| Femmes Fatales | Jun 20 2020 |
Annabella is molto bella from every angle.
Every side is Italian actress Annabella Incontrera's good side, as you can in the four shots above. We should all be so lucky. Despite a name that comes off the tongue like poetry, Incontrera sometimes acted as Pam Stevenson, and well, no offense to any Pams or Stevensons out there, but that pseudonym surely had to be the idea of an unimaginative agent or studio head. In the end it was as Incontrera that she made her mark, appearing in several notable Italian giallo and horror films, including La tarantola dal ventre nero, aka Black Belly of the Tarantula, Sette scialli di seta gialla, aka Crimes of the Black Cat, and Perché quelle strane gocce di sangue sul corpo di Jennifer?, aka These Italian Movie Titles are Purely Nuts. She also popped up for a moment in Dean Martin's tongue-in-cheek caper flick The Ambushers as a slaymate. Well, she slays us. These photos are undated but from around 1968.
ItalyThe AmbushersLa tarantola dal ventre neroBlack Belly of the TarantulaSette scialli di seta giallaCrimes of the Black CatPerché quelle strane gocce di sangue sul corpo di Jennifer?The Case of the Bloody IrisAnnabella IncontreraPam Stevensongiallo
| Vintage Pulp | Jan 5 2019 |
Upon close inspection everything looks ship shape.
Model and actress Mara Corday, née Marilyn Watts, captains this nautical 1953 Corp. A. Fox Technicolor lithograph. Corday is one of those vintage actresses who has a cult following today, which in her case mainly derives from starring in three cheesy sci-fi films—Tarantula, The Giant Claw, and The Black Scorpion. She also appeared in some thrillers and noirs, but her stardom was truly cemented when she was Playboy magazine's Playmate of the Month for October 1958. That centerfold may be one of the most demure the magazine ever published, but the issue sold well, owing to Corday's status as an established movie star. She's still with us at age eighty-eight, and these images are nice mementos from a time when legions of fans were willing to sail anywhere with her.
PlayboyTarantulaThe Giant ClawThe Black ScorpionMara CordayMarilyn WattsCorp. A. FoxA. Fox Corp.Technicolor pin-upsci-fi
| Vintage Pulp | Dec 28 2008 |
Little known film gave us first known instance of overacting on a movie poster.
Despite the cinema-style one sheet, Tarantulas: Deadly Cargo was made for U.S. television. Claude Akins and a cast of b-stalwarts—including Dr. Johnny Fever himself, Howard Hesseman—give this one everything they’ve got. Sadly, they are saddled with a preposterous storyline and upstaged by their own promo department, which slapped together a poster that portrays most of the film’s salient plot points (storm, lightning, plane crash, nearby city, spider swarm, and so forth) without taking up 100 minutes of your life. Plus it’s got that giant, horrified head we haven’t seen the likes of since, er, ever. Art fun, movie not so much. Tarantulas: Deadly Cargo premiered in the U.S. today in 1977.
