| Modern Pulp | Sex Files | Oct 4 2022 |
There's never a cop around to perform a cavity search when you need one.
You probably suspect at a glance that this is a Japanese poster for an x-rated movie, and you'd be right. It was made for Trinity Brown, starring Sharon Kelly, aka Colleen Brennan, who's backed by a supporting cast of stalwart porn studs and b-level starlets. This is the fourth movie of Kelly's we've looked at, after Love, Lust and Violence, Gosh!, Scream in the Streets, and Ilsa, Harem Keeper of the Oil Sheiks. Do we have a special affinity for her? Not really. But the Japanese did, apparently. We've found Japanese posters for many of her flicks. They've retitled this one 弾を握る女, which means “woman holding a bullet.” Or possibly they've retitled it SEXリボルバー, which means “sex revolver.” The rest says, “Right now, a miraculous comeback, Sharon Kelly. A trap of terrifying passion, the scent of lavender drifting in the cloudy darkness. A man never forgets the smell of Sharon.” Indeed.
You can always expect a plotline with vintage porn, and in this case Kelly plays a tough L.A. cop partnered with John Leslie, who she also happens to be banging off-duty. The two are assigned a murder case in which a strip club owner is thought to have shot a local gangster. Brennan and Leslie delve into the world of exotic dancers and show business to unravel the mystery. It isn't much of a mystery—psst the gangster's girl set him up—but getting to the end is reasonably fun.
Generally vintage porn features realistic sexual performances, without a lot of asinine screaming and backbreaking positions. It was made before the medium became festishistic performance art, and takes itself seriously as erotica for normal people. This particular flick was made without any of the most inspiring porn beauties from the era (Ginger Lynn, Angel, Shauna Grant, Jody Swafford, Annette Haven, et al), so it's possible some viewers might be aesthetically nonplussed by Kelly and company, but everything is real, rather than silicone, and that's worth something. We'll discuss some of those top stars again, and Kelly will be back too, on yet another Japanese poster we have. Trinity Brown premiered in the U.S. in 1984 and reached Japan today in 1986.
JapanLos AngelesTrinity BrownLove Lust and ViolenceGosh!Scream in the StreetsIlsa Harem Keeper of the Oil SheiksColleen BrennanSharon KellyJohn LeslieJoey SilveraKimberly CarsonJamie GillisTamara Longleyposter artcinemamovie reviewxxx
| Sex Files | Jul 29 2022 |
Supply and demand in the unfree market.
Oh no! It's another National Informer. You're thinking, “Three days in a row? How many of these rags do they have?” Well, more than several, clearly, since we always post them on their publication dates and these ended up being consecutive. This issue, which hit newsstands today in 1973, offers a report on the so-called sex slave markets, which according to Informer were in existence in Turkey, Morocco, Algeria, Lebanon, and Ghana. This is not exactly a newsflash. Just recently, the Credite Suisse leak, which we wrote about, revealed that sex traffickers were using Swiss banks to stash funds. Shockingly—and we know this will knock you for a loop—it's extremely difficult to eradicate anything that generates enough profits to interest the international banking sector. Business, real estate, oil, weapons, human trafficking, drugs—it's all of a piece to the banks.
To go along with its sex slave reporting Informer offers up a side helping of bdsm content, including a blurb on Bella Silverman, who was allegedly Miss Nude Dominant Female of 1973. You see her just below, complete with a terrifying mask that doesn't exactly scream erotic thrills. Or is that just us? We looked up Bella, but there was no info at all. Maybe she's a banker now. Elsewhere Informer tells readers that age is no barrier to sex, nudist camps really swing, and foreign diplomats are sex maniacs. And lastly, resident psychic Mark Travis makes a set of surprisingly prosaic predictions, including about future shoe fashion, breakthroughs in spray paint, and the California housing market. We suppose even psychics get tired of talking about Bigfoot and UFOs. Well, here's a prediction: there will be no National Informer tomorrow. Enjoy the scans.
| Sex Files | Jul 28 2022 |
Notable show business encounters: the Pelvis meets the Throat.
Issues of National Informer on back-to-back days? Sure, why not? The above example, published today in 1974, is five years older than yesterday's, and in the intervening timeframe the editors seem to have stopped woman bashing. They're still treating them as complete sex objects, but that's what Informer was all about. They've also replaced the (not so) Great Criswell with new psychic Mark Travis. We're still curious who actually bought these mags (we do it for scientific purposes, so we don't count), and exactly how seriously they took it. Our guess is not very.
