Every night in Paris is a treasure hunt. This “Paris la nuit” themed issue of Folies de Paris et de Hollywood from 1959 has, in addition to the usual dancers and showgirls, a list on the cover of the clubs at which they worked. We already knew some of the places, like The Crazy Horse Saloon and Pigall's, but there are many more, all with amazing names: Boule Blanche, Drap d'Or, Shako, Grisbi, Shocking, Le Sexy, et al. If we had to choose just based on the name we'd go with Shocking. It can't be too wild in 1959, right? Anyway, the list gave us the idea of digging up photos of these venerable entertainment halls, but you'd be surprised how few historical shots exist. We're going to keep working on that. In the meantime, enjoy the photos below of the artists who occupied those stages. They include Dolly Bell, Kitty Tam-Tam, Nicole Dore, Carole Riva, and more.
In the Swede Swede summertime.
It's been a while since we've had a legit nudie magazine on the site, but we don't want to neglect them because they figure strongly in pulp fiction. How many novels, for example, feature actress wannabes who do a little nude modeling, or have illicit rolls of negatives floating around that need to be retrieved from shady cartels? The Big Sleep—both the written and filmed version—is probably one of the most famous examples. And who can forget the fact that magazine posing boosted the careers of actresses like Marilyn Monroe and Christina Lindberg? So above and below you'll find some scans from Kavalkad, a Swedish publication that ran from 1949 to 1968, with today's example dating from 1965. It's quaint by modern standards, like something you'd tease your grandpa with after finding it in his garage, but it was quite racy for its time, with kvinnor (women) showing frontal nudity years before U.S. magazines dared to follow suit. Sweden's more permissive attitude about such matters made for an active underground for Swedish porn in the U.S. If you got caught selling it that was your ass—but if you could get away with it there was plenty of money to be made. Inside this issue you'll also find some non-nude photos of Brigitte Bardot and Claudia Cardinale. Kavalkad, like many magazines of its ilk, began with more of a focus on celebrities, and in fact there were numerous issues with Marilyn Monroe on the cover, as well as other mainstream stars like Debra Paget, Peggie Castle, and Rossana Podesta. All the issues are collector's items these days, though not exorbitantly priced ones—at least not yet. We may revisit Kavalkad later. In the meantime we have twenty-plus scans below.
Whatever the language, the meaning is clear. Despite her exotic name, Azizi Johari is American, born in New York City and raised in Seattle. Her movie career consisted of bit parts, with her most noted appearances coming in the 1976 John Cassavetes film The Killing of a Chinese Bookie, and the 1981 blaxploitation b-movie Body and Soul, which was a remake of the 1947 film noir classic. She originally gained recognition as a Playboy model, appearing as the magazine's Playmate of the Month in June 1975, but the above photo was used on the front of Players magazine in 1978. Oh, and on the subject of her name, “Azizi” is Arabic and means “precious,” while Johari is a Kiswahili word that means "jewel.” She's well named.
Hey guys! You might want to get out of the water. I think I see a tsunami coming.
You may have noticed Pulp Intl. went offline for about sixteen hours. As has become tradition whenever our site goes down, we're going to win people back with some nudity. Above is glamour model Maggie Ball, who evokes in this shot that appeared in Players magazine in 1975 the coming summer, the beauty of nature, the re-establishment of connectivity, the return of worldly order, and all other good and wonderful things. Around the palatial Pulp Intl. offices we call these type of posts “naked apologies,” and we've had to resort to them a few times. Now that we've done the naked, here's the apology part: Sorry about that outage last night. Check out what our internet provider wrote us about it: We can tell you that your bandwidth usage has spiked. Your site has received over 1.2 million total hits since midnight UTC today. So in short, the site broke due to a traffic surge. Because of a link someone posted on Reddit, legions of visitors suddenly arrived to look at our pieces on Vikki Dougan, which caused us to run through our bandwidth. This is a temporary phenomenon, like a tidal wave. It comes, it goes, and the internet forgets, save for a few people impressed enough to become regular visitors. Our visitorship has long been above 35,000 individual sessions a month, so we have no complaints about traffic subsiding to normal levels. Our normal levels are really good. In any case, Pulp Intl. is back up. You'll notice, below, how happy Maggie is about that. And if she's happy, we're happy.
More pages than the competition = more readers than the competition.
Above and below, the cover and assorted interior scans from Tab published this month in 1966. We assume “Tab” is short for tabloid, and that is indeed what this publication is, a pocket sized celeb and gossip magazine, new for our collection and a nice addition to the approximately four hundred we already have inside the website. However Tab is was also at this stage partly a nudie magazine, with the random glamour shots of young models that term implies. We've talked before about how large numbers of mid-century publications transitioned from tabloid or adventure magazines to pure porn during the late 1960s and early 1970s, and we seem to have caught Tab in the midst of just such a transformation. The magazine was put together bi-monthly by the New York City based Carnival Magazine Corporation, was launched back in 1952, best we can determine, and lasted as late as 1971. It may have been pocket sized in terms of dimensions, but it was one of the thickest offerings on the market in terms of page count—this one is an amazing one-hundred and forty-eight pages featuring Carroll Baker, Angela Webster, Bobbie Carlino, Terry Higgins, Linda Veras, the KKK, grand prix racing, eight million sex starved women, and more. The pocket size also means that the text is of readable size on our website, so we don't have to bother with a detailed description of the contents—you can read it for yourself, in more than sixty panels.
The French always know a good thing when they see it.
Today we have assorted scans from an issue of Folies de Paris et de Hollywood published in 1964 with cover star Sally Douglas, a British actress who appeared in numerous films and who's popped up on Pulp Intl. a couple of times before, including, memorably, fronting the French magazine Evocations. Her film roles were often uncredited, and when she was acknowledged it was often in less-than-flattering terms. For example, in Doctor in Love she was “dancer in strip show,” and in Genghis Khan she was simply “concubine.” Probably the most cringeworthy of her credits was in A Study in Terror, in which she was “whore in pub.” It's a hell of a way to make a living, but between movies, television, and modeling she managed to become mildly famous and fondly remembered. Elsewhere in Folies de Paris et de Hollywood you get glamour models and burlesque performers, and they all add up to another visually pleasing slice of naughty nostalgia. We have many more of these in the website. Just click the keywords below and start scrolling.
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The headlines that mattered yesteryear.
1939—Holiday Records Strange Fruit
American blues and jazz singer Billie Holiday records "Strange Fruit", which is considered to be the first civil rights song. It began as a poem written by Abel Meeropol, which he later set to music and performed live with his wife Laura Duncan. The song became a Holiday standard immediately after she recorded it, and it remains one of the most highly regarded pieces of music in American history. 1927—Mae West Sentenced to Jail
American actress and playwright Mae West is sentenced to ten days in jail for obscenity for the content of her play Sex. The trial occurred even though the play had run for a year and had been seen by 325,000 people. However West's considerable popularity, already based on her risque image, only increased due to the controversy. 1971—Manson Sentenced to Death
In the U.S, cult leader Charles Manson is sentenced to death for inciting the murders of Sharon Tate and several other people. Three accomplices, who had actually done the killing, were also sentenced to death, but the state of California abolished capital punishment in 1972 and neither they nor Manson were ever actually executed. 1923—Yankee Stadium Opens
In New York City, Yankee Stadium, home of Major League Baseball's New York Yankees, opens with the Yankees beating their eternal rivals the Boston Red Sox 4 to 1. The stadium, which is nicknamed The House that Ruth Built, sees the Yankees become the most successful franchise in baseball history. It is eventually replaced by a new Yankee Stadium and closes in September 2008.
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