Pulp International

May 27 2023

Ask not for whom the Bell is mistaken.

If you do an image search on the above photo, every website in which it exists (that would include Getty Images, Yahoo, CNN, et al) says it's Paula Kelly, shot during the making of the 1972 blaxploitation movie Trouble Man. There's just one problem—she isn't Paula Kelly. She's actually—and obviously, we think—Jean Bell, who appeared in such movies as TNT Jackson and Policewomen. Bell and Paula Kelly don't look alike, but just the same they're the victims of an IRE™ (internet replication error) that probably will never be corrected. We're not perfect here, but we also don't have a research department like CNN and Getty Images. Because of the misidentification we don't have a copyright on this shot, but it's probably from around 1974.

Trouble Man TNT Jackson Policewomen Jeanne Bell Jeanie Bell Jean Bell Paula Kelly blaxploitation

Femmes Fatales

May 15 2023

My friend likes to knit. She really likes to knit. And you're gonna let her knit you a scarf or you're meat.

Above: a photo featuring Barbara Nichols, gun-toting Shirley Knight, and crafts-ready Constance Ford, made for the 1962 prison movie House of Women. Why does Ford have knitting needles? This probably comes as a surprise to most of you (or maybe we're underestimating knowledge of the prison system, considering one of every five prisoners on the planet are in jail in the U.S.), but in certain American jurisdictions, as well certain places internationally, very young children can live with their mothers in prison. House of Women deals with that strange reality, and makes for an unusual and interesting promo shot.

House of Women Shirley Knight Barbara Nichols Constance Ford women in prison

Vintage Pulp

Apr 11 2023

Wife trading this week. Wife trading last week. Why can't we just stay home and screw each other?

Softcover Library Alex Carter Clement Micarelli cover art literature

Femmes Fatales

Jan 25 2023

Whew! I'm getting tired. But there you have it—the letter Y. Next up is my finale—the letter Z!

Georgine Darcy shows her dancing flexibility in this promo image made in 1954, around the time she was making her debut in Rear Window. She appeared in a few other films, among them Women and Bloody Terror, and guested on about a dozen television shows—Mike Hammer and Peter Gunn come to mind—but she'll probably always be remembered as Miss Torso from Hitchcock's classic. The only thing is, they should have called her character Miss Everything, because she's got it all.

Rear Window Women and Bloody Terror Mike Hammer Peter Gunn Georgine Darcy television

Vintage Pulp

Jan 19 2023

Unlike mama's boys, they're fully able to take care of themselves.

Ages ago we shared a Turkish poster for the blaxploitation flick Black Mama, White Mama, with Pam Grier and Margaret Markov. Today we're sharing the U.S. promo, as well as a nice production photo of the stars. The movie, which premiered today in 1972, was a regendering of The Defiant Ones, but done with a lot more skin and a lot less budget. Even so, it was pretty fun, as women-in-prison flicks go—if you start with modest expectations. You can see more promos from the film here.

Black Mama White Mama Pam Grier Margaret Markov poster art cinema sexploitation women in prison blaxploitation

Vintage Pulp

Jan 18 2023

There's something very fishy going on.

This promo poster just screams winner, don't you think? If it isn't a good movie, it's got to be deliciously terrible. It was made for L'isola degli uomini pesce, known in English as The Island of the Fishmen, a movie that starred Richard Johnson, Barbara Bach, and Claudio Cassinelli. No surprise what it's about, thanks to the title, but nothing is spoiled—the fishmen show up within the first few minutes of the film when a group of convicts in a lifeboat are attacked and the five survivors end up stranded on a swampy island. Since the fishmen hunt there, the attrition rate on this parcel of land is a bitch. Two cons are killed almost immediately upon arrival, and a third barely survives a pit trap. They soon learn humans live there too—paranoid misanthrope Richard Johnson, his companion Barbara Bach, their servant Beryl Cunninghman, and others, all residing in and around a baroque slave plantation house.

Johnson, who is a quack scientist, is trying to train the fishmen for what shall here remain undisclosed purposes. It involves going deep underwater where humans can't survive—but strangely, not so deep that Johnson can't simply drop down in his unpressurized wooden submersible and watch them at work. It's all a crock, even for bad sci-fi. But there are three points of note with the film: first, you can actually see that some budget went into creating the fishmen; second, Johnson speaking in a constipated Dick Dastardly voice is flat hilarious; and third, Barbara Bach is Barbara Bach. Or maybe we should have listed her first. The producers at Dania Film, perhaps realizing Fishmen was a total woofer, rode Bach hard, putting out a bunch of skinful promotional photos and getting her a Fishmen-themed nude shoot in Ciné-Revue. There's always a silver lining in 1970s exploitation cinema—and on Pulp Intl. L'isola degli uomini pesce premiered in Italy today in 1979.

Italy L'isola degli uomini pesce The Island of the Fishmen Ciné-Revue Barbara Bach Claudio Cassinelli Richard Johnson Joseph Cotten Beryl Cunningham poster art cinema horror sci-fi sexploitation nudity movie review

Vintage Pulp

Dec 3 2022

I'll cover his face with the sports section. I think he would have liked that.

The Frightened Stiff, which was first published in 1944, with this Dell edition coming in 1953, was written by Kelley Roos, and centers on his franchise detective Jeff Troy, who along with wife Haila starred in a run of popular mysteries with a comedic bent. This is the third in the set, with cover art by Len Oehmen.

Dell Publications Kelly Roos Len Oehmen cover art literature

Vintage Pulp

Nov 17 2022

Black don't crack a smile.

