 Gold may fill the pockets but it can also empty the soul. 
We wanted to show you a bit more work from German artist Rolf Goetze. We settled on this West German poster for the quasi-western drama The Treasure of the Sierra Madre because the film premiered in West Germany today in 1949. This is Goetze at his best. For that matter, it's Humphrey Bogart, Walter Huston, and John Huston at their best too. That isn't just our opinion—Walter Huston won a Best Actor Academy Award for his performance, and John Huston won both Best Director and Best Screenplay. If you're not familiar with the film, we'll just tell you it's a cautionary tale about the lust for riches, and it contains this classic and oft-mangled quote: “Badges? We ain't got no badges. We don't need no badges. I don't have to show you any stinking badges!” More Goetze poster work to be seen here and here.
 Last one there is a rotten ama.
 If you visit Pulp Intl. regularly you know that ama movies, which focus on the tradition of female free divers who scour bay bottoms for valuable items such as abalone, clams, and pearls, are very popular in Japan. The divers, who in the past traditionally worked topless, occupy a place in Japanese culture similar to that of rollerskating female carhops in U.S. culture. Both are unusual and physical forms of work with mildly sexual components (at least in the male mind), both are steeped in nostalgia for a simpler past, and both are widely appreciated by men even though most have never seen one outside a movie. The ama tradition is ancient. The first written mention of them dates from the year 927, but ama artifacts have been found on the sea floor and carbon dated to suggest the practice is something like 3,000 years old. It's difficult to know when the tradition peaked, but according to most accounts that would have happened during the early- to mid-20th century. Movies on the subject began appearing frequently from the mid-1960s through the 1980s, with the high water mark—ahem—of western interest occurring with the appearance of an ama (played by Mie Hama) in the 1967 James Bond movie You Only Live Twice. We've talked about numerous ama movies on Pulp Intl. over the years, including two earlier this month, so we thought you might be interested in seeing a few historical photos. We have a collection of fifteen above and below, shot between the 1940s and 1980s. Sadly, like so many interesting cultural practices, ama diving is in danger of fading away. Most pratictioners are in their forties and older, with very little likelihood of being succeeded by younger women, who have moved on to less traditional occupations. And people say civilization is making progress. Follow the links below to read about the ama movies we've discussed, and to see their beautiful promotional posters. Zoku kindan no suna Hitokui amaAma bune yori: Kindan no suna
Manatsu no joji
Ama no bakemono yashiki
 Mwah. Zat is ze height of eroticism in our country. Ze back kiss. Does it turn you on? Are you ready for ze sex now?  
Searching for information on vintage books and authors sometimes brings unusual results online. In the case of Paris Sex Circus, plugging in the author's name Leaver French gave us seemingly every article published about Donald Trump abandoning the Paris climate accords. An unexpected outcome, to say the least. So we can't tell you anything about Leaver French, except that we're reasonably certain the name is a pseudonym. But as for the book, as the great French lovers say: the back tells you everything. Lovely Dawn's sexcapades begin on a transatlantic cruise, and continue once she hits French soil, but she's no naive ingénue, as evidenced by the line: “Even the orgies she had been to in the States were only child's play compared to the French way!” This is 1970 from Bee-Line Books, number 457 in their catalog. Yes, they churned out hundreds of these. And as far we can tell, all of their cover illustrations were uncredited, including this one.
 Which direction does Monroe go? The beauty mark is how you know.  
At top you see a 1956 cover of the French film and celeb magazine Ciné-Révélation featuring the eternal Marilyn Monroe. The magazine caught our eye because we recognized the cover image as a promotional photo made for Monroe's film There's No Business Like Show Business. We think it's one of the most striking shots of one of history's most photographed people, so we thought we'd show you what it looks like without the text and wear. It's reversed compared to the Ciné-Révélation version, but it's the French who printed it backward. How can we tell? Because Monroe's beauty mark was on the right. Our right. Her left. You know what we mean.
 Raquel Welch earns top ratings.  
