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Pulp International - Jim+Brown
Vintage Pulp Jan 16 2024
THE BIGGEST AND THE BADDEST
Jim Brown commits multiple instances of polizia brutality.

We never like to go very long without highlighting the blaxploitation cycle in cinema, so above you see a nice poster for the 1973 Jim Brown actioner Slaughter's Big Rip-Off, which was retitled Un duro al servizio della polizia for its Italian release. That translates as, “a tough guy in the police service,” which is fitting for Brown, one of the toughest guys around. It should be noted though, that he doesn't play a cop in the film, but a vigilante who partners with the cops. There's no Italian premiere date, but Rip-Off screened in most of Europe in 1974, so it's safe to say the same is true for Italy. We've seen it, but we'll return to the subject later after we have another look. In the meantime you can enjoy two Italian posters for 1972's Slaughter here

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Vintage Pulp Oct 17 2022
BLACK DON'T SLACK
The man with the ebony gun.

Above is an Italian poster for the 1972 blaxploitation movie Black Gunn, which starred the one and only Jim Brown, along with Brenda Sykes and Martin Landau. In Italy it was titled Pistola nera spara senza pietà, which translates to, “black gun shoots without pity,” a clumsy phrase, but one that fits the movie. There's no release date for Italy, but it probably played there during the summer of 1973. We talked about it last year and shared a Japanese poster built around a photo-illustration, to which the above hand-painted effort serves as interesting contrast. The artist is uncredited.

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Vintage Pulp Aug 16 2022
SLAUGHTER'S HOUSE
There's only one rule: walk away or be blown away.


Above: an alternate poster by George Akimoto for the Jim Brown blaxploitation movie Slaughter, which first hit cinemas today in 1972. We've talked about it twice: here and here. Shorter version: All work and no play makes Jim a dull boy, which is why it's good Stella was totally down for some fun and games. 

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Vintage Pulp Jun 8 2021
GUNN RIGHTS
When Jim Brown stands his ground an entire city is turned upside down.


This Japanese poster was made to promote the U.S. blaxploitation flick Black Gunn, which in Japan was called スーパー・ガン, or “Super Gun.” The U.S. promo for the movie is nice too, but we prefer this version. Black Gunn starred Jim Brown as a Los Angeles nightclub owner whose little brother rips off the mob and stashes the cash in Brown's office safe. Little brother has also stolen and stashed ledgers containing information that could bring down the entire organized crime apparatus. Naturally, the mob comes looking and they aren't subtle about their methods. A few beatings and threats elicit some useful information, and pretty soon they're knocking on the door of Gunn's Club, as Brown's joint is called. Think his little brother is going to survive all this? If he did, you wouldn't get to see vengeful Jim beat, kick, and blast various members of mafia west.

Brown is usually a passable actor, no worse than average for action movies of the period, but here he seems to be sleepwalking, along with every other cast member apart from head villain Martin Landau. Brenda Sykes in particular seems to be adrift about a hundred nautical miles offshore. We chalk these performances up to a rushed production, but the good news is the action is explosive, so the film isn't a total waste of time. Plus it has Bernie Casey, and we'll watch him in anything. He had a palpable cool that should have been bottled and sold. Black Gunn premiered in the U.S. today in 1972.

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Hollywoodland Jul 22 2018
DESPERATELY SEEKING SUSAN
Rumors of her demise were greatly exaggerated.


We've featured the Canadian tabloid Midnight numerous times. This one appeared on newsstands today in 1968. On the cover readers get a headline referring to Robert F. Kennedy, who had been assassinated the previous month. His name is accompanied by a prediction that his killer, Jordanian nationalist Sirhan Sirhan, would in turn be assassinated. It wasn't an outrageous prediction—during the late 1960s newsworthy figures were being dropped like three foot putts. Sirhan was never murdered, though, and he's still around today, languishing at Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility in San Diego County, California.

Sirhan is an interesting character, but it's the story on Susan Denberg we're interested in today. Denberg, née Dietlinde Zechner, is a German born beauty who became a Playboy Playmate of the Year and screen actress, was a desired Hollywood party girl who, acording to sources, had relationships with Hugh Hefner and Jim Brown. She was generally regarded as one of the major sex symbols of her time, but she also became a drug addict. After making the 1968 film Frankenstein Created Woman Denberg returned to Europe and shunned the movie business. In fact, she kept such a low profile that for years sources incorrectly reported that she had died.

