| Vintage Pulp | Oct 11 2019 |
They say you can't have everything but To Have and Have Not comes close.
This one has been a long time coming to Pulp Intl. To Have and Have Not. We love this flick. We never bothered to highlight it because it's so familiar to so many, but with the Pulp Intl. girlfriends out of town (did we mention that yet?) we decided to revisit a few movies we've seen often. First off, we get it, Hemingway fans. The film mutilated his 1937 novel. But what a shock—Warner Brothers was not going to make a Marxist themed movie in 1944. Hemingway may have, we like to imagine, wanted to keep the book out of Hollywood's hands for that very reason. But when Warners came across with a fat offer he was like, “Well, sure, okay, I suppose that amount of money will take the sting out of you whitewashing my Marxist opus.” You, see everyone has a price.
Howard Hawks directed, and Jules Furthman and William Faulkner wrote a screenplay that changed the location of the novel, its time period, its subtext, and its characters. Basically, Warners wanted a follow-up to Casablanca, and that's exactly what they got, though To Have and Have Not differs from Casablanca by being light-hearted in general, and wickedly comical in parts. But there are also thrills aplenty. The basic idea is Humphrey Bogart plays a diffident charter boat captain in French Martinique who finds himself drawn into World War II thanks to an idealistic anti-Vichy cabal that plans to rescue a French patriot imprisoned on Devil's Island. Everything and everybody in the film is great. Lauren Bacall, in her debut, brings just the right tone to her character Marie Browning, Walter Brennan puts on a physical acting clinic as Bogart's alcoholic sidekick, and as the Vichy administrator of Martinique, Dan Seymour channels Major Strasser from Casablanca, adding a touch of torpor meant to disguise his snake-deadly nature. The film also adds great music performances in the down and dirty Bar du Zombie and the café of Hotel Marquis, with Hoagie Carmichael taking on the Sam role from Casablanca. To Have and Have Not is so iconic it has been studied in university courses and written of in modern treatises about race. The latter is a lot to pile onto this lightweight adventure. Set in the Caribbean, it tries to at least portray a high level of racial inclusiveness, though not perfectly.
There's one more reason to watch the movie. We've seen it so much we've developed a drinking game from it. We've developed lots of drinking games from movies, but don't generally play them when the Pulp Intl. girlfriends are around (did we mention they're out of town?). Take a shot every time someone throws something in the water. That's it. Bottles, matches, whatever. If you're really brave, take a shot every time someone litters, whether at sea, on land, or indoors. It's interesting to observe littering behavior from an era when the environment was thought to be boundless and impossible to ruin. As members of a generation trained to get our garbage in a receptacle at all costs, the polluting here is really funny to see. 10 out of 10 for this movie. Watch it. Love it. Watch it again. It premiered in the U.S. today in 1944.
There's one more reason to watch the movie. We've seen it so much we've developed a drinking game from it. We've developed lots of drinking games from movies, but don't generally play them when the Pulp Intl. girlfriends are around (did we mention they're out of town?). Take a shot every time someone throws something in the water. That's it. Bottles, matches, whatever. If you're really brave, take a shot every time someone litters, whether at sea, on land, or indoors. It's interesting to observe littering behavior from an era when the environment was thought to be boundless and impossible to ruin. As members of a generation trained to get our garbage in a receptacle at all costs, the polluting here is really funny to see. 10 out of 10 for this movie. Watch it. Love it. Watch it again. It premiered in the U.S. today in 1944.
MartiniqueDevil's IslandWorld War IITo Have and Have NotHumphrey BogartLauren BacallHoagie CarmichaelWalter BrennanDolores MoranDan SeymourErnest HemingwayHoward HawksJules Furthmanposter artcinemafilm noir
| Vintage Pulp | Femmes Fatales | Sep 26 2019 |
Some people know exactly what they want to do in life. Others need to just feel their way.
Martinique born Sylvette Cabrisseau isn't well known today, but those who remember her will recall that she burst into the public sphere at age twenty as the first black presenter ever hired by the French television network Deuxième chaîne. The event, which occurred in 1969, was not celebrated in all quarters, which resulted in her receiving threats from the usual coterie of knuckle draggers. She later lost her television gig due to modeling
for the above photo (and others).
for the above photo (and others).Nevertheless she was undaunted in her ambitions, and subsequently moved into music, releasing two records, one of them the quirky folk song “Ki Koi Kou.” Next she jumped into cinema with the films Le mariage à la mode and Juliette et Juliette.
