Yeah, you caught me, but I'd probably do it again. This shot shows up everywhere on the internet, but it’s still worth posting. It’s of course Steve McQueen, a bit battered but basically looking as if he hasn’t a care in the world, under arrest in Anchorage, Alaska for suspicion of drunk driving. He was turning doughnuts in the snow, which sounds to us like a fine idea. That was today in 1972. Bailed, McQueen never returned to Anchorage and was convicted in absentia of reckless driving.
McQueen of the road. We really like this photo. It’s a rare shot of Steve McQueen standing next to the Porsche 917A he drove while filming the racing drama Le Mans. The image’s dyes have faded, which means the distinctive baby blue of the famed car is now a ghostly grey. We could easily fix that in Photoshop, but we think the evanescent look is appropriate for McQueen, who died prematurely. Le Mans premiered today in 1971.
Have shotgun, will travel. This rare promo piece for Steve McQueen’s 1972 thriller The Getaway was produced for the film’s run in Japan in 1973. Based on a novel by Jim Thompson, co-starring Ali McGraw, directed by Sam Peckinpah, written for the screen by Walter Hill, and scored by Quincy Jones, The Getaway delivers on multiple levels, as does this poster.
Hard facts and grim fairy tales. Above is the cover of a December 1963 Uncensored, with Ava Gardner, Richard Burton, Carroll Baker and Steve McQueen. Inside, you get them, plus Suzy Parker, Elizabeth Taylor, Gemel Abdel Nasser, Cary Grant, Marlon Brando, Ursula Andress, Sean Connery, and the great Jean Seberg. And as a bonus, you can learn about hypnotism. We did it, and it really works. *wiggling fingers* Yooou will retuuurn to our website eeeevery daaaay. See all of our Uncensored posts here.
Everybody’s gonna know, you can’t catch a motorcycle when it wants to go. Here’s something we’ve never seen before. It’s Steve’s McQueen’s international motorcycle driver’s license, issued out of Geneva, Switzerland in 1964. We think it probably first appeared online here. Is it pulp? Perhaps not, but it is significant because McQueen made every guy in America want a motorcycle thanks to his bravura turn as the rough and tumble Captain Virgil Hilts, aka The Cooler King, in 1963’s The Great Escape. Haven’t seen it? Click the little linky here.
Everything’s coming up aces. Above is a promo poster from the former Yugoslavia for 1965’s The Cincinnati Kid, with Steve McQueen and Ann-Margret. The movie is actually set not in Cincinnati, but in depression-era New Orleans, with McQueen playing an up and coming poker player whose goal is to be recognized as the best in the world. But one man stands in his way—invincible poker master Lancey Howard, played by Edward G. Robinson. It’s The Hustler with cards. Highly recommended.
Hush-Hush News publisher Myron Fass was the king of sleaze. Hush-Hush News is a fresh addition to the Pulp Intl. tabloid collection, and though it’s an obscure imprint, it was owned by Myron Fass, who was one of the kings of American sleaze publishing during the sixties and seventies. He started as a comic book artist in 1946, and worked in that field until the mid 1950s. The satire magazine Lunatickle was his first publishing venture, and he moved into tabloid publishing soon afterward. Fass specialized in one-offs—editions meant to be printed only once. During the height of his empire he published fifty titles a month, covering any subject matter he thought would sell—wrestling, UFOs, punk music, horror movies, conspiracy, psychic phenomena, and so forth. His celebrity mags included Cockeyed, Exposed, The National Mirror, and Pic, all of which we’ll show you later. The above paper hit the streets today in 1971, and it features the usual combination of sexual teasing and race-baiting, but the most interesting thing to us is the shift we see inside from old to new school Hollywood. People like Stacy Keach, Patty Duke, and Steve McQueen are featured, while Hollywood gods like Frank Sinatra and Cary Grant have virtually faded from the scene. But the new school stars perhaps didn’t capture imaginations like the old guard, because in a few more years, a market that had once been glutted with tabloids would feature only a few. We’ll have more issues of Hush-Hush News in the future.
The streets of San Francisco. Czech and Polish posters for the 1968 detective thriller Bullitt, which starred the incomparable Steve McQueen and featured an urban San Francisco car chase, one of the great sequences of its kind in cinema history.
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The headlines that mattered yesteryear.
1933—The Gestapo Is Formed
The Geheime Staatspolizei, aka Gestapo, the official secret police force of Nazi Germany, is established. It begins under the administration of SS leader Heinrich Himmler in his position as Chief of German Police, but by 1939 is administered by the Reichssicherheitshauptamt, or Reich Main Security Office, and is a feared entity in every corner of Germany and beyond. 1937—Guernica Is Bombed
In Spain during the Spanish Civil War, the Basque town of Guernica is bombed by the German Luftwaffe, resulting in widespread destruction and casualties. The Basque government reports 1,654 people killed, while later research suggests far fewer deaths, but regardless, Guernica is viewed as an example of terror bombing and other countries learn that Nazi Germany is committed to that tactic. The bombing also becomes inspiration for Pablo Picasso, resulting in a protest painting that is not only his most famous work, but one the most important pieces of art ever produced. 1939—Batman Debuts
In Detective Comics #27, DC Comics publishes its second major superhero, Batman, who becomes one of the most popular comic book characters of all time, and then a popular camp television series starring Adam West, and lastly a multi-million dollar movie franchise starring Michael Keaton, then George Clooney, and finally Christian Bale. 1953—Crick and Watson Publish DNA Results
British scientists James D Watson and Francis Crick publish an article detailing their discovery of the existence and structure of deoxyribonucleic acid, or DNA, in Nature magazine. Their findings answer one of the oldest and most fundamental questions of biology, that of how living things reproduce themselves. 1967—First Space Program Casualty Occurs
Soviet cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov dies in Soyuz 1 when, during re-entry into Earth's atmosphere after more than ten successful orbits, the capsule's main parachute fails to deploy properly, and the backup chute becomes entangled in the first. The capsule's descent is slowed, but it still hits the ground at about 90 mph, at which point it bursts into flames. Komarov is the first human to die during a space mission.
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