As long as we're on the subject of vintage mags, above are two curiosities we ran across on an auction site. These are covers for the Lebanese magazine الشبكة (we know that means nothing to 99.9% of you, but we just like the fact that we can actually put those characters on the website and they render perfectly). The western alphabet name of the magazine is Al Chabaka, and that means “the network.” We think. One of the Pulp Intl. girlfriends actually took a couple of Arabic classes several years back. We asked what it meant and she said, “Are you kidding? I don't remember a single thing.” So we'll go with The Network. And on the cover is Raquel Welch, who makes any network worth watching. These are from the mid-1970s.
 Personally, I find that I can't wake up in the morning without stimulation. What about you?   
Elvire Audray was one of the more faces famous in 1980s Italian b-cinema, appearing films such as Lys, Nosferatu a Venezia, and the cannibal movie White Slave, which we discussed a while back. Here she gets her day off to a good start in a few photos made around 1985.
 Paul Derval and the pleasure factory.  
Is it pulp? Technically no. But then technically most of what we share isn't pulp, if you want to be doctrinaire about it. But this cover for Paul Derval's The Folies Bergère has pin-up style art, so that's good enough for us. This is from Digit Books, 1956, an English version of a book originally published by Methuen & Co. in France, and is a behind-the-scenes rundown of the famed burlesque theater written by the guy who managed the place from 1918 to 1956. It was under Derval that the Folies achieved arguably its greatest fame. In addition to his story, you also get eight photo pages inside, including the one you see below. If that image looks familiar, it may be because we showed it to you back in 2015, but a much sharper version scanned from a glossy photo. She's none other than the talented and beautiful Yvonne Ménard, and you can learn a bit about her, and see more of her, at this link. 
 If she wants the money she has to want the money shot. 
We've shown you a lot of Japanese promo posters for U.S. x-rated movies, and the reason for that is the Japanese promos are artful and interesting. The stateside promos, not so much. This one is an exception. It was made for 1978's Soft Places, which starred Annette Haven in the story of a young widow whose husband's will specifies that she can't come into her inheritance unless she allows a bunch of men to come into her. Well, not really. This is porn. Instead they come in other places, including a glass of Champagne. Anyway, since Haven was not a particularly good sex partner, her hubby's dying wishes dictate that she experience every known sexual kink in order to free her from her numerous inhibitions. Haven, apart form being nice looking, can actually act a little, but this is still porn, which means ultimately it's pretty stupid plotwise. But we can look at Haven all day. That is, as long as the Pulp Intl. girlfriends don't catch us. If you're interested, you can see Soft Places on numerous websites online. It premiered in the U.S.—yes, a real premiere in a real cinema—today in 1978. 
 It's the cloche that makes the woman. 
Bette Davis is wearing a cloche in this elegant promo shot, knitted in such a way that it looks a bit like a brain. At least to us. This is actually appropriate, because Davis was considered one of Hollywood's brainy set. It couldn't have been easy for her. She said intelligence was a hinderance for women in Hollywood—and the world in general—in the sense that it generated resistance from entrenched male authority. She commented in a 1965 interview that there was “deep resentment from the male side of the business.” She didn't let it stop her though, and became one of the industry's biggest stars on her own terms. We don't have a date on this image, but it's an early one, probably from around 1933.
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The headlines that mattered yesteryear.
1950—U.S. Decides To Fight in Korea
After years of border tensions on the partitioned Korean peninsula, U.S. President Harry Truman orders U.S. air and sea forces to help the South Korean regime repel an invasion by the North. Soon the U.S. is embroiled in a war that lasts until 1953 and results in a million combat dead and at least two million civilian deaths, with no measurable gains for either side. 1936—First Helicopter Flight
In Berlin, Germany, in a sports stadium, Ewald Rohlfs takes the Focke-Wulf Fw 61 on its first flight. It is the first fully-controllable helicopter, featuring two counter rotating rotors mounted on the chassis of a training aircraft. Only two are ever produced, and neither survive today. 1963—John F. Kennedy Visits Berlin
22 months after East Germany erects the Berlin Wall as a barrier to prevent movement between East and West Berlin, John F. Kennedy visits West Berlin and speaks the famous words "Ich bin ein Berliner." Suggestions that Kennedy misspoke and in reality called himself a jelly donut are untrue.
2009—Farrah Fawcett Dies
American actress Farrah Fawcett, who started as a model but became famous after one season playing detective Jill Munroe on the television show Charlie's Angels, dies after a long battle with cancer. |
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