Pulp International

Jul 11 2023

What's happens next only she knows for sure.

Above: a cool 1928 MGM promo image of top tier U.S. actress Anita Page, who featured in such films as West of Zanzibar and The Broadway Melody. Her career straddled the silent and talkie eras, and she was a star in both. This is a great and sexy shot, a bit eyebrow raising at the time, we'd guess, thanks to that wandering left hand that could be up to anything. You can see more of her here, and we'll show you more of her soon.

Metro Goldwyn Mayer West of Zanzibar The Broadway Melody Anita Page

Vintage Pulp

May 8 2023

Is Django le carogne hanno un prezzo a disaster from start to finish? Why of corpse it is!

We love it when a plan comes together. We told you we hoped to watch this movie, and luckily it premiered today in 1971, mere weeks after we featured co-star Dominique Badou and her bizarro butt stripe. What you're seeing is a poster for the spaghetti western Anche per Django le carogne hanno un prezzo, known in English—amazingly—as Django's Cut Price Corpses. But a unique and snazzy title does not a good movie make. Pardner, this is by far the worst western we've ever seen. It has to be a satire. It absolutely must. But as we've discussed before with satire, if it's poorly made you often lose the ability to discern whether the filmmakers actually are just inept.

This one—and by the way we don't actually think it's a satire—is the sad work of Luigi Batzella, whose other movies include Achtung! The Desert Tigers and The Devil's Wedding Night. So it turns out Django's Cut Price Corpses isn't such a unique title after all. The movie is about bounty hunter Jeff Cameron searching for the notorious Cortez Brothers, who recently stole gold from a Silver City bank and kidnapped a woman. Cameron rides into town and pre-orders some coffins, signaling his firm intent to kill, in a bit that is possibly—no definitely—stolen from Clint Eastwood. He makes an uneasy partnership with Gengher Gatti and John Desmont, who both want the Cortez Brothers for their own reasons, and off they go into the hills on their hunt.

However, Cameron may have secret motives. Oh, hell, why are we bothering to be coy? He's really there to rescue his fiancée Dominique Badoue, who is the kidnappee from the bank job. This twist is revealed by the undercover cowboy in the final two minutes. Yes, that's a spoiler, but we care about you, and now maybe you'll watch a better movie, or read a good book, or drink a bottle of mezcal and hurl, or get an eyelid tattoo, or have someone smash your fingers flat with a meat tenderizer on a marble countertop. All are better options than Luigi's cut price western. How bad are we talking? In the wide shots we kept expecting to see cars passing and—bingo!— at moment 36:34 in a stagecoach scene, there it was. No horses were harmed in the making of Anche per Django le carogne hanno un prezzo, but numerous careers should have ended up in the glue factory.

Italy Anche per Django le carogne hanno un prezzo Django's Cut Price Corpses Achtung! The Desert Tigers The Devil's Wedding Night Jeff Cameron John Desmott Esmeralda Barros Gengher Gatti Dominique Badou Angela Portaluri Luigi Batzella poster art cinema movie review spaghetti western

Vintage Pulp

Apr 16 2023

Round and round she goes. Where she stops nobody knows.

We like books set in carnivals. They've been among our most interesting reads. So we figured a movie set in a carnival—Carnival Story, with Anne Baxter and Steve Cochran—was a natural. We gave it a look and it's an above average drama about how Baxter becomes a high diver in a Munich carnival and makes a big splash, but has relationship issues that threaten to derail her career and life. Her main problem is Cochran. He lies, he cheats, and he steals, but she just can't quit him, even though her diving partner Lyle Bettger is totally devoted to her. Even after she marries Bettger she can't keep her hands off Cochran. This can only end badly. And by badly we mean violence and death.