Her fifth career choice—and this is the truly interesting part for us as pulp fans—was to write and publish detective novels. As you can see, her image was used to sell the books, which gives you an idea how famous she was at the time.
Her fifth career choice—and this is the truly interesting part for us as pulp fans—was to write and publish detective novels. As you can see, her image was used to sell the books, which gives you an idea how famous she was at the time.
We'd love to acquire these, which we may at some point, since they're available and affordable. We have no info on how good they are, but she did get to publish three, so that may indicate something. After the final novel she moved on to mundane pursuits, but she left behind some nice photos, including the example above, which is from 1970 and appeared in the French men's magazine Adam.
MartiniqueFranceAdam FrancePresses de la CitéLe mariage à la modeJuliette et JulietteSylvette Cabrisseaucinemaliteraturecover artnudity
| Vintage Pulp | May 19 2019 |
Water levels and more rise in Belle/Grier sexploitation romp.
We've had a lot of Pam Grier on this site, and here she is yet again, co-starring with Annie Belle and Anthony Steel in La notte dell'alta marea, aka Twilight of Love, aka Night of the High Tide, an Italo-Canadian sexploitation flick, and probably her most obscure role. An advertising exec played by Steel is looking for the perfect ass for a blue jeans campaign, spots Annie Belle in a sauna, and decides she fits the bill. The funny part of this is he sees her from behind initially and thinks she's male, which tells you quite a bit about Belle's elfish body type. But male or female, her ass will do just fine, and for more than only the ad campaign. She's amenable to Steel's advances, but she has a boyfriend who isn't quite as sharing.
In the midst of this man-against-man for woman's affections melodrama there's still an advertisment to finish, so Steel takes Belle, her boyfriend, a photographer, and a second model played by Grier to Martinique for a photo shoot. This is a pretty sweet spot for location work, and Grier sports a killer afro that looks mighty good with the Caribbean wind blowing through it. Belle, never to be upstaged, has virtually no hair for the wind to play with but wears what must be one of the earliest thong bikinis to appear in cinema, and soon doffs the shoestrings for even less. Strangely, the jeans this entire excursion are supposed to be about never make an appearance.
From Martinique the group ventures to a smaller, uncharted island and promptly get stuck there. With no hope of rescue and tensions rising—like the tide—problems soon occur. Boy problems. Possessiveness problems. Aggression problems. Don't fear though—rescue comes before
anyone gets seriously hurt, and Belle gets the customary sexploitation send-off, jetting away backed by synth music and a torch singer as a man stares wistfully into the middle distance, wishing he could hold onto her but knowing in his heart he can't. Because she's a free spirit, you see. And free spirits must soar.
Cheesy? Certainly. But this is sexploitation, so we knew the script would be bad. We accepted that, but we wish the beach sequences hadn't been shot through a layer of gauze—though on the whole the film looks great. We also wish Grier's distinctive voice hadn't been dubbed, but as she speaks no Italian, this was unavoidable. Preferences aside, if you like romantic island erotica this one will please you, though we can't go so far as to call it a good film. But with Belle and Grier sharing the same screen and the same beach it's hard to fail completely. La notte dell'alta marea premiered in Italy today in 1977.
anyone gets seriously hurt, and Belle gets the customary sexploitation send-off, jetting away backed by synth music and a torch singer as a man stares wistfully into the middle distance, wishing he could hold onto her but knowing in his heart he can't. Because she's a free spirit, you see. And free spirits must soar.Cheesy? Certainly. But this is sexploitation, so we knew the script would be bad. We accepted that, but we wish the beach sequences hadn't been shot through a layer of gauze—though on the whole the film looks great. We also wish Grier's distinctive voice hadn't been dubbed, but as she speaks no Italian, this was unavoidable. Preferences aside, if you like romantic island erotica this one will please you, though we can't go so far as to call it a good film. But with Belle and Grier sharing the same screen and the same beach it's hard to fail completely. La notte dell'alta marea premiered in Italy today in 1977.
ItalyCanadaMartiniqueLa notte dell'alta mareaTwilight of LoveAnthony SteelAnnie BellePam Grierposter artcinemasexploitationmovie review
