We're taking a break and heading to a Mediterranean island of beauty and intrigue.
It’s been a while since we took a break—since last August in fact. Normally we head off in March for our epic vacation/birthday celebration, the moveable feast we’ve staged in Lisbon, San Miguel de Allende, Antigua, Cadiz, and other spots, but we had to put it off this year because one of our group had scheduled an ironman in March and would have had no chance at all of doing that if she needed to recover from our holiday. So we pushed it to April. Tomorrow we’re all flying to Malta. We’ll be there, mainly in the city of Valetta, for two weeks, but with pre-written content Pulp Intl. will be idle only seven days.
So, what’s in Malta? Aside from some wonderful architecture and decent beaches, we have no idea. Then why go? It simply struck us that you rarely hear about the place, and destinations that are little discussed have served us well in the past. Since the island is British influenced it will give us a break from speaking Spanish for a while, and we suspect that in any English speaking enclave pulp exists. The island is also very Sicilian and Venetian, and Italy is another of the top pulp cultures. We’ll seek out used book stores and see if we score anything nice. Please explore Pulp Intl. while we’re gone. See you soon.
Below: more vintage paperback covers featuring the Tour Eiffel, or Eiffel Tower. You can see our other collections here and here, and there are two more towers at these two links, as well.
The revolution will not be televised. But it might be caught on security cameras.
It was today in 1974 that nineteen-year-old heiress Patricia Hearst, along with members of a revolutionary group called the Symbionese Liberation Army, robbed a branch of Hibernia Bank in San Francisco, and were photographed by security cameras, leaving the dramatic imagery you see above. A picture is worth a thousand words, so the saying goes, but the audio recording of Hearst, who’d changed her name while in captivity, is close to priceless: “I’m Tania! Up, up, up against the wall, motherfuckers!” That’s hardcore. It’s post-noir femme fatale. We actually thought she might the first femme fatale we ever posted on our website. We were wrong—she was the second.
She was arrested for her various crimes in September 1975, and because she was the granddaughter of gargantuan publishing magnate William Randolph Hearst, was able to afford ace attorney F. Lee Bailey, who with his legal team went all-in on the defense concept that has since become known as Stockholm Syndrome. Invented by a Swedish psychiatrist in 1973 as a defense for the robber of a Stockholm bank, the term was originally Norrmalmstorgssyndromet. Stockholm Syndrome is much easier to pronounce.
As you probably know, Stockholm Syndrome is a brainwashing concept positing that captives can become sympathetic to their captors, and pliable to their wishes and beliefs. It isn’t an actual clinical disorder, but rather pop psychology unrecognized by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.
Widespread public knowledge of the idea came about because of Hearst, and there was a prurient tinge to many people’s deep emotional investment in her trial deriving partly from her having been abducted by a group whose figurehead—Donald DeFreeze, aka Cinque—was black. Richard Pryor had a bit about Hearst and Cinque, and all you need to know about it is that the term “pussywashed” was the punchline. However Hearst claimed to have been raped, not seduced.
Certainly the idea of duress is easy to believe. The SLA were deadly serious. Two people who wandered into Hibernia Bank during the 1974 robbery were shot by SLA members. The SLA assassinated people. They robbed other banks. They made bombs. These were not people to mess with. “Do it or we’ll kill you/rape you/torture you/come after your family/all of the above” is not a farfetched claim. But despite all Hearst’s money and Bailey’s legal genius, their defense was rejected. Hearst was sentenced to thirty-five years in prison, soon reduced to seven. However, President Jimmy Carter commuted her term after twenty-two months, and President Bill Clinton later pardoned her.
Needless to say, if that happened today, people would absolutely fuh-reak. Some would rightly point out that a high percentage of crimes are carried out under duress yet that fact never cuts ice with prosecutors and courts. Others would rightly note that rape is a crime for which women often seem to bear blame and face consequences, and it looked to be happening yet again. Still others (of a more Confederate bent) would simply want Cinque hung from a yardarm. The confusion, anger, hatred, and infighting would be seismic. But freakouts or not, we think Hearst would still be released. Why? Because political influence is the only currency that never goes down in value. See more Hearst here.
Fighting crime and supporting books. Is there anything these two can't do?
These six-and-a-half inch tall novelty ceramic bookends were manufactured by National Periodical Publications, which was the predecessor of DC Comics. They’re from 1966, the year the kitschy Batman television show starring Adam West and Burt Ward premiered, so presumably these were a promotional tie-in. The character of Batman first appeared in 1939, so although he’s a DC creation, it’s actually thanks to NPP that he became a cultural icon. We like these items, but not at the price asked. We would rather use the money on actual books. Also, we don’t need bookends. We keep our books on an unused staircase, which means the propping comes automatically. But still, these are very nice items. We have a lot of Batman related content in the website. Click his keyword to see more.
