Vintage Pulp Nov 25 2022
LINGERING TENSION
At this point she has no idea which way to turn.


Above is an alternate promo poster for Tension, with cool upside down imagery of a figure representing star Audrey Totter. We say “representing” because it doesn't really look like Totter, but it's her alright. It was modeled after a promo photo. The movie also starred Richard Basehart and the incandescent Cyd Charisse. We talked about this last year, so if you want to know more, click here. And if you want to see more of Totter click here, or Charisse (a must), click here and here. Tension premiered today in 1949.

diggfacebookstumbledelicious

Femmes Fatales Dec 29 2021
THE SUNDANCE KID
Rogue beach ballerina finally apprehended after tiring herself out.


Hollywood is a place to which some of the best looking people in the world gravitate. Even in that environment, Cyd Charisse was a standout. An accomplished dancer with the physique to match, she was a hotty in her mid-twenties in movies such as Tension, and was still hot in her mid-forties dancing in the opening sequence of The Silencers. The above trio of photos show her at twenty-four and were made on Santa Monica Beach in 1945, capturing her working through a couple of maneuvers none of us can ever hope to duplicate. And below, you see what all that dancing does to a person. Even superior humans like Charisse get pooped occasionally. She's done. But after a lot of good work. See another fun promo image here.

diggfacebookstumbledelicious

Vintage Pulp Nov 25 2021
PAST TENSE
Anyone can be calm until the cops start poking around.


Tension, for which you see an excellent promo poster above and two more below, is an unlikely but interesting film noir about a mild mannered pharmacist played by Richard Basehart, who's married to hot-to-trot Audrey Totter and discovers she's cheating on him. When she finally leaves him for an apelike creature played by Lloyd Gough, and the ape issues Basehart a solid beating, he decides he's been pushed too far. You'd think that pharmacists would be among that select group of people you really don't want to anger, but this particular pharmacist has a much more elaborate scheme in mind than just a dose of chemicals, and his determination to commit an untraceable murder leads to him building a very traceable double life. In that second life things get complicated when he meets lovely Cyd Charisse, who he wants to make a permanent addition to his future.

Basehart's plot will not go as intended, of course, but the way in which it fails is a surprise, and the complications keep piling up. Tension has flaws, to be sure. The detective played by Barry Sullivan does things that, as far as we know, would get any murder case tossed out of court, but you have to go with it, since he tells you from the jump he'll do anything to solve a case. The plusses of the movie outweigh any weird bits, and with Totter on board, it's probably a must-see. The sinuous clarinet melody she gets every time she appears onscreen is over-the-top, but she's a major scenery chewer anyway, so it actually fits. We didn't like her in Lady in the Lake, but she's delivered in everything else we've seen—this flick, particularly. And Charisse, by the way, gets one of the better entrances we've seen in vintage cinema, straddling two high railings with a camera in hand. She's as hot as a human being can get. Tension premiered today in 1949.
diggfacebookstumbledelicious

Femmes Fatales Sep 26 2017
TEETER TOTTER
Whoa... is the floor swaying or is that me?


Audrey Totter isn't as well known today as she should be, considering she appeared in The Postman Always Rings Twice, The Lady in the Lake, F.B.I Girl, The Unsuspected, The Set-Up, Main Street After Dark, and Tension, but she was well appreciated in her day as a bad girl and film noir stalwart. Her career spanned radio, cinema, and television, and her life spanned ninety-five years, a good run on both counts. This promo photo of her in the typical bad girl's natural habitat—the local gin mill—was made in 1946 and appeared in Life magazine.

diggfacebookstumbledelicious

Sportswire Oct 8 2009
TED'S BOGUS JOURNEY
Cryonics exec claims Ted Williams’ frozen head was roughed up.

Just in time for Major League Baseball’s postseason, a former employee of the cryonics company Alcor Life Extension claims in a new book that Hall of Fame baseball player Ted Williams’ frozen head was mistreated at the facility. Former chief operating officer Larry Johnson writes in his book Frozen: My Journey into the World of Cryonics, Deception and Death, that an Alcor official used a wrench as a—well, let’s just say it—as a bat, to knock a tuna can loose from Williams’ head.

According to Johnson, the cans were used as head pedestals, but only after their contents had been fed to the Alcor cat. Instead of praising his coworkers for their spirit of improvisation, Johnson is critical of these practices. To bolster his claims, his book includes a photograph of an upside-down severed head with what indeed appears to be a tuna can stuck to it, though the head pictured is not Williams’. But Johnson did describe the former Red Sox outfielder’s earthly remains, writing: “The disembodied face set in that awful, frozen scream looked nothing like any picture of Ted Williams I’ve ever seen.”