Carnival Story is one of those movies with an unspoken sexual subtext. Why would Baxter let Cochran mistreat her again and again? Well, because he gives her something no other man can. Though it couldn't be shown onscreen we can understand that something to be sexual passion. Bettger, and later George Nader, are both devoted to Baxter, and they're nice guys besides, but they're square. Cochran gets Baxter's loins all feverish. Portraying a woman trapped in this dilemma during Hollywood's age of censorship takes acting skill, and Baxter, an Academy Award and Golden Globe winner by this point, has plenty of that. Anything she's in is worth a watch. Carnival Story premiered today in 1954.

West Germany Munich RKO Radio Pictures Carnival Story Anne Baxter Steve Cochran Lyle Bettger George Nader Ady Berber poster art cinema movie review

Vintage Pulp

Apr 1 2023

Mid-century paperback artists were in tune with the times.

There are numerous jazz themed mid-century paperback covers. The jazz milieu—with its smoky clubs, passionate personalities, and idiosyncratic ways—fascinated readers. Above you see a small collection of fronts that visually reference the uniquely American (black American) art of jazz. We've also added a couple of the many torch singer and crooner covers out there that seem jazzy enough to fit. The artists are Barye Phillips, Stanley Zuckerberg, Harry Barton, Mitchell Hooks, Julian Paul, and others. We've previously posted quite a few jazz covers, and we have a few jazz themed books still to read, so in both cases you won't see those pieces here. We don't keyword for jazz, which means a search for those we've already posted would bring up a welter of books, movies, tabloids, and album covers. Therefore, in order to save you the trouble of wading through all that, here are some links. We'll limit ourselves to ten: here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.

Vintage Pulp

Mar 25 2023

Marie Forså starts an uncontrollable forest Feuer.

Did you think you'd seen the last of Marie Forså? We can promise you, that won't happen soon. We love all the old sexploitation stars of the ’70s because their breed is extinct now, but Forså is particularly special because of the heat of her performances. Could she act in the thespian sense? Hell, we have no idea. All her dialogue was in Swedish or dubbed. This West German poster was made for her 1975 erotic classic Butterflies, sometimes known as Butterfly, but which was called Feuer der lust in Germany—“Fire of Lust.” And she's about to burst into flames here. We talked about the movie a couple of years ago. The unidentified head belongs to co-star Eric Edwards. Below is another promo of the pair, as happy as two people can be.

Sweden West Germany Feuer der lust Butterflies Marie Forså Eric Edwards sexploitation poster art cinema nudity

Femmes Fatales

Mar 1 2023

One great photo. Triple the back pain.

We recently saw German actress Marlies Draeger stylishly garbed in a green jacket-dress, and here in a beautiful black and white promo image she gives her all, not because she's nude—though that too—but because she's recumbent across three metal tables that look like sheer hell on her sacroiliac. What resulted is a great shot, though we wouldn't be surprised if afterward she sent a stack of chiropractor bills to her agent. Speaking of sending, this was sent to us by Pulp Intl. reader Herman, who's been of great help in the past with model identifications. No date on this, but figure around the same time as the other image—say 1968.

West Germany Marlies Draeger Marlies Dräger nudity

Femmes Fatales

Feb 1 2023

Not quite a jacket, but not quite a dress.

We were thinking shirt-dress when we first saw this promo image of German actress Marlies Draeger (or Dräger if you prefer), but it isn't really a shirt. It's more like a jacket. So we looked up shirt-jacket and were surprised to learn they exist, but they're called jacket-dresses, and they prove that there's no niche of women's fashion that hasn't been filled. Draeger/Dräger is wearing hers in a shot made for her 1968 thriller Dynamit in grüner Seide, known in English as Death and Diamonds, and she looks amazing.

West Germany Dynamit in grüner Seide Death and Diamonds Marlies Draeger Marlies Dräger

Intl. Notebook

Jan 2 2023

America's worst tabloid pops the bubbly and starts the year strong.

Above is a cover of the tabloid National Informer that hit newsstands today in 1972 featuring an unidentified Champagne toasting model. We love how the editors emphasize the word “truthful” in the second banner, beneath the name of the paper. That's a bold claim from one of the ultimate bottom shelf tabloids of the era, one that traffics in faux news and sensationalism more than actual journalism. But we won't argue the point. Whenever one's reputation is less than stellar don't leave it to chance: tell people what opinion to have of you. National Informer says it's truthful, fine.

