This publicity photo from Warner Bros. shows six members of the studio’s beauty chorus posing on a ladder that was part of a pirate ship being used in the 1933 Busby Berkeley musical Footlight Parade. This is not the first time this movie has been mentioned on Pulp Intl. We shared an excellent magazine cover related to it last year. Among the chorus girls who appeared in the film were nineteen-year-old Dorothy Lamour and twenty-two-year-old Ann Sothern, both just beginning their careers. The women above are not identified, but if we had to guess we’d say Lamour could be third from the top.

Okay, so don’t rush out and rent this one. Los Vamipros de Coyoacán is a lucha libre themed movie, but we didn’t expect twenty of the first twenty-two minutes to be devoted exclusively to wrestling. In the first match tag team studs Mil Mascaras and Superzan dispatch their rivals, and in the second some nameless chump is choked to death. Then in the dressing room a bat (on a string) appears, transforms into a vampire, and drinks the corpse’s blood. The spindly finger of suspicion points toward a certain Count Braddock, who lives in a castle with some dwarves. This is a clear-cut case of racial profiling, since anyone could actually have drained the wrestler, but Mil Mascaras and Superzan happen to be right this time, so we’ll let it pass. Anyway, the plot here involves Braddock’s lust for the female lead Nora, played by Sasha Montenegro. Eventually he kidnaps her and the heroes have to venture to Braddock’s castle to try and retrieve her. Do they succeed? Well, there’s those dwarves. The nasty little guys squeak like mice, can turn into bats (on strings), and just love to jump on unsuspecting victims’ backs. But Mil Mascaras and Superzan aren’t the top tag team wrestlers in Mexico City for nothing. Dwarf toss much? Apparently they do. As to whether they rescue Nora you’ll just have to watch. If it helps entice you at all, there are some prostitutes who don’t seem to understand the concept of fleeing from danger. Pretty funny, that bit. Is there anything else to recommend to movie? Not really. But at least you don’t really have to rent it—you can watch the entire thing on YouTube starting with the first segment here. This turkey premiered in Mexico today in 1974. 

One thing about writing Pulp Intl. is it gives us an excuse to fill in blanks in our movie résumé. The Public Enemy, starring James Cagney, Jean Harlow, Edward Woods, and Joan Blondell, was one such blank—until last night. A rags-to-riches-to-ruin story, it was one of the earliest gangster flicks, one that was a big hit but which had suffered the scissors of Hays Code censors. It’s always interesting to note the scenes cut from a post-Code movie, because those say the most about attitudes of the times. For example, the scene in which Cagney is measured for a suit by a gay tailor differs in no discernable way from such scenes in today’s movies. There’s macho discomfort by the lead and effeminate fussing by the tailor that leads to the inevitable inseam measuring, all played for cheap humor. We don’t condemn or endorse this sort of thing—it’s just fascinating to see how little has changed in eighty some years. Two other scenes were cut due to sexual suggestiveness, and those are also quite interesting to watch.

This Japanese poster for 1971’s Creatures the World Forgot is different than the style of Japanese art we usually share, but the bold yellow color really struck us. The movie was produced by Hammer Studios, the same company that made the popular Raquel Welch lost world epic One Million Years B.C., and the follow-up When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth. But where the previous two movies chose to show early humans interacting with dinosaurs, Creatures—spoiler alert for Creationists—went the scientifically factual route and had no giant lizards. Hammer probably did it not out of truthfulness, but out of cheapness. But in any case science wins again. As far as the actual movie goes, there’s nobody of quite Raquel Welch’s stature involved, but Norwegian actress Julie Ege does about as good a job as any actress could in a production with no actual dialogue. And yes, she wears one of those fur bikinis and looks pretty good in it. Can we recommend the movie? Not really. But if you’re bored try watching it with a few of your cleverest friends and see who invents the best dialogue. By the way, if you’re the observant type you’ve probably deduced, by virtue of the fact that somehow the number 100 has snuck its way onto the poster, that the Japanese did not call the movie Creatures the World Forgot. The text actually says “one million years primitive man.” Or something like that. Creatures the World Forgot premiered today in 1971

Above is a brilliant poster for the film musical Gentlemen Marry Brunettes starring Jane Russell and Jeanne Crain. Both Brunettes and 1953’s Gentlemen Prefer Blondes had begun as novels written by Anita Loos, in 1927 and 1925 respectively. Blondes was of course a smash (it was actually the second time the book had been filmed) with Marilyn Monroe and Jane Russell in the leads. A year later Monroe was unavailable to reprise her role as Lorelei Lee, so both leads were rescripted into entirely new characters and Jeanne Crain scored the new part opposite Russell. Gentlemen Marry Brunettes appeared in 1955, but the result wasn’t quite as electric as Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. Same old story—it’s almost always pointless trying to capture lighting in a bottle twice, and a sequel without Monroe was destined to disappoint, at least artistically. But it did become one of the top box office movies of 1955. Amazing, considering it’s almost forgotten today. Seems the audience has stated its preference rather clearly. Well, even if Brunettes fell short of Blondes in the memorability department, there’s nothing forgettable about its Japanese poster.

Above is a poster for Isao Hayashi’s 1978 roman porno Inzetsu ama: Uzuku, which if you run across in English will be called… well, we don’t really know. Most websites that use English call it “Lewdness Woman Diver,” which doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue. It isn’t a direct translation either, because we know that the big red characters staring you in the face say “tingling.” We also know that an ama is a female diver who traditionally foraged in the water for delicacies like sea urchins and lobsters, but these days is more famous for pearl diving.

This beautiful poster for Vicente Minelli’s 1952 drama The Bad and the Beautiful was made for the film’s French release as Les ensorceles. A behind-the-scenes look at the rise of a legendary Hollywood producer, the story is told in triptych, with each section focused on someone the producer betrayed during his rise to the top. The three sections are wrapped in a framing device wherein the betrayed have been called together to hear the producer’s pitch for working together again. Of course, all of them are too angry to consider such a collaboration—at least at first.