Alcor has responded to the macabre allegations by threatening to sue everyone in this world and the next. In light of that announcement, we’ll just forego joking about company officials making bets about whether their tongues would stick to the heads. “Forego” means to go ahead and do it, right? We better look that up. 

diggfacebookstumbledelicious

History Rewind
The headlines that mattered yesteryear.
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.
March 25
1957—Ginsberg Poem Seized by Customs
On the basis of alleged obscenity, United States Customs officials seize 520 copies of Allen Ginsberg's poem "Howl" that had been shipped from a London printer. The poem contained mention of illegal drugs and explicitly referred to sexual practices. A subsequent obscenity trial was brought against Lawrence Ferlinghetti, who ran City Lights Bookstore, the poem's domestic publisher. Nine literary experts testified on the poem's behalf, and Ferlinghetti won the case when a judge decided that the poem was of redeeming social importance.
1975—King Faisal Is Assassinated
King Faisal of Saudi Arabia dies after his nephew Prince Faisal Ibu Musaed shoots him during a royal audience. As King Faisal bent forward to kiss his nephew the Prince pulled out a pistol and shot him under the chin and through the ear. King Faisal died in the hospital after surgery. The prince is later beheaded in the public square in Riyadh.
March 24
1981—Ronnie Biggs Rescued After Kidnapping
Fugitive thief Ronnie Biggs, a British citizen who was a member of the gang that pulled off the Great Train Robbery, is rescued by police in Barbados after being kidnapped. Biggs had been abducted a week earlier from a bar in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil by members of a British security firm. Upon release he was returned to Brazil and continued to be a fugitive from British justice.
Featured Pulp
japanese themed aslan cover
cure bootleg by aslan
five aslan fontana sleeves
aslan trio for grand damier
ASLAN Harper Lee cover
ASLAN COVER FOr Dekobra
Four Aslan Covers for Parme

Reader Pulp
It's easy. We have an uploader that makes it a snap. Use it to submit your art, text, header, and subhead. Your post can be funny, serious, or anything in between, as long as it's vintage pulp. You'll get a byline and experience the fleeting pride of free authorship. We'll edit your post for typos, but the rest is up to you. Click here to give us your best shot.

Pulp Covers
Pulp art from around the web
https://noah-stewart.com/2018/07/23/a-brief-look-at-michael-gilbert/ trivialitas.square7.ch/au-mcbain/mcbain.htm
theringerfiles.blogspot.com/2018/11/death-for-sale-henry-kane.html lasestrellassonoscuras.blogspot.com/2017/08/la-dama-del-legado-de-larry-kent-acme.html
lasestrellassonoscuras.blogspot.com/2019/03/fuga-las-tinieblas-de-gil-brewer-malinca.html canadianfly-by-night.blogspot.com/2019/03/harlequin-artists-xl.html
Pulp Advertising
Things you'd love to buy but can't anymore
PulpInternational.com Vintage Ads
trueburlesque.blogspot.com
pre-code.com
schlockmania.com
carrefouretrange.tumblr.com
eiga.wikia.com
www.daarac.org
www.jmdb.ne.jp
theoakdrivein.blogspot.com
spyvibe.blogspot.com
zomboscloset.typepad.com
jailhouse41.tumblr.com
mrpeelsardineliqueur.blogspot.com
trash-fuckyou.tumblr.com
filmstarpostcards.blogspot.com
www.easternkicks.com
moscasdemantequilla.wordpress.com
filmnoirfoundation.tumblr.com
pour15minutesdamour.blogspot.com
www.pulpcurry.com
mundobocado.blogspot.com
greenleaf-classics-books.com
aligemker-books.blogspot.com
bullesdejapon.fr
bolsilibrosblog.blogspot.com
thelastdrivein.com
derangedlacrimes.com
www.shocktillyoudrop.com
www.thesmokinggun.com
www.deadline.com
www.truecrimelibrary.co.uk
www.weirdasianews.com
salmongutter.blogspot.com
www.glamourgirlsofthesilverscreen.com
creepingirrelevance.tumblr.com
www.cinemaretro.com
menspulpmags.com
killercoversoftheweek.blogspot.com
About Email Legal RSS RSS Tabloid Femmes Fatales Hollywoodland Intl. Notebook Mondo Bizarro Musiquarium Politique Diabolique Sex Files Sportswire