| Femmes Fatales | Mar 30 2020 |
Who needs sunscreen when you have imagination?
This photo of Italian actress Carla Brait using the local flora to improvise a little shade was made when she was appearing in the 1973 giallo flick I corpi presentano tracce di violenza carnale. Translated literally that means, “The bodies show traces of carnal violence.” For its U.S. release it was retitled Torso, which we think was a good move. Brait appeared in fifteen movies during her career, and speaking of torsos and good moves, she often played dancers, since that was her other profession. When she eventually retired from cinema she became a dance instructor. We've been watching a lot of giallos the last year or so, which means we may see her in Torso later.
| Femmes Fatales | Mar 30 2020 |
Sometimes listening to your little voice can be a bad move.
Originally posted August 4, 2009
William Hurt’s brain: Wow, this chick is frickin’ gorgeous. That hair-lifting/neck-rubbing thing she’s doing is crazy sexy.
William Hurt’s penis: Really? Let me have a look.
William Hurt’s brain: (tells arms to cover crotch with suit jacket) Don’t get too excited, P. I’m pretty sure she’s trying to frame us for murder.
William Hurt’s penis: And?
William Hurt’s brain: And we could go to prison forever.
William Hurt’s penis: We’ll worry about that later. Is she still doing the neck thing? Just imagine what her lips feel like. I bet she has a really soft tongue too. What size are her breasts? Hey, try to get a peek at her ass, wouldja? Just point at something and see if she turns around.
William Hurt’s brain: I’m feeling a little faint, P.
William Hurt’s penis: That’s because I’m borrowing some of the blood you use to function. Don’t worry about it. I’ll give it back later.
William Hurt’s brain: What were we just talking about? Man, I’m kind of dizzy.
William Hurt’s penis: You want me to drive for a bit? I don’t mind.
William Hurt’s brain: Would you? That would be really cool. I need to just… shut it down for a while.
William Hurt’s penis: Gotcha covered, buddy. Next stop, the promised land. Just move the jacket before you go, ’kay? Thanks.
| Femmes Fatales | Mar 23 2020 |
If heaven were like this it would get crowded mighty fast.
We don't believe in angels, but if we did this is pretty much what we'd want them to look like. This photo shows heavenly adult film actress Shauna Grant, who, like several other ’70s and ’80s adult film actresses, we've featured before. One reason we do it is because we see a line that extends from pulp all the way into porn via the former's focus on sex. Though authors were not generally able to write explicitly about it at the time, sexual gratification was the prime motivator for many pulp characters. You also see it where pulp intersects film noir, but serious legal risk prevented filmmakers of the ’40s and ’50s from exploring the themes deeply. The pulp influenced literature of the ’50s, and the films of the ’60s pushed the envelope more, but were still constrained by censors.
Around the time Grant was making her debut in porn in 1982, directors en masse were beginning to rework pulp and film classics into thrillers with sex centrally placed. 1981's Body Heat and The Postman Always Rings Twice, 1982's I, the Jury and Cat People, 1984's Against All Odds, and 1987's No Way Out, are just a few examples. The trend continued through 1990's The Grifters, 1994's The Getaway, and beyond, with all these films making clear what was only hinted in source material dating back to the 1930s, ’40s and ’50s—guys will go to almost any length for sex. For real world proof of that, scroll down to yesterday's Barcelona orgy story.
But usually it isn't just sex that gets fictional males in trouble—it's amazing sex. If it were just vanilla sex they wouldn't lie, cheat, steal, and murder. No, it's sex that blew their fuses. So that thread weaves neatly into porn, because porn was designed to implant concepts of sex that average people had never experienced—even if the experiences shown were not reality, but something more like performance art. Grant was one of the art's most popular practitioners. And she fits with our ideas about pulp for another reason too—she's freighted with pulp-like tragedy due to dying early via suicide today in 1984, two days after shooting herself in the head. We have a couple of other Grant items that might interest you, here and here.
| Femmes Fatales | Mar 21 2020 |
There's never a bad time to get into high spirits.
Above is Romanian actress Lisa Ferraday doing a little day drinking, which everywhere outside the U.S. is known as simply having a drink, something we might do ourselves in a minute or two to break up the quarantine boredom. Ferraday was an actress in all four media—radio, stage, television, and cinema. In terms of movies, she appeared in such efforts as I Was an American Spy and Death of a Scoundrel. This particular photo was made when she was filming the musical The Merry Widow in 1952.
| Femmes Fatales | Mar 18 2020 |
We'll have ours with everything, hold the gun.
