Pulp International

Jul 17 2016

McQueen behind the scenes.

At first we thought this was a promo poster for Steve McQueen's 1971 racing thriller Le Mans, which in Japan was called The 24 Hours of Le Mans, the distributors Towa Co. having opted for an English title, perhaps to make the film sound more exotic. But there's a smaller Japanese title at bottom—栄光のル •マン—which means “Glory of Le Mans.” It was while staring at this bit that we saw John Sturges and Lee Katzin credited as directors. But Sturges had nothing to do with Le Mans—Lee Katzin directed it alone.

It finally dawned on us that this poster is for a documentary about the making of Le Mans, using footage from the movie and, we're guessing, the two Sturges films that starred McQueen—The Great Escape and The Magnificent Seven. So this poster represents a bit of a mystery. It promotes a documentary that was seemingly released only in Japan. Note that it isn't for the 2015 doc Steve McQueen: The Man and Le Mans. That worthy effort was directed by Gabriel Clark and John McKenna.

No this is a different film. And we're pretty sure it's from the period just after Le Mans played in cinemas, for no other reason than the poster has a retro aesthetic, both in layout and font, that you don't find in Japanese promos after about 1980. But we searched everywhere and found no reference anywhere to a Le Mans doc from that time. Or in fact any Le Mans documentary by Sturges and Katzin. So we throw it to the readership. Got any ideas? Let us know.

Alternate theory: Sturges ended up on this totally by accident. It's a typo, and the poster is in fact for the feature film Le Mans.

Japan Towa Co.Le Mans The 24 Hours of Le Mans Steve McQueen: The Man and Le Mans The Great Escape The Magnificent Seven Steve McQueen Lee Katzin John Sturges Gabriel Clark John McKenna cinema

Intl. Notebook

Oct 23 2014

Steve and Marilyn. Steve and Lola. It’s a great pairing either way.

Steve McQueen and Marilyn Monroe may or may not have met in real life (some sources say they, uh, knew each other), but pairing them in print is still a bit of an inspired move. Or maybe you think the significant pairing is McQueen with a Lola T70 MKIII B race car. Hey, whatever turns you on. In any case, this is a December 1972 foldout poster from Japan’s Screen magazine, with McQueen (and Lola) on one side and Monroe on the reverse. The McQueen photo was made during the filming of Le Mans the previous year, and the Monroe shot is obviously the one made famous by Playboy back in 1953. Screen produced many posters, all of which are rare today (for instance, the amazing Raquel Welch image here). We have more of these somewhere and we’ll get them online eventually.

Japan Screen Magazine Playboy Le Mans Steve McQueen Marilyn Monroe cinema

Intl. Notebook

Jun 23 2012

McQueen of the road.

We really like this photo. It’s a rare shot of Steve McQueen standing next to the Porsche 917A he drove while filming the racing drama Le Mans. The image’s dyes have faded, which means the distinctive baby blue of the famed car is now a ghostly grey. We could easily fix that in Photoshop, but we think the evanescent look is appropriate for McQueen, who died prematurely. Le Mans premiered today in 1971.

France Le Mans Steve McQueen cinema

Vintage Pulp

Apr 9 2010

Baby you can drive my car.

Yesterday, the Pulp girlfriends suggested that the only reason we posted all those album covers was because several of them featured nudity. We're just humble historians, chronicling mid-century art and discussing the social context within which it appeared—honest. But because our girlfriends called us voyeurs, we've decided to balance the scales a bit by posting something pretty much all women find exciting—crashing cars. Below is an assortment of Japanese posters for nine automotively-themed, vintage American movies. So there you go girls. If you don't find these exciting, well, we give up trying to figure you out.