And the ineptitude that authors do.
Why did we read Evil Desire? Because the cover femme fatale is obviously copied from Ursula Andress (in her 1965 role in What's New Pussycat?) and sometimes that's all it takes to attract our interest. The artist is credited only as Ellison, and though we wouldn't say he/she is greatly skilled, they at least chose a good model. The book was written by Carl DeMarco, author or pseudonym behind other sleaze efforts such as The Body Beautiful, Suzanne, and Woman on a String, and is exactly as its cover describes, as a stepfather gets sexually involved with his wife's eighteen year-old daughter. It all begins when he attempts to punish the daughter with a spanking, and finds not only that he likes it—so does she. In the end the two end up living together in Brazil and the spurned wife finds love at home, leaving everyone horny and happy by the final sentence. It wasn't competent in terms of writing skill, but in its favor it was—despite its title—light in tone, making for an easy and fast read. Is that a recommendation? Not even remotely.
I know you're new to this life but I feel you have a lot of untapped potential. Above: a cover for Toni Adler's Dance-Hall Dyke, 1964, from Playtime Books, with a blurb written by an editor who was the William Butler Yeats of teaser text. It's so good it stands alone as a poem: The vicious jungle of lesbian lures the fickle and the fake screaming the obscenity of the passions while tender lovers cry for understanding
We may inaugurate a Pulp Intl. awards season just for cover blurbs. We wanted to buy the book despite its rude title, but it was going for more than two-hundred bucks, which meant no sale. The cover art is uncredited.
Whoa! Did I say round heels? I have no idea why I was even looking down there.
We come across the phrase “round heels” in vintage fiction all the time. It cracks us up because it's so rude, so sexist, so steeped in patriarchal double-standard. All of you know what round heels means, right, or did we get ahead of ourselves? Well, if not, it means that a woman will so readily have sex with whoever she meets that she might as well have round heels so she can fall on her back at any moment. She's a pushover.
Returning to that double standard thing, there's actually been a bit of a shift in recent years. Nowadays a woman might call a guy who gets around a fuckboy, which is the only insult referring to male sluttiness that we've ever noticed actually getting under guys' skins. Call him a manslut or a male hussy and he might laugh it off. Call him a fuckboy and he'll actually get angry most of the time. Such are the vagaries of English that if you tack “fuck” onto a term it's a whole new ballgame.
In any case, Lars Raymer's cheapie sleazer Round Heels was published in 1964 by Playtime Books and the art is by the always memorable Robert Bonfils. It also has one of the best cover blurbs we've ever seen: “She was a pushover, the easiest lay in town. Ask her doctor... or better still, ask his wife.” That's really funny. To us, anyway. As a side note, we'd like to add that sexually take-charge women are amazing. If not for you we'd still be playing Dungeons & Dragons on Friday nights. You make every university, nightclub, and church congregation better. Don't change a thing.
Hi! I'll be filling in for your regular wife this evening. How many times do I have to ask you to take out the damn garbage? We saw this Robert Bonfils piece at pulpcovers.com and couldn't resist re-using it. Bill Russo's Substitute Wife, 1962, from Playtime Reading. Remember—there's nothing like the real thing.
You can’t spell “stud” without STD and you. Above, a copy of William Spain’s sleaze pulp Dial “S” for Stud, a book so obscure that an internet search yields zero hits. That means, unfortunately, we can’t tell who was the owner of what we suspect is a pseudonym. We even came up blank in the Library of Congress online database. So maybe whoever wrote this disowned it. Probably a good idea. But we’re tenacious, so hopefully we’ll turn up more info later.
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The headlines that mattered yesteryear.
1960—Adolf Eichmann Is Captured
In Buenos Aires, Argentina, four Israeli Mossad agents abduct fugitive Nazi Adolf Eichmann, who had been living under the assumed name and working for Mercedes-Benz. Eichman is taken to Israel to face trial on 15 criminal charges, including crimes against humanity and war crimes. He is found guilty and executed by hanging in 1962, and is the only person to have been executed in Israel on conviction by a civilian court. 2010—Last Ziegfeld Follies Girl Dies
Doris Eaton Travis, who was the last surviving Ziegfeld Follies chorus girl, dies at age 106. The Ziegfeld Follies were a series of elaborate theatrical productions on Broadway in New York City from 1907 through 1931. Inspired by the Folies Bergères of Paris, they enjoyed a successful run on Broadway, became a radio program in 1932 and 1936, and were adapted into a musical motion picture in 1946 starring Fred Astaire, Gene Kelly, Lucille Ball, and Lena Horne. 1924—Hoover Becomes FBI Director
In the U.S., J. Edgar Hoover is appointed director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, a position he retains until his death in 1972. Hoover is credited with building the FBI into a large and efficient crime-fighting agency, and with instituting a number of modern innovations to police technology, such as a centralized fingerprint file and forensic laboratories. But he also used the agency to grind a number of personal axes and far exceeded its legal mandate to amass secret files on political and civil rights leaders. Because of his abuses, FBI directors are now limited to 10-year terms. 1977—Joan Crawford Dies
American actress Joan Crawford, who began her show business career as a dancer in traveling theatrical companies, but soon became one of Hollywood's most prominent movie stars and one of the highest paid women in the United States, dies of a heart attack at her New York City apartment while ill with pancreatic cancer. 1949—Rainier Becomes Prince of Monaco
In Monaco, upon upon the death of Prince Louis II, twenty-six year old Rainier Louis Henri Maxence Bertrand Grimaldi, aka Rainier III, is crowned Prince of Monaco. Rainier later becomes an international household name by marrying American cinema sweetheart Grace Kelly in 1956. 1950—Dianetics is Published
After having told a gathering of science fiction writers two years earlier that the best way to become a millionaire was to start a new religion, American author L. Ron Hubbard publishes Dianetics: The Modern Science of Mental Health. The book is today one of the canonical texts of Scientology, referred to as "Book One", and its publication date serves as the first day of the Scientology calendar, making today the beginning of year 52 AD (After Dianetics).
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