There are a couple of stories of note in this issue. According to Informer, German high wire artist Karl Traber died when he lost his balance during a walk between the towers of two Munich churches and fell two-hundred feet onto a spiked fence. We couldn't find a single reference to anyone named Karl Traber online, though we did to a Traber family who remain famous today as aerialists. We did a Boolean search within German websites and still found no Karl Traber who suffered this grisly death. It's no surprise. Cheap tabloids often leave you with more questions than answers. We'll blame it on sloppy journalism (maybe they got a name wrong?) rather than false reporting. But since we don't want to spend our Monday searching the internet, we'll just move on.

Later in the issue Informer's resident seer Mark Travis produces a slate of predictions, and one of them qualifies as his wildest ever: I predict the invention of a serum which is injected into the bloodstream to create more pigmentation of the skin and turn a white person black. It will be very popular among the young college students. This serum [snip] will enable white youngsters from affluent homes to really see what life in the ghetto is like. Since the results will wear off in a few weeks if the injections are discontinued, it will be quite an adventure to “go black” for a short period of time. Only a wig will be necessary to complete the disguise. And since another drug which works in reverse—lightens the skin—will enable any Negro who desires to do so to pass for white, it will soon be impossible to tell who is white, who is black, and who is one in the disguise of the other.

We think we know how that would turn out: the caste-destroying serum would be banned in all fifty states, plus overseas U.S. territories, and bring penalties for usage ranging up to execution. We're only half kidding. Imagining the possible fallout from such a form of recreation makes us want to pitch the idea to some of our Hollywood friends. Can you imagine the television show that could be produced? Travis has made some blah predictions over the years, but we bet this one hit a nerve among Informer's readership. Unfortunately, we don't have the next few issues to check the infuriated responses in reader mail. Maybe it's better that way. As a side note, this is the thirtieth issue of Informer we've shared.

West Germany Munich National Informer Brigitte Bardot Karl Traber Laila Leeds Wendy Sity Mark Travis Janet Baker Barbara Fenney tabloid burlesque

Vintage Pulp

Dec 6 2022

Fashion accessory or rift in the space-time continuum?

These two Technicolor lithographs feature the one and only Evelyn West, model and burlesque dancer extraordinaire, bearer of interesting nicknames, and pioneer in erotic craft. The top litho is called “Soft and Lovely,” and the one where it looks like a hole has opened in the fabric of space-time is called “Cleo,” for some reason. And while we know what we're seeing in that second litho is a hat, it's weirdly and disconcertingly featureless. But whether dangerously large fashion accessory or voracious cosmic gullet, bystanders would have needed to stand well clear. It's a great shot, though. Both lithos probably date from late 1950s.

Technicolor pin-up Evelyn West Tom Kelley nudity

Vintage Pulp

Nov 19 2022

….then he ate their livers. Anyway, I think he went that way. You check it out and I'll light your way from back here.

First rule of dark places: make sure you never go in first. Jean Salvetti paints a sinister scene on this cover for 1953's Des clous! by Robert Tachet, which is about crime, smuggling, and espionage in Perpignan on the French/Spanish border. The title, pronounced like “clue,” means “nails,” or maybe “spikes.” In the least surprising revelation imaginable, Tachet was a pseudonym for André Héléna. Why is that no surprise? Because Héléna was a pseudonym machine who also published as—ready?—Noël Vexin, Andy Ellen, Andy Helen, Buddy Wesson, Maureen Sullivan, Herbert Smally, Jean Zerbibe, Kathy Woodfield, Sznolock Lazslo, Clark Corrados, Peter Colombo, Alex Cadourcy, Joseph Benoist, Lemmy West, and C. Cailleaux. He was not only prolific, but was also one of the few mid-century writers to have his books translated into English from another language. Salvetti was prolific too. We have a few more examples of his brushwork if you're interested. Check here, here, here, here, and here.