To the disappointment of many her white nightie has come to the rescue.
Belgian actress, model, and dancer Monique Van Vooren appears above in a late-1950s Corp A. Fox lithograph titled, “Sweet Dreams.” The shot originally appeared in Cabaret Quarterly in 1957, but may not have become a litho until a year or three later. As a reminder, items like these were generally calendar samples salesmen brought around to gas stations, insurance companies, and the like. Those businesses could then have the litho printed with their name for advertising purposes. Van Vooren, we imagine, drove sales rather nicely. She eventually made twenty one movies, appearing in fare such as Tarzan and the She-Devil, Flesh for Frankenstein, and the television series Batman. We last saw her on Pulp Intl. ten years ago, but she’ll probably be back.
Marée stakes a claim as one of the best vintage cover artists.
Dutch artist Piet Marée has to be considered a true contender. His covers showcase a unique style that consistently dazzles the eye. These were made for novels by Dutch authors Aleid Ages-van Weel and Luc Willink, and French author Alexandre Dumas, and were editions from 1949 and 1950 of works from decades earlier. The Dumas book is obviously The Three Musketeers, which goes all the way back to 1844 and is one of the most successful early books by a black author (his father was a freed slave). Marée winkingly painted the cover’s duellists in a city setting that architecturally is Dutch, not French. It’s a fun touch. The previous two covers we shared from him are as amazing as those here. Click his keywords below to see.
How do I know I'll be killed? Because I've come to understand that people think I'm an enormous douche.
Above: alternate Signet Books cover art for Manly Wellman’s crime thriller Find My Killer. We read the 1957 Signet edition last year. This is the rarer 1949 edition, with uncredited cover art. Check here for more info.
The only person who needed to stay in a closet was the author.
First of all, Eve Linkletter’s 1958 novel The Gay Ones goes for over a hundred dollars on some sales sites. Our version, which was published by Fabian Books with purple cover art illegibly signed, was only fifteen. Some sites say the artist’s signature reads, “Chuck,” but we demur. It’s “something-huck,” but the obscure letter doesn’t look like a “C” to us. It looks like part of the signature was cropped. Whoever the artist is, they go in the mystery bin.
The edition is also unusual because it comes with Linkletter’s portrait on the rear. Though she probably had nothing to do with that decision, it suggests Fabian trying to present her as a writer of some importance. Well, alright, let’s see about that.
The Gay Ones deals with Jerry Kenmore, effeminate from his earliest days and resentful toward his mother for apparently making him that way. He grows up in Philadelphia and has only a single friend—neighbor girl Norma, who’s moved away by her parents when she’s maybe ten or twelve. Jerry keeps in contact with her via letters as he grows up, and though they declare their love for each other he doesn’t want to get her hopes up if he’s in fact gay, so when he’s eighteen he runs away to New Orleans to discover himself.
It’s there that he lucks into a lucrative job. The hitch? It’s as a female impersonator at a place called the Powder Box Club. Thus begins his odyssey of discovery, funelled through trying experiences and unusual characters, all leading to a chance meeting, a screen test at Starlight Motion Pictures, and a move to Hollywood—which by coincidence is where Norma happens to live. All the while he’s resistant to the idea that he might prefer men over women. Will he and Norma connect sexually, or will Jerry embrace his other identity?
Considering the book’s fame it wasn’t anything like we expected. It’s poorly written throughout. There are random full-word capitalizations everywhere, for example: He knew this was the quickest way to get directly on the subject of SEX. Also capitalized are terms like DRAG QUEEN, NIGHT CLUB, SCREEN TEST, and PARTY CRASHERS. It’s bizarre. Yet for all its debilitating flaws, the book does bear a sense of experience. It’s episodic and anecdotal in sections, which, because some of the details are so precise and weird, we took as Linkletter trying to fit into the narrative the stories of real people she’d known.
As disastrous as her writing is, we suppose she actually is important because she makes clear how terrible existence can be for those unable to go forth in the world as the people they really are. That all her efforts lead to a groan inducing ending in which godly condemnation is brandished at the gay community is a major letdown, but we suppose it’s unavoidable for the time period. Ultimately, we don’t recommend the book for pleasure purposes, but we agree there’s probably some minor historical significance to it. You decide.
This 1935 photo shows Hollywood legend Lucille Ball in femme fatale mode wearing a gondolier style hat inspired by the movie Top Hat, which was set on the Venetian Lido and featured gondolas and gondoliers. Thanks not only to her shows, but also her general business smarts, Ball was one of the most successful personalities in the history of Hollywood. When she and her husband Desi Arnaz, Jr. created the television hit I Love Lucy they made sure they owned the syndication rights, though old episodes of a show (known today as reruns) were thought to be of dubious value. Ball’s gamble paid off, and she was eventually worth about $60 million. See a couple of photos of her in sexy mode at the beginning of her brilliant career here.