The main attraction in this issue is the story on swivel-hipped musical star Elvis Presley and Linda Lovelace, centerpiece of the xxx smash Deep Throat. Lovelace, who was purportedly involved—at least for a few hours at a time—with such aging stars as Richard Burton, Rex Harrison, Bob Hope, Dean Martin, and (of course) Frank Sinatra, as well as young Hollywood rebels Paul Newman, Marlon Brando, and Dennis Hopper, is alleged to have met up with Presley in Las Vegas. You could be forgiven for assuming that nature took its course, but it didn't. At least, according to reports.
What on Earth could have stopped these two sex elementals from joining forces? Presley allegedly told Lovelace he was temporarily hors de combat because he had hurt himself having sex with Natalie Wood the previous week. Hey, we just relay this stuff. We make no claim that any of it is true. And we thought Natalie was so sweet. Well, you should never judge a book by its cover. Tabloids, on the other hand, you can safely evaluate at a glance. Informer is just as down and dirty as it looks.
Las VegasDeep ThroatNational InformerElvis PresleyLinda LovelaceRichard BurtonRex HarrisonBob HopeDean MartinPaul NewmanMarlon BrandoDennis HopperTony CurtisFrank SinatraNatalie WoodMark Travistabloidnudityxxx
| Sex Files | May 31 2022 |
Everybody wants a piece.
Radley Metzger was the director of perhaps the most stylish films from the golden era of porn, so it's no surprise his output reached Japan. This poster was made for his 1978 film Maraschino Cherry, which in Japan was known as Marasukîno cherî: Musei. Annette Haven, Gloria Leonard, Leslie Bovee, the lovely Constance Money, and Eric Edwards star, and there's an actual plot, as Manhattan brothel madame Maraschino Cherry, played by Leonard, indoctrinates her hick sister Jenny Baxter into the business. Little sis takes to it like a fish to water, so much so that at the end she's left in charge while Leonard heads off to open another cathouse.
Metzer directed this under the pseudonym Henry Paris, which he used because he directed non-xxx features under his own name. So once again we see the blurry line between adult and non-adult entertainment back in the day. Among Metzger's mainstream movies were Camille 2000, Little Mother, aka Woman of the Year, and The Lickerish Quartet, which we talked about several years ago. His most famous xxx effort is probably The Opening of Misty Beethoven, but Maraschino Cherry, with its goofy comedy (“Would you like to be eaten while you wait?” “Oh, no thanks. I'm not hungry.”) also seems well remembered.
Below we have images of the film's female cast, excepting Jenny Baxter, who we couldn't find. Top to bottom you see Leonard, Haven, Money, and Bovee. We've uploaded these for a couple of reasons. First, they're beautiful shots. Second, the Pulp Intl. girlfriends are Stateside and when they're gone we tend to post more nude images, possibly because we get a bit lonely. Without their influence we also come up with ideas like “everybody wants a piece.” If they were here one of them would have said, “Really?” And we'd have rethought it. But it could have been worse. We almost went with the header “Fruit Cock Tale.” So there you are, girls. Hurry back before we bury ourselves under an avalanche of crudeness.
JapanMarasukîno cherî: MuseiMaraschino CherryCamille 2000Little MotherWoman of the YearThe Lickerish QuartetAnnette HavenConstance MoneyGloria LeonardLeslie BoveeJenny BaxterEric EdwardsRadley MetzgerHenry Parisposter artcinemanudityxxx
| Sex Files | Apr 4 2022 |
Sometimes you want your house to be a little dirty.
The thing about Japanese promos for U.S. adult films—and we've mentioned this before—is that they usually have rare images of the lead actresses. Such is the case with the above item, made for Trashy Lady, featuring x-rated legend Ginger Lynn alluringly wrapped in a silk or satin sheet. In Japan the movie was titled ジンジャー・リンの赤い唇, which means, “Ginger Lynn's red lips.”The plot is simple—Harry Reems, playing a big city crime kingpin, decides to make smalltown Ginger his girlfriend, but since she's too innocent, he needs her to be retrained into the type of woman he prefers—a trashy lady. You know, of course, what sort of activities the makeover involves.
It's cute when porn folks try to make a period movie, and this one, which is set during the Great Depression, comes complete with fancy costumes, a couple of nice sets, and even a high quality opening credit sequence. In the end it's still sort of like low rent community theater with oral sex, but it's all in good fun. As a side note, every website you look at says Reems plays real-life gangster Dutch Schultz, but guess what? We actually watch these flicks, and the character he plays is the fictional Dutch Seigel, not Dutch Schultz. Who cares, right? Well, we do. Originally released in 1985, Trashy Lady opened in Japan today in 1987.
| Sex Files | Feb 17 2022 |
Just a little something to help pass the time.
