 Eddie G. never goes down without a fight. 
Mid-century Belgian promo art strikes again. This is an epic poster. It was made for the crime drama Black Tuesday, which played in Belgium as Mardi ça saignera (French title) and Dinsdag zal er bloed stromen (Dutch title). Edward G. Robinson and Peter Graves star in the tale of two death row inmates who escape prison and go on the lam. Graves has hidden $200,000 from a bank robbery and Robinson plans to betray him and steal the dough. Unfortunately, Graves is critically shot during the escape and, even as he lies near death, refuses to say where the money is hidden. This is a pretty nice flick. Virtually any movie with Robinson is worth a viewing. He played many types of characters in his career, but he's known for portraying tough guys, and this is classic Edward G., with all the snarls and sneers fans had come to expect from romps like Little Caesar and Key Largo. And why wouldn't he snarl? Unless a doctor he's taken hostage can save the day the cash he lusts for will never be found. But maybe Graves won't die. Maybe he's tougher than he seems—and smarter too. Robinson never wins in his gangster roles, so it's a question of how he'll lose, not if. But it's always fun watching him fight the bad fight. Black Tuesday premiered in the U.S. in late 1954 and reached Belgium today in 1955.     
 It's the sad songs that always come back to haunt you. 
Above is a stunning Belgian poster in French and Dutch for François Truffaut's comi-tragic crime tale Tirez sur le pianiste, known in Dutch as Schiet op de pianist, in English as Shoot the Piano Player, and which starred Charles Aznavour as a hard luck nightclub musician. We talked about the movie in detail back in November. Shorter version: when French New Wave meets film noir strange things happen. There's no release date for Belgium but the movie probably opened there shortly after its premiere in France, which was in November 1960.
 This tree right here? It's mine. This patch of land around the tree too. Actually this whole forest is pretty much mine. 
You never know what wildlife you'll come across during a walk in the forest. If it happened to be U.S. actress Margaret Markov, well, she beats the hell out of a white-tailed deer or a black-rumped woodpecker or any other kind of fauna. Markov starred in the unforgettable prisonsploitation flick The Hot Box, the indelible blaxploitation flick Black Mama, White Mama, and the ineradicable swordsploitation flick The Arena. You won't get this photo out of your mind either. It appeared in the Belgian magazine Ciné-Revue in 1975.
 Predatory housing market claims more victims. 
Is there such a thing as a movie poster that's too effective? This particular promo was painted by J. Gommers to promote the Belgian run of the horror movie The Haunting. Luckily, we already saw the movie, because we aren't sure we'd brave it based on this freaky piece of art. It opened in the U.S. in 1963 and reached Belgium titled La Maison du diable in French, and Het duivelshuis in Dutch, sometime in early 1964. You can read a bit more about it here.
 Look! Smooth as two baby peaches. Anywhere else you want me to shave? 
Here's a nice cover for a Dutch paperback titled Nachtkatje, which translates as “night kitten,” written by Mike Splane, and published by Antwerp based Uitgeverij A.B.C. for its Collection Vamp in 1957. This publisher is not the same as Uitgeversmij, based in Rotterdam, Netherlands, and whose output we've shown you here and here. The cover on this is uncredited, but A.B.C.'s Vamp series often had Alain Gourdon art that had been modified from a previous form, and this piece has that look.
Everything we just wrote, we learned with minimal research. Now comes the part where our research falls short. You might guess that this is a translated Mickey Spillane novel, but we can't confirm that. If it's a translated Spillane it's mighty short—just sixty-plus pages. Which presents a problem. Spillane's short stories weren't published in book form until after 1957, at least not in the U.S. So finding out if this is a Spillane short—which we actually doubt—will have to wait for more knowledgable people than us. See more covers in the same vein here.
 Mansfield and her crew try to steal a million. 
This fantastic Belgian poster with lettering in French and Dutch was made for the 1957 film noir L'Ange des mauvais garçons, better known as The Burglar. Well, better known is relative. The movie is somewhat obscure but it shouldn't be—it's a film noir clinic, and this great promo, which was made for its run at the Ciné Capitole in Antwerp, befits such an artful movie. It's unsigned, so the creator will have to remain unrecognized for now. Conversely, we think the movie will garner more recognition as time passes. Jayne Mansfield co-stars but don't get your hopes up—she doesn't wear a black jumpsuit. Not even close. You can read more about the movie here.
 So far I've had malaria, dysentery, dengue, hookworm, and schistosomiasis, but baby, you make it all worth it. 
Once again cover art works its intended magic, as we made the choice of reading Georges Simenon's African adventure Tropic Moon solely due to being lured by Charles Copeland's evocative brushwork. This edition came from Berkley Books in 1958, but the tale was originally published as Coup de lune in 1933. It's set in Gabon, then a territory of French Equatorial Africa, and poses the familiar question: does Africa ruins whites or were they bad beforehand? The main character here, Joseph Timar, is done in by heat and booze and easy sex, but he was surely a terrible person before he ever set foot in Gabon, and of course he's a stand-in for all white colonials. All we can say is we get the message. We got it way back when Conrad wrote it. What would be great is some sense of evolution in all these Conrad-derived works, for instance if occasionally the human cost of colonial greed were shown to be black lives and prosperity rather than white dignity and morality, but literary treatments of that sort had not yet come over the horizon during the pulp era. On its own merits, though, Tropic Moon is interesting, a harrowing front row seat for a downward spiral in the equatorial jungle.
 Demongeot and her chambre of secrets. 
Above, a beautiful Belgian poster in French and Dutch for La chambre de Madame, aka Upstairs and Downstairs. We talked about it a while back. Shorter version—Mylène is the pause that refreshes.
 We knew Amazon working conditions were terrible, but now there's a monster too? 
This is a brilliant Belgian poster for a terrible U.S. monster movie originally called Curucu, Beast of the Amazon, about plantation workers who are being terrorized by a horrible creature—possibly Jeff Bezos. Considering the low pay, hard work, and lack of bathroom breaks, the workers should have gone on strike long before the monster showed up. Unfortunately, before they can get organized the man in charge materializes to set everything straight. That would be John Bromfield, armed with a machete and a strong sense of entitlement, while Not of This Earth's Beverly Garland plays a scientist wandering the same patch of jungle looking for a miracle drug. You'll need a miracle drug too, if you plan to watch this flick—we recommend mescaline. But really, you don't even have to watch it, because the poster covers all the salient plot points—Garland is attacked by a big rubber snake, Bromfield is attacked by a big stuffed leopard, they get tied up at one point but escape, and the villain dangles some shrunken heads at them before ending up one himself. Rapacious capitalism is saved again. The movie was called Curuçu sorcier de l'Amazone in French and Tovenaar van de Amazone in Dutch. There's no known Belgian premiere date for it, but it opened in the U.S. in late 1956 and probably reached Belgium in the middle of 1957. 
 No night is complete until you get your fille. 
Above you see a Belgian poster for the 1953 juvie drama Girls in the Night. This is an awesome piece of art. In basic form it isn't that different from the also great U.S. version we showed you at the bottom of this previous post, but here you get a purple and yellow color story, a different face on the femme fatale, and a nice treatment of the cityscape. Those make this piece a big winner.
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The headlines that mattered yesteryear.
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. 1961—Bay of Pigs Invasion Is Launched
A group of CIA financed and trained Cuban refugees lands at the Bay of Pigs in southern Cuba with the aim of ousting Fidel Castro. However, the invasion fails badly and the result is embarrassment for U.S. president John F. Kennedy and a major boost in popularity for Fidel Castro, and also has the effect of pushing him toward the Soviet Union for protection.
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