 1957 in a feature titled “Love Goddess: 1957.” The idea was simply that Novak was the biggest new sex symbol of the year, and the spread featured a half dozen shots. The one above is the best of the bunch, in our opinion. Since Novak had become spectacularly famous in 1956, had won a Golden Globe in 1955, and had begun scoring important co-starring roles in 1954, and because we can assume her studio Columbia Pictures wouldn't have wanted her to be associated with a cheesecake magazine, we can safely guess the Escapade photos predate her 1954 Columbia contract. They probably came from some obscure photographer who suddenly realized he had valuable commodities in his archives. Escapade doesn't give a date, but we'd say Novak looks about twenty. In Hollywood, stardom means old photos will always come out unless preemptively purchased by the star themself. The same thing happened to Marilyn Monroe when she got famous, except her photos were early nudes. Novak's were early smiles.

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Femmes Fatales Jun 19 2016
A CERTAIN BLAIR
Blinding curves ahead—proceed with caution.


American actress Patricia Blair strikes a bold pose on this 1959 Columbia Pictures promo for City of Fear, an atomic era thriller about an escaped convict in possession of what he thinks is a canister of heroin but which is really radioactive cobalt-60. We may circle back to this movie later. Blair appeared in a few films but her career was mostly on television, including recurring roles on The Rifleman and Yancy Derringer.

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History Rewind
The headlines that mattered yesteryear.
March 28
1910—First Seaplane Takes Flight
Frenchman Henri Fabre, who had studied airplane and propeller designs and had also patented a system of flotation devices, accomplishes the first take-off from water at Martinque, France, in a plane he called Le Canard, or "the duck."
1953—Jim Thorpe Dies
American athlete Jim Thorpe, who was one of the most prolific sportsmen ever and won Olympic gold medals in the 1912 pentathlon and decathlon, played American football at the collegiate and professional levels, and also played professional baseball and basketball, dies of a heart attack.
March 27
1958—Khrushchev Becomes Premier
Nikita Khrushchev becomes premier of the Soviet Union. During his time in power he is responsible for the partial de-Stalinization of the Soviet Union, and presides over the rise of the early Soviet space program, but his many policy failures lead to him being deposed in October 1964. After his removal he is pensioned off and lives quietly the rest of his life, eventually dying of heart disease in 1971.
March 26
1997—Heaven's Gate Cult Members Found Dead
In San Diego, thirty-nine members of a cult called Heaven's Gate are found dead after committing suicide in the belief that a UFO hidden in tail of the Hale-Bopp comet was a signal that it was time to leave Earth for a higher plane of existence. The cult members killed themselves by ingesting pudding and applesauce laced with poison.
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