Above is a second excellent tateken poster for Shin joshuu sasori: 701-gô, known in English as New Female Prisoner Scorpion: 701, with Yumi Takigawa dressed in black from head to toe and looking ready to deal out death. These tateken style promos are rare, so we're happy to have found two. As usual, we like to share posters on a film's premiere date, and that was today in 1976.

Japan Toei Company Shin joshuu sasori: 701-gô New Female Prisoner Scorpion: 701 Yumi Takigawa poster art cinema pinku pinky violence women in prison

Modern Pulp

Oct 15 2022

Machete Maidens Unleashed! is a mandatory look at grindhouse moviemaking during the untamed 1970s.

Machete Maidens Unleashed! is a film we've watched a few times, and whenever a movie racks up multiple viewings we think it needs to be highlighted. It's a fast paced documentary about the wave of low budget exploitation flicks made in the Philippines from the late ’60s through the ’70s. We weren't old enough to see any of them during the actual grindhouse era, but caught them in later years, and one reason we came up with this website was for the opportunity to riff on these types of flicks. Over the last decade-plus we've had the pleasure of writing about entertaining dreck like Savage Sisters, The Big Doll House, Night of the Cobra Woman, and Cleopatra Wong.

Built around interviews with stars such as Pam Grier, Sid Haig, Margaret Markov, Gloria Hendry, and directors/producers like Eddie Romero, Jack Hill, Joe Dante, and Roger Corman, Machete Maidens Unleashed! is an insider's look at a unique era in cinema history. It compellingly juxtaposes snippets of cinematic insanity against clips of the performers involved laughing over the craziness of it all. While the movies

discussed often fall into the category of sexploitation, at the time they were also considered an adjunct of the women's liberation movement—a point made by a couple of the actresses interviewed. Coming out of the sexually repressive decades of the fifties and early sixties, nudity was seen as a rebuke to patriarchal control.

Covering productions ranging from 1964's The Walls of Hell to 1979's big budget war flick Apocalypse Now, this is a wide ranging documentary, and by far the most entertaining one on the subject matter we've seen. What with our website's Philippine provenance, and with PSGP having spent a couple of years in Guatemala, another country where life was cheap but fun was unparalleled, this also hit us directly in the nostalgia gland (PSGP feels like the only reason these films weren't made in Guatemala is because everyone actually would have been murdered, instead of just thinking they would).

All the interviewees seem to understand that they're from an extinct breed of very brave film performers, making entertainment for audiences ready to see absolutely anything happen. It sometimes seems that modern audiences have forgotten that the filmmaker is not the material, and the actor is not his or her character. The message comes through strongly here that movies are simply make believe. The creators may

want to outrage, or teach, or push censorship envelopes, or illuminate themes that leave audiences enriched in some way, but it's still just a job they perform before going home to their real lives. We wouldn't be surprised if some of the interviewees now feel they'd been traumatized, but during this movie, at least, they shrug off the difficulties of filming—ranging from extreme weather to graphic nudity to military revolt—as obstacles true professionals must navigate.

The title cards of some of these films should be enough by themselves to intrigue you. We have a set below. We've also mixed in some screenshots. We'd love to have uploaded actual production photos, but the films are so low budget those are close to impossible to find. But why look at photos when you can watch the movies? Give it a shot. Quarts of booze are optional. Machete Maidens Unleashed! had its world premiere in Australia in the summer of 2010, and first hit U.S. shores today the same year at the Philadelphia International Film Festival. We've pointed you toward a few Philippine grindhouse flicks above, and you can read about more—there are so many, so please excuse the avalanche of links—here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.

Philippines Australia Manila Philadelphia Philadelphia International Film Festival Machete Maidens Unleashed!poster art cinema sexploitation blaxploitation women in prison movie review

Vintage Pulp

Oct 14 2022

Worse than Alcatraz. Tougher than Rikers. It's the prison island of scantily clad women.

This tateken style poster was made to promote the Edo era drama Onna-ro hizu, generally known in English as Island of Horrors. The story centers around Nembutsu Island, a rocky outcropping in the Shiranui Sea used as a prison. It's inhabited by about fifteen coincidentally beautiful female captives and six samurai guards. Nobody calls the island by its real name. It's usually referred to as either the Isle of Women, which sounds kind of fun, or Decapitation Island, which does not. The new warden has been assigned there as punishment for not being tough enough in his other stops—a charge he's eager to disprove, with the help of the slap-happy guards and their baroque tortures. Additionally, the women are terrorized by Omasu the Ripper, your typical sadistic prisoner who subjugates the others in order to curry favor with her captors. And worse still, bubonic plague arrives. So, it's not overstating the situation to say that things are pretty bad on Nembutsu Island.

So how do you get the hell off that godforsaken rock? It isn't easy. The women are aware that sometimes there are pardons or paroles, and that knowledge gives them hope. But what if those lucky recipients sent from the island are not freed, but instead secretly sold into sexual slavery? Not saying that's what going on. But, you know, what if? Of course, there's no way the prisoners could ever find that out unless someone who was supposedly freed returned to the island. Omasu has her own departure plans. She tells the warden she knows where a cache of stolen ryō—gold currency—is hidden, trying to leverage it for freedom. She tries to leverage her body for that purpose too. But in the end, release from Nembutsu Island may come down to simple teamwork, and watching the inmates come to that conclusion makes for a well above average women-in-prison drama, worth a watch for the darkly beautiful cinematography and island visuals, as well as good performances from stars Maya Kitajima, Reiko Kasahara, and Yuki Aresa. Onna-ro hizu premiered in Japan today in 1970.

Japan Daiei Studios Onna-ro hizu Island of Horrors Masakazu Tamura Maya Kitajima Reiko Kasahara Yuki Aresa women in prison poster art cinema movie review