Pulp International - Marguerite+Chapman

Jun 1 2022

Reality says she's way out of his league. Entertainment tradition says she isn't.

Above you see a poster for the Marilyn Monroe comedy The Seven Year Itch, which we're taking a close look at today because it's a pulp movie. No, really. It isn't a pulp movie in a standard way, but how can we ignore a film, even though it's a comedy, that happens to be about the pulp industry? Perhaps some of you have forgotten this detail, but co-star Tom Ewell plays an editor at a 25¢ publishing house, where among other important duties he repackages literary classics with sexy, good-girl-art covers. If you look just below, Ewell's secretary Marguerite Chapman displays the company's latest reimagining—a racy makeover of Louisa May Alcott's Little Women. They've featured scantily clad women in the art, and added the tagline: “The secrets of a girls dormitory.” So even though thousands of online scribes have written about The Seven Year Itch, its setting in the pulp publishing realm demands that we discuss it too.

But of course, pulp is merely the backdrop; the movie is really all Monroe. We know it comes across as anachronistic to some viewers, but this film is completely modern in at least one important way. The trope of a schlubby everyman scoring with—or at least turning the head of—a woman much more beautiful than him is still a linchpin of American entertainment. Let us count the examples: There's Something About Mary, Big Bang Theory, King of Queens, She's Out of My League, Night Shift, Forrest Gump, Bewitched, Superbad, Knocked Up—in fact, anything with Seth Rogen in it—and not to be forgotten, both Beauty and the Beast and Lady and the Tramp. In all of those, the female love interest, whether human or cocker spaniel, is objectively too beautiful for the lead male. It's a trope that has always worked, and probably always will because it's primarily males who are marketed to in cinema and television.

In The Seven Year Itch the hot girl/ugly guy theme is doubly funny because Ewell's wife is played by Evelyn Keyes, and she's supposed to be, we guess, not out of Ewell's league. Uh huh. Hollywood, right? Keyes is plenty hot, though of course she's no Monroe. Cue eyeroll from our girlfriends. They aren't clear on why so many men find Marilyn attractive. To them she's a little fat, which is no surprise from the perspective of our pint-sized better halves, but the weight of actresses varied greatly during the mid-century era, from the zaftig Jayne Mansfield to the reedy Audrey Hepburn. Marilyn was somewhere in the middle of the voluptuous range—i.e. not fat. However, her weight did fluctuate. In Something's Gotta Give she was thin enough to be about perfect for current sensibilities. She made any level of poundage look good though, because, first and foremost, she was impossibly cute. This look right here:

Those blue eyes of hers that are pointed in slightly different directions. That's hot. That look also captures Monroe's go-to instrument as an actress—an expression that conveys an expectant, scrubbed, and somewhat (but never totally) naive sex appeal. Having watched her dramas as well as her comedies, there's no doubt her gift was for the latter. Her comedies are unimaginable without her, and she was in her own class. Bardot played the same kittenish character at times, and Demongeot, and other actresses, but Marilyn was simply the best. The Seven Year Itch showcases an eternal star shining her brightest, as she plays a twenty-something aspiring actress who moves in upstairs from the klutzy Ewell, whose wife is away for the summer. Monroe proceeds to unknowingly fuel all sorts of male fantasies that—surprise—start to come true, as the lack of air conditioning in the upstairs flat has her increasingly avoiding it in favor of Ewell's.

The way the script is built, with each encounter between Monroe and Ewell another line on the way to potential infidelity is crossed, until the crossed line becomes literal when Monroe discovers that the apartments—which had once been a single two-level residence—are reconnectible by pulling some nails out of the floor where a staircase had been closed off. The possibility of actually living with Marilyn is a delicious dilemma, ingeniously lifted right out of the male id by director/writer Billy Wilder and co-writer George Axelrod. The movie obviously isn't totally wonderful. Some see it as sexist, and certainly its opening sequence of actors painted up like a native American tribe is pure minstrelry, but just like people, movies can harbor out-of-date ideas without being malicious. As long as that line isn't crossed, we can appreciate both The Seven Year Itch, and how far we've progressed since it was made. It premiered today in 1955, and you can see a couple more excellent posters here and here.

New York City The Seven Year Itch Marilyn Monroe Tom Ewell Evelyn Keyes Marguerite Chapman Billy Wilder George Axelrod poster art cinema movie review

Hollywoodland

Dec 13 2017

New tabloid serves up Russell, Monroe, and others.