Midnight journo John Wilson claims to have visited Denberg in a Vienna mental hospital near the beginning of her self-imposed exile, and his article is basically a recounting of his chat with her. He describes her depressing surroundings and portrays her as a sort of broken bird, quoting her as saying, “I was a real party girl, going out every night, dating one man after another, running around doing wild things like getting drunk and dancing nude at parties. And then someone got me started on LSD and it made everything seem so clear. It was wonderful. Only I couldn't keep away from it, and after a while that was all I was doing, staying in my room and dropping LSD.”

In 1971 Denberg had a child, and by 1972 was making her living on the nudie bar circuit, working as a topless server at the adult cinema Rondell in Vienna, and later dancing fully nude at another Vienna nightspot called Renz. She also worked elsewhere in Europe, including Geneva, where in 1974 she tried to commit suicide by swallowing a reported 200 sleeping pills, an amount that surely would have been fatal had she not been quickly found and sped to a hospital. In 1976 she became a mother again and retired from nude dancing. Today she lives quietly in Vienna.

Denberg's story is filled with twists and turns, and yet it isn't unique in a place like Hollywood. As she makes clear, once enough power brokers, modeling agents, and studio types tell a woman she's special she's probably going to believe them, but once she believes them it's hard for her to keep her head on straight. She sums up her journey to Midnight, “They told me I was beautiful enough to go all the way to the top. They told me about all the fun up there, the kicks. They never told me about the booze and the drugs, the long slide down.” 

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Vintage Pulp Sep 29 2017
FURIOUS VENGEANCE
He's an extinction level event all by himself.


The two Italian posters above and the accompanying production photos below are from Jim Brown's violent 1972 blaxploitation flick Slaughter, a movie we talked about in detail last month. Short version: we really need to hit the gym. The photos show Brown, Stella Stevens, and Marlene Clark. The last two aren't frames from the film—in the film Brown's and Stevens' characters meet for the first time at a swimming pool, but there's no kissing, only wary flirtation. Those two photos show them getting along quite swimmingly between takes. Stevens has given the impression in interviews that sparks flew between her and Brown, and the images seem to confirm that. You can check out our original write-up on the movie here.

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Vintage Pulp Aug 16 2017
WHOLESALE SLAUGHTER
The mafia are no match for Jim Brown.


In the blaxploitation flick Slaughter Jim Brown plays Slaughter—no first name—a former Green Beret captain whose underworld connected father is killed by a car bomb. He vows revenge and guns down some of the responsible parties at an airport. That's when the government steps in and turns Slaughter into an operative in exchange for dropping murder charges. All he has to do is head to Mexico and capture the top mobster. South of the border he goes, where shootings, chases, and general mayhem follow as he pretty much turns the country upside down. There are occasional interesting visual flourishes during the violence, including hallucinatory ultra wide angle shots. Maybe director Jack Starrett heaped on the style a bit heavily, but it does set Slaughter apart, and in the end doesn't really harm the final product. Another thing heaped on is the racial insults, even more than in most blaxploitation, and if there's a lesson being imparted it's that eventually n-bombs go off in your face.

Blaxploitation is nothing without its femmes fatales, and in those roles Slaughter casts Marlene Clark and Stella Stevens. Clark, though talented, is mere window dressing here; Stevens gets a substantial temptress role, and she's perfectly suited for it, a dozen years after her Playboy centerfold appearance at age twenty-two, and about twice as beautiful in her mid-thirties. According to Brown, Slaughter is one of the three favorite films he starred in. Maybe Stella had something to do with that. In an interview some years back she was asked about the love scenes and said, “I was told that in the movie he did with Raquel Welch, he had a towel put between them, because he didn’t want to touch her flesh in the love scene with her.* I can tell you, we didn’t have anything between us except good feelings and fun.” Well, it looks like they had a good time to us too, and why not? Stevens is hot as hell and Brown is unadulterated manhood on a level few males can hope to reach. We think this one is well worth a watch for fans of the genre. Slaughter premiered in the U.S. today in 1972.

*Jim Brown is no fool, and we doubt he ever made such a request. Welch wore undergarments, which was probably always the plan, considering she has done no nude scenes during her career.
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Vintage Pulp Mar 16 2015
BASIC TRAINING
This trip sucks! Next time let’s just pay extra for first class!

The Mercenaries, aka Dark of the Sun isn’t a movie many remember, but we’re going to remember it, because this is a great pre-CGI action film—not perfect, but well above average. Based on Wilbur Smith’s novel Train from Katanga, and starring Rod Taylor, Jim Brown, Peter Carsten, and Yvette Mimieux, it tells the story of two mercenaries in the civil war-torn Congo hired to ride a military train upcountry, rescue a group of stranded people, and retrieve $50 million in uncut diamonds languishing in a time-locked safe. They have to do it within three days, which means making rushed preparations—notably, enlisting the aid of a dodgy ex-Nazi who commands the Congolese mercs needed to round out the mission. This Nazi is a really bad human, so it’s no surprise he gets into a chainsaw fight with the protagonist shortly after they meet. You’d think the hero would expect the unexpected from the guy after that—but no. The Japanese poster above, while not perfectly descriptive of the action, gets the mood of The Mercenaries across effectively, and it opened in Japan today in 1968.