This poster for the Italian giallo flick Sei donne per l’assassino waspainted by Marcello Colizzi (sometimes referred to as Mario Colizzi or Mauro Colizzi), and we’ll tell you right away it’s a very predictive poster. Bodies are piled up like cordwood because that’s exactly what happens in the film. We’ll get to that. We saw Colizzi recently in this collection of circus posters. His is the second one, the one with the giraffe. He was famed for his circus posters, but as you can see he was no slouch at movie promos. He also created memorable illustrations for 1955’s Bad Day at Black Rock and 1960’s The Unforgiven, as well as more obscure efforts such as Nebo zovyot, aka Battle Beyond the Sun, and Arrivano i titani, aka My Son, the Hero. We may see more from him later.
As we said, Sei donne per l’assassino, which is known in English as Blood and Black Lace, is a giallo. When a fashion model is killed by a masked figure it’s soon revealed that the dead woman kept a diary, seemingly filled with sensitive information about her friends, boyfriend, and co-workers. At first it looks like this little book is going to be the MacGuffin sought for the entire film, but it gets incinerated in a fireplace early on. That doesn’t seem to soothe the killer, though. Is crucial information from the diary now known? There’s only way to be sure—keep murdering. It’s serial killer logic. This maniac is pretty scary, swaddled in an Ace bandage headwrap, a black trenchcoat, and topped by a fedora. What’s the deal? Why all the killing? We won’t tell you.
Sei donne per l’assassino is a technical masterclass. Director Mario Bava and cinematographer Ubaldo Terzano flaunt their prowess at every turn. Each shot is painstakingly thought out, with framing, blocking, color, lighting and shadow, movement, and set dressing all making for a spectacular mise-en-scène that dazzles the eye. Even if you’re not a cinephile, you’ll know something special is happening, the same way you do when you first see Blade Runner, Days of Heaven, or The French Dispatch. Too bad all of this couldn’t have been expended on a slightly better film, but that’s okay, because Sei donne per l’assassino is a giallo, after all, and those are not known for being fully coherent. It’s incredibly watchable, and that’s what matters here.
The visuals will do a number on your brain. You’ll get the sneaking suspicion that symbology lurks everywhere on the screen. “Wait—is that symbolic?” Probably not—you’re probably overthinking it. “No wait—is that symbolic?” Don’t worry, though, you’ll understand it all by the end. Gialli sometimes have a character sum the whole twisty mystery up for you. Sei donne per l’assassino follows tradition, so it doesn’t leave you hanging even if it leaves its entire cast broken and bleeding. Within its genre, we’d call this a mandatory watch. And because of its luscious look it may even be mandatory for all movie lovers. It premiered in Italy today in 1964.
American actress and playwright Mae West is sentenced to ten days in jail for obscenity because of the content of her play Sex. The trial occurred even though the play had run for a year and had been seen by 325,000 people. However West’s considerable popularity, already based on her risque image, only increased after the controversy.
1971—Manson Sentenced to Death
In the U.S, cult leader Charles Manson is sentenced to death for inciting the murders of Sharon Tate and several other people. Three accomplices, who had actually done the killing, were also sentenced to death, but the state of California abolished capital punishment in 1972 and neither they nor Manson were ever executed.
1923—Yankee Stadium Opens
In New York City, Yankee Stadium, home of Major League Baseball’s New York Yankees, opens with the Yankees beating their eternal rivals the Boston Red Sox 4 to 1. The stadium, which is nicknamed The House That Ruth Built, sees the Yankees become the most successful franchise in baseball history. It eventually closes in September 2008 upon being replaced by a new Yankee Stadium.
1961—Bay of Pigs Invasion Is Launched
A group of CIA financed and trained Cuban refugees lands at the Bay of Pigs in southern Cuba with the aim of ousting Fidel Castro. However, the invasion fails badly and the result is embarrassment for U.S. president John F. Kennedy and a major boost in popularity for Fidel Castro, and also has the effect of pushing him toward the Soviet Union for protection.
1943—First LSD Trip Takes Place
Swiss scientist Albert Hofmann, while working at Sandoz Laboratories in Basel, accidentally absorbs lysergic acid diethylamide, better known as LSD, and thus discovers its psychedelic properties. He had first synthesized the substance five years earlier but hadn’t been aware of its effects. He goes on to write scores of articles and books about his creation.
Edições de Ouro and Editora Tecnoprint published U.S. crime novels for the Brazilian market, with excellent reworked cover art to appeal to local sensibilities. We have a small collection worth seeing.
There have been some serious injuries on pulp covers. This one is probably the most severe—at least in our imagination. It was painted for Stanley Morton's 1952 novel Yankee Trader.