Above is the cover of an issue of National Informer Reader published today in 1974. Some people will tell you that the trans community is a new thing, but it isn't, and we know because vintage tabloids have been obsessed with the subject for more than sixty years. If you don't believe us check here, here, here, here, and here. Reader visits the topic with a story on trans entertainer Jennifer Fox. In cheap tabloids the stories were often made up, but Fox existed. She underwent gender reassignment in 1968 and became a burlesque dancer in Las Vegas. In other stories she's noted that once knowledge of her change became widely known, interest in her exploded and she became a star attraction. The only thing is, we don't think the photo Reader printed is Fox. Her face looks wrong, Fox was usually blonde, and not many burlesque dancers posed frontally nude after becoming famous—it would have devalued the moneymaker. Probably Reader never actually spoke to Fox. The editors simply knew a useful story when they saw it, and used a handout photo that looked good. When it comes to tabloids in this tier almost nothing is 100% accurate. Scans below.
Las VegasNational Informer ReaderNational InformerNational Informer Weekly ReaderSteve ReevesJames CoburnLee Marvintabloidnudityburlesquelgbt
| Hollywoodland | Sex Files | Jan 20 2022 |
Informer digs for Hollywood dirt but comes up empty.
Above is the cover of a National Informer published today in 1974, and unlike other issues, this one has an actual, real life, major celebrity inside—none other than Paul Newman. How did he end up inside a cheapie sex tabloid? Good question. Reading the story—which discusses his relations with female fans—you get the sense that the magazine managed to get itself admitted to a press junket interview session, at which a group of journalists together ask questions of a star. We've participated in ones with Ron Perlman, David Caruso, Renee Zellweger, and others. Group sessions with small and lesser known press outlets saves the stars and publicists time, and the promotional companies aren't terribly discriminating as long as the publication has the right credentials.
But even if you don't know how press junkets work, you'd notice that Informer's interview doesn't read like a one-on-one sit-down. It's a few basically innocuous answers from Newman. Informer journo Tex Harmon wants to tell readers that Newman is slinging dick all around Hollywood, but can't because he has only a few quotes with which to work. So he writes an article with a mildly sexual slant, calls it a day, and probably hits the local watering hole for whiskey shots. Newman does talk about his wife Joanne Woodward a bit, but respectfully. You can read the whole piece yourself below.
Elsewhere, Informer offers up its usual style of quasi-journalism, with the claim that illicit affairs can be good for marriages, a piece on a woman who was a sex slave of the mob, and a chat with a Dutch policewoman named Anita Hausmann who encountered a flasher in Amsterdam who was “letting it all hang out.” Hang isn't the word we'd use for him, but whatever. Informer also has its usual set of predictions from Mark Travis, and of course there are photos of pretty young models. We've gotten good at identifying them, but this issue is tricky. Andrea Rau is in panels six and seven, but the rest we're blanking on. Feel free to give us an assist if you have any answers.
Update: French actress and model Karin Petersen is in the last panels.
| Sex Files | Jan 9 2022 |
National Informer gives sex advice—and if you take it don't blame anyone but yourself.
We love National Informer. We love it like a relative who makes off-color comments and is wrong about half of what they say, but is also bizarrely funny and indispensable at barbecues. This issue published today in 1972 illustrates the point perfectly. It's filled with nonsense. You get a primer of sexual deviations, an endorsement of incest, and predictions for the future from Mark Travis—including his assertion that cock-fighting will become a major American pasttime. That didn't come true—unless we're confused about the type of cocks, in which case cockfighting has been the primary force in American politics for decades.
The paper also has bits on actress Ira von Furstenberg, burlesque dancer Rebel Carr, treats readers to plenty of sexist cartoons, and touts phony medical breaktrhoughs, but the most interesting feature is probably its forty-five question true-or-false sex quiz. "How sharp is your sexual knowledge?" it asks. Well, sharp enough for our girlfriends, is all we can say. The quiz offers up a few surprise factoids. Our favorite? “Studies show that men with tattoos are actually worried about their varility. T or F?” Studies also show that editors of tabloids should worry more about their spelling.
Informer and its little sister Informer Weekly Reader were among the earliest tabloids to prove that being regularly incoherent is no barrier to generating a mass following in America. In fact, it may even help, if the last half decade is any indication. This is the thirty-eighth issue we've shared, and finally, we're starting to run low. That's bad news, we know, and worse, we probably won't buy more. They're priced a bit high now. Maybe that happens when fifty or so issues are bought by someone in a two-year span. But don't worry—there are many other tabloids out there, and some of them are even crazier, as a traipse through our tabloid index will reveal. Have a look. Meanwhile, Informer scans below.
| Sex Files | Nov 3 2021 |
National Informer guest columnist bares his soul and more.