Jane Russell, wedged into an outfit that turns her boobs into footballs, graces the cover of the debut issue of Exposed, a high budget tabloid launched by Fawcett Publications in 1955. It arrived on a crowded newsstand already occupied by Confidential—then arguably the most circulated magazine in the U.S.—as well as Whisper, Hush-Hush, Uncensored, and similar publications. The get-up Russell is wearing is a costume from her starring role in 1954's The French Line, and we sort of assumed the shot had been at least slightly doctored,

and we seem to be correct. Judge for yourself at right. At least her boob punishment was offset by the fact that her outfit was too flimsy to include one of the deadly corsets that sometimes made their way around stars' waists.

Russell is in Exposed to illustrate a story about sex in cinema, but she isn't the most exposed occupant of the magazine. That would be Marilyn Monroe, whose famous Playboy nude is reprinted for a story about hustlers reprinting her photos. We'll just assume Exposed licensed their Monroe shot. Apparently, though, those other miscreants were selling her likeness by the thousands without permission and without compensating Monroe. Exposed shows her in court testifying for prosecutors. The prosecution may have won its case in 1955, but in the here and now Monroe is sold from Tegucigalpa to Manila, unlicensed all of it. Which just goes to show the more things change the more they stay the same.

Probably the highlight of the issue is a long story about detectives who make their living catching cheating couples in action. Exposed offers up numerous photos of these pairs caught in the act in motel rooms and secluded homes. Are these photos real? Well, we have our doubts. Even the most cleverly posed action shots have those intangibles that mark them as fakes, but that's just our opinion. Judge for yourself. Elsewhere in Exposed you get “Sophie” Loren, Errol Flynn, Marguerite Chapman, Franchot Tone, and other big time celebs.

We're pretty proud of this acquisition. It wasn't terribly expensive, but we've seen it priced much higher than what we paid. Maybe down the line we'll flip ours for a tidy profit. But that's what we always say. Much to the Pulp Intl. girlfriends' chagrin, our office just piles higher and higher with mid-century ephemera and we haven't sold a single piece yet. Exposed goes to the top of the precariously tottering pyramid. We have about thirty-five scans below, and plenty more tabloids on the way.

Vintage Pulp

Jan 29 2015

Everybody who was anybody got inside.

Above and below, scans from the French show-biz and showgirl magazine Paris-Hollywood, issue 26, from 1948. The front cover features Marguerite Chapman, the rear Arlene Dahl, and in between you get Cyd Charisse, Patricia Roc, Martha Vickers, Alexis Smith, Anne Jeffreys, Luce Feyrer, Edwige Feuillère, Marlene Dietrich, and other luminaries. That's quite a collection of celebs. In upcoming years the magazine would spend more time on cabaret dancers, but its early issues were all about international stars. We picked up a few of these in Paris a while back and we’ll get to some detailed scans of those soon. In the meantime, you can see more from Paris-Hollywood here, here, and here.

France Paris-Hollywood Marguerite Chapman Arlene Dahl Cyd Charisse Patricia Roc Martha Vickers Alexis Smith Christiane Ardennes Claude Carmoin Edwige Feuillère Anne Jeffreys Luce Feyrer Marlene Dietrich

Hollywoodland

Dec 13 2011

The hungover and the restless.

Below are two photos of American actress Marguerite Chapman after her 1958 arrest on suspicion of drunk driving. Chapman was well known at the time, having appeared in such films as Appointment in Berlin, Relentless, and The Seven Year Itch. She was detained after rear-ending another car in Hollywood and subsequently refusing to take a field sobriety test. After an unspecified number of hours in jail, she posted bail, and of course the tabloid press was there to document her release.

Hollywood Appointment in Berlin Relentless The Seven Year Itch Marguerite Chapman arrests

Femmes Fatales

Dec 31 2010

The women inside the movie camera.

Below are eighteen timeless Hollywood leading ladies, some well-known, some less so, but all gleamingly beautiful. They are, top to bottom, Mari Blanchard, Carmen Phillips, Grace Kelly, Jane Adams, Joan Vohs, Martha Hyer, Laurette Luez, Tippi Hedren, Marguerite Chapman, Janet Leigh, Venetia Stevenson, Annabella, Muriel Barr, Lana Turner, Kim Novak, Paula Drew, Ann-Margret, and Vera Miles. Happy New Year.