Well, they say Bergers are bad for you and now we have proof. This photo of Austrian actress Senta Berger was made to promote the French 1967 thriller Diaboliquement vôtre, aka Diabolically Yours, in which she starred with Alain Delon. The movie was a bit of a flop when released, but Berger had numerous hits in her long career, and continues to act, appearing in the television series Under Suspicion through 2019. We last saw her as a Pulp Intl. femme fatale way back in 2013. You can see that shot here, and overindulge on Berger in general by clicking her keywords below.
| Femmes Fatales | Mar 13 2020 |
She surfed a wave that lasted four decades.
The wonderful surfing themed photo you see here shows Japanese actress, model, and singer Maria Anzai, who debuted in show business in 1973, and that year won the Japan Record Grand Prize Newcomer Award. As an actress she appeared in a handful of television shows and two movies, one of which was Rupan Sansei: Nenriki chin sakusen, which in English had the amazing title Lupin the Third: Strange Psychokinetic Strategy.
Obviously with such a slight filmography, the wave we suggest she caught isn't her film career. Nor are we referencing her music work, though she was quite popular for awhile. That leaves only her modeling. Anzai, like luminaries such as Rita Moreno and Helen Mirren, looked amazing until a very late age. The photo above appeared in 1975, when she was twenty-two, but below you see her aged fifty-plus, in two shots published in a photo book devoted entirely to her called Dear M.
The cover text says something like, “The legendary diva also had a legendary body.” We should say so. Even if you factor in a little photo retouching she looks great. She even outlasted Japan's 1970s-era censorship of pubic hair and was able to go full frontal in the new millennium. But where her beauty genes were excellent, other genes may not have been—she died only two years after Dear M. was released, victim of a heart attack. You can see another image of her next-to-last in this group of magazine covers we posted several years back.
JapanRupan Sansei: Nenriki chin sakusenLupin the Third: Strange Psychokinetic StrategyDear M.Maria Anzai安西マリアtelevisionnudity
| Femmes Fatales | Mar 10 2020 |
Unknown photo retoucher increases the value of Sterling.
We've seen this photo of U.S. actress Jan Sterling numerous times, but never in color, which leads us to believe it's a colorization. If so, it's a nice, subtle job, as well as a clever choice of model, since Sterling was the subject of one of the iconic black and white photos of the mid-century period. Know the one we mean? Look here. Despite the fame of that particular shot, Sterling was never what you'd call a top tier star. But she appeared in many films, earned a Golden Globe Award as a supporting actress, and was nominated for a supporting actress Oscar. We'll be getting back to her film work a bit later.
| Femmes Fatales | Mar 5 2020 |
This definitely is not a love song.
Melody Patterson gets unhinged, unchained, and generally uncivilized as she settles a score in this photo made in 1969 as a promo for her biker outlaw flick The Cycle Savages. It was one of only a handful of movies she made, along with such efforts as The Angry Breed and Blood and Lace. We're far too weak on the outlaw biker genre. We've seen Easy Rider, The Wild Ones, The Wild Angels, Hell's Bloody Devils, and one or two others. Well actually, maybe we're better in the genre than we thought. But we still need to see The Cycle Savages just to find out how and why Patterson gets pushed to this point.
| Femmes Fatales | Mar 3 2020 |
Damn, missed again. Can I try one more time or do you need a paramedic like immediately?
This photo of Danish actress, director, writer, and singer Anna Karina, née Hanne Karin Bayer, was made by Italian photographer Giancarlo Botti, and is one of the most famous images of the famed French New Wave icon. Botti shot this when Karina was filming the musical comedy Anna in 1966 (some sources say 1967). She died a few months ago and many nice tributes appeared online, but the best tribute of all is simply watching one of her highly regarded films. We recommend 1964's Bande à part. See another Karina image here.
| Femmes Fatales | Musiquarium | Feb 28 2020 |
Sugar and spice and everything nice.
Above is shot of cinematic girl-next-door Jane Powell, who rose to fame in Hollywood musicals such as Holiday in Mexico, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, and Royal Wedding. While Powell is fondly remembered for those and similar roles, she found it ridiculous that she played teenagers into her mid-twenties even though she had children of her own by that point. Under the studio system she had little choice, but later she did manage to expand her repertoire, co-starring in the Hedy Lamarr melodrama The Female Animal. Afterward she turned her attentions mainly to television, with guest slots on everything from Goodyear Theatre to Fantasy Island. She also had stage and singing careers, and scored a top 20 hit with 1956's “True Love.” The photo you see here was made to promote her 1957 musical The Girl Most Likely, and a shot from the same session appeared on the cover of the soundtrack album, which you see below. We don't generally do musicals here, but we will certainly check out her dramatic turn in The Female Animal. Meanwhile you may want to check out this rare photo we shared a couple of years ago.
Holiday in MexicoSeven Brides for Seven BrothersRoyal WeddingThe Girl Most LikelyThe Female AnimalGoodyear TheatreFantasy IslandJane PowellHedy Lamarrtelevision