This issue of National Informer was published today in 1974. In these later editions the editors seem to have discovered the value of a little dick, which is to say they began featuring male frontal nudes. The Pulp Intl. girlfriends used to wonder why we had so few nude men on the site. They actually thought it was up to us. We were like, “Baby, vintage actors didn't do nude promo shots.” Well, except for Fred Williamson, but he's Fred Williamson. Burt Reynolds did it for Cosmopolitan, but we don't have that shot because we don't collect Cosmo. So the best you get is these randos in low rent tabloids.
The models, whoever they were, got to experience what women had been experiencing for a long time, which was the shock of realizing their secret nudes had hit daylight on a drugstore newsstand without their knowledge—or financial remuneration. And as with the women, the photos were used in articles that had nothing to do with them. In this case the accompanying feature is about a porn actor who wants to move into legit cinema. It's a silly article filled with nothingness written by J.W.—presumably Johnny Wadd, aka John Holmes. At least that's what readers were supposed to think.
Do we buy it? Not really. For one, it reads like the same house hacks who wrote all Informer's articles (we love the part where he defines the term “persona non grata”), but second, why would a guy who's flashed his gooch to millions need to hide his identity? But it's very specific in terms of the hints the author drops, so maybe it really is him. But with or without Holmes, there's quality schlong on the anonymous model. The Pulp Intl. girlfriends say he could use a circumcision, but whatever, they can't say we never tried to give them some eye candy. More Informer coming later.
| Intl. Notebook | Sex Files | Oct 27 2021 |
It's not how you start. It's how you finish.
We've talked before about the mid-century tabloid interest in transexuals, and how several trans burlesque performers achieved widespread fame. Those old tabloid covers serve to contradict people who claim that trans issues are a product of the new millennium, or that “it didn't happen in their day.” They just didn't notice. As the links in the above post show, transexual entertainers regularly made headlines in tabloids that sold millions of issues per month. To the list you can now add Gayle Sherman, who you see on this cover of The National Insider published today in 1963. This wasn't the height of her fame. A year later Novel Books would publish I Want To Be a Woman!, touted as the autobiography of a female impersonator. And still, she was just getting started.
Sherman started life as Gary Paradis, but became Sherman after a name change at age sixteen. As a transvestite she scored a job dancing for the Jewel Box Revue, which was a comedic drag queen show that criss-crossed the U.S. for more than thirty years. Probably the Jewel Box Revue 
deserves a write-up of its own, but the shorter version is it was the most popular extravaganza of its kind, and was run by gay management who were marketing to straight audiences.
deserves a write-up of its own, but the shorter version is it was the most popular extravaganza of its kind, and was run by gay management who were marketing to straight audiences.Sherman moved on from the revue and worked mainly in Chicago, appearing at places such as the Nite Life, where her act sometimes involved dressing as a witch doctor and roasting a fake baby over a fire while singing Yma Sumac songs. Sometime later she underwent gender reassignment surgery, and all the while was passing through a string of pseudonyms, among them Gerri Weise, Brandy Alexander, and Geraldine Parades.
She eventually opted for breast enlargement surgery and at that point became Alexandria the Great 48, a stage name under which she would become a national celebrity. The number of course referenced her bust size. She was sometimes dubbed “Sophia Loren's twin,” but when audiences paid to see her they got something wholly different. She had left burlesque and moved into standard stripping, sometimes appearing at porno cinemas between features. She continued dancing until 1967, when bluenose politicians in Chicago managed to outlaw nude dancing. Sherman became a hairdresser, and was out of the public eye until her death in 2019.
As we mentioned above, vintage tabloids often featured transexuals, and while those stories were always sensationalistic, they were also surprisingly non-cruel. Not always, but often. The editors' accepting stances probably weren't sincere. Because tabloid readership was generally a cross section of middle class, middle American squares, the tone of the articles tended be: “this wild stuff happens in Hollywood and Paris, but who knows, maybe it's more prevalent than you suspect where you live.” As the saying goes, even a stopped clock is right twice a day—the tabs probably nailed it. 1.4 million Americans identify as transexual. There's no total from 1963, but you can bet it would be more than a few. In National Informer, the excellent money quote from the Gayle Sherman article is: “My birth certificate is stamped male, but my body is stamped female.” We have a photo of her below, and she's all woman.
ChicagoThe National InsiderNovel BooksGary ParadisGayle ShermanGerri WeiseBrandy AlexanderGeraldine ParadesAlexandria the Great 48burlesquetabloidnuditylgbt