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Vintage Pulp Jun 3 2011
RUNNING AND GUNNING
Another ’60s movie reminds us what we’re not getting in today’s cinema.

When we saw these Japanese posters for the 1969 western 100 Rifles, we made a special point to watch the film just so we had a good reason to share the art. So there you go. Now as for the actual film, there’s a moment about halfway through where mega sex symbol Raquel Welch says to black ex-NFL football star Jim Brown, “Do you want me?” That’s about as rhetorical a question as has ever been asked on a motion picture screen. Of course he wants her—who wouldn’t? But this being an American movie, the real question is, “What will the consequences be?” Because after all, even though interracial romance works just fine for millions of real life couples, in Hollywood that simply can’t be. Especially when you’re talking about heterosexual black males.

So we know someone’s going to end up dead. We could have prefaced that last statement with a spoiler alert, but we all know it wasn’t really a spoiler. As moviegoers, we’ve been trained to know happily-ever-after isn’t a component of these black/white love affairs. When 100 Rifles was made in 1969, it may have seemed America was on the way—if perhaps a bit turbulently—to a post-racial future. But forty-two years later we bet you can’t think of three other instances where a top tier white starlet had a love scene with a black man. So even though 100 Rifles offers up a reasonably compelling tale of guerrilla warfare on the Mexican frontier, and Burt Reynolds co-stars in a role perfectly crafted for his special brand of smarmy brilliance, and you even get an unforgettable nude minute of cult siren Soledad Miranda, what you come away with is yet another reminder of how creatively bankrupt modern Hollywood has become.

We don’t mean backrupt in terms of race, per se, but in terms of reality. Despite modern cinema being awash in CGI and 3D and THX sound and obscene budgets, as well as dozens of edgy stars, along with teams of clever writers and yachtfuls of execs who all claim to be mavericks, the movies are overwhelmingly soulless. 100 Rifles is not a great film, but even as a late-1800s period piece it asks relevant 1969-style questions about racial mixing, social struggle, and offers serious introspection about the worth of warfare. It's an interesting product of the time from which it sprang. That's worth a lot, in our book. By comparison, if we consider post-millennial movies a product of the time in which we now live, then the message seems to be: just don’t make us think.

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History Rewind
The headlines that mattered yesteryear.
March 19
1931—Nevada Approves Gambling
In the U.S., the state of Nevada passes a resolution allowing for legalized gambling. Unregulated gambling had been commonplace in the early Nevada mining towns, but was outlawed in 1909 as part of a nationwide anti-gaming crusade. The leading proponents of re-legalization expected that gambling would be a short term fix until the state's economic base widened to include less cyclical industries. However, gaming proved over time to be one of the least cyclical industries ever conceived.
1941—Tuskegee Airmen Take Flight
During World War II, the 99th Pursuit Squadron, aka the Tuskegee Airmen, is activated. The group is the first all-black unit of the Army Air Corp, and serves with distinction in Africa, Italy, Germany and other areas. In March 2007 the surviving airmen and the widows of those who had died received Congressional Gold Medals for their service.
March 18
1906—First Airplane Flight in Europe
Romanian designer Traian Vuia flies twelve meters outside Paris in a self-propelled airplane, taking off without the aid of tractors or cables, and thus becomes the first person to fly a self-propelled, heavier-than-air aircraft. Because his craft was not a glider, and did not need to be pulled, catapulted or otherwise assisted, it is considered by some historians to be the first true airplane.
1965—Leonov Walks in Space
Soviet cosmonaut Aleksei Leonov leaves his spacecraft the Voskhod 2 for twelve minutes. At the end of that time Leonov's spacesuit had inflated in the vacuum of space to the point where he could not re-enter Voskhod's airlock. He opened a valve to allow some of the suit's pressure to bleed off, was barely able to get back inside the capsule, and in so doing became the first person to complete a spacewalk.
March 17
1966—Missing Nuke Found
Off the coast of Spain in the Mediterranean, the deep submergence vehicle Alvin locates a missing American hydrogen bomb. The 1.45-megaton nuke had been lost by the U.S. Air Force during a midair accident over Palomares, Spain. It was found resting in nearly three-thousand feet of water and was raised intact on 7 April.
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