Intl. Notebook

October 5 2024

SPACE TO RECHARGE

Creative energy = time + travel.

We were planning to take a break back in August, but we were already working on a website refurbishment, and when that ran long and overlapped our groups of summer visitors we found ourselves with a lot to do and not enough time in each day. We prioritized our friends of course, but we kept wrestling with the website revamp too, along with our developer, who was fighting to get the page up and running properly. In the end we had a lot of fun with our friends, and traveled around a lot, and the website turned out great, but we didn’t have a respite to recharge our brains like we do periodically. Now it’s time for that break, which we’re taking in the north of Spain. If all goes as planned we’ll be back October 11.

intermission

Vintage Pulp

October 5 2024

A DEEP SENSE OF LOSS

Disappearing is easy. Staying disappeared takes luck and determination.

Searching for a woman who’s disappeared is a standard plot in vintage fiction. John Boswell’s 1959 novel Lost Girl, the sequel to the previous year’s entertaining The Blue Pheasant, takes a swipe at the theme with professional photographer Chris Kent starring again. He meets a beautiful woman with a haunted past in a London painting studio, but right when they begin to take an interest in each other she vanishes. He’s inclined to forget her. She appears to have moved away, though the circumstances are unusual. But maybe she doesn’t want to be found. Who is he to ruin that ambition for her?

But others want answers, including the owner of the art studio, and a random acquantaince of the missing woman. Still, Kent remains blasé about the entire affair until a wealthy man offers to hire him to find the woman because she supposedly owns stock he wants to buy from her. Photographic proof is required, and Kent already knows her, so the rich guy considers him perfect for the job. Plus, the pay is quite good, and every photographer needs extra money. Kent accepts, and ultimately—no spoiler—traces his target all the way to Australia and into a twisted and sinister caper.

This was a good book. It made us curious about Boswell, but information on him is scarce. Well, we shouldn’t say scarce, exactly. Maybe he’s just tricky to isolate online because of other famous John Boswells that have lived. We suspect he was Australian, but don’t quote us on that. It’s possible he wrote only two books, but again, don’t quote us. You’d think two reasonably adept novels would lead to more output, but it’s never a guarantee. We’ll keep looking for info, and in due course we’re sure we’ll solve the mystery.

Australia, London, William Collins Sons & Co., John Boswell, John Rose, cover art, literature

Vintage Pulp

October 5 2024

FLORA AND FAWNING

Everybody falls in love with Bardot.

We’ve finally gotten back to French illustrator Clément Hurel after visiting with him in 2011 and 2017. He produced this breezy piece for the Brigitte Bardot film En effeuillant la marguerite, which means “pulling petals from the daisy,” a reference to the “he loves he loves me not” game played with flowers. The movie was called in English Plucking the Daisy. It was fun in a Marilyn Monroesque way. We don’t mean to derivatively compare Bardot to Monroe, but who came first? You know the answer. They’re both great, though, and Bardot, with her flashes of nudity, helped advance cinema into the modern era. We talked about En effeuillant la marguerite and shared a nice Japanese promo a while back. If you wish, proceed.

France, En effeuillant la marguerite, Plucking the Daisy, Mademoiselle Striptease, Brigitte Bardot, Daniel Gélin, Clément Hurel, poster art, cinema

Femmes Fatales

October 4 2024

GOING BALLISTIC

Well, everyone else's empathy and human decency have dwindled to nothing. I'm just following the trend.

Above: a nice production photo of U.S. actress Barbara Payton from her 1950 film noir Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye. Payton is a unique figure from mid-century Hollywood who we’ll be circling back to shortly.

Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye, Barbara Payton, film noir

Musiquarium

October 4 2024

LIMBER UP

How low can you go?

Have you ever limboed? Don’t take the album sleeve above as a suggestion—we wouldn’t want anyone to end up in traction. The imagery just struck us as interesting. The limbo originated in Trinidad and Tobago in the late 1800s, but was popularized during the 1950s largely by a single person—Trinidadian dancer Julia Edwards. From being a dance that was originally performed at wakes, it gained popularity until in the U.S. it became a party game.

Its adoption by the suburban masses helped fuel the limbo record craze. There are probably hundreds, most of them hopelessly obscure today. In the U.S. the releases peaked during the 1960s, when even musical luminaries like Chubby Checker got into the act with platters like Limbo Party, Limbo Rock, and Let’s Limbo Some More. We found ten limbo albums from 1962 alone. You really weren’t anybody if you didn’t limbo.

The vogue of the dance and accompanying music (often steel drum and calypso) is especially interesting to us as readers, because in the pulp literature of the time none of the private or and tough guys listened to anything other than jazz bands, classical, or crooners. Wouldn’t it have been great if Mike Hammer had brought a woman to his apartment and said, “Care to listen to a little calypso music? We could limbo.”

We’ve never limboed ourselves, but we’ve seen it happen at a wedding. We stood there bemused, but we’ll admit that the idea of a party where the hosts organize a limbo session is sort of appealing. It falls into the category of good clean fun that’s actually a little dirty due to the whole spread leg aspect. You wouldn’t want to do it in a short skirt. Or maybe you would. To each their own.

Anyway, we’ve shared a small collection of limbo album sleeves today. Take special note of Let’s Limbo!, which had a cover that wasn’t initially authentic enough, so to bring down the white glare the record re-issued the disc and added a clumsily layered in, presumably Trinidadian dancer. Weirdly, he seems to have gone under the limbo bar sideways, which as far as we know is cheating. Our advice: if you limbo, go hard.

Trinidad and Tobago, Chubby Checker

Vintage Pulp

October 3 2024

THEY DIDN’T KNOW JAC

For Horwitz Publications any celebrity would do.

Horwitz Publications, an Australian imprint that used celebrities on many of its book fronts during the 1960s, strikes again with this cover for Carter Brown’s 1962 detective caper The Dame. It features British actress Jacqueline Jones, who was in quite a few films, and also modeled nude as Lynn Shaw. We doubt Horwitz had any particular affinity for Jones—the photo was probably just available as a promotional handout and the company used it without permission. Why do we think that? We explain here. This is a nice result, though.

Australia, Britain, Horwitz Publications, Carter Brown, Jacqueline Jones, Lynn Shaw, cover art, literature

Hollywoodland

October 3 2024

THEM AGAINST THE WORLD

Bogart and Astor stand ready to defeat all comers.

This majestic promotional photo featuring Humphrey Bogart and Mary Astor was made for the 1942 film Across the Pacific. It isn’t one we’ve watched yet, but we’ll get to it, because this shot hints at high adventure of the best kind. Yes, we’re aware that the movie was not well reviewed in its day, but we’ll see about that.

Across the Pacific, Humphrey Bogart, Mary Astor

Vintage Pulp

October 2 2024

WAIT FOREVER

You got loose! Great! Untie me. Now would be good. Or...are you still mad I got you into this in the first place?

This cover is part of a series Barye Phillips was commissioned to paint for Signet Books’ Mickey Spillane novels, however The Long Wait isn’t part of Spillane’s legendary Mike Hammer series. Instead, in this tale he introduces a new character, George Wilson, and immediately dumps him into deep trouble. Wilson rolls into the fictional gambling haven of Lyncastle seeking to avenge the honor of his friend Johnny McBride, who had fled town five years earlier, a suspect in the murder of the district attorney.

Wilson looks enough like McBride that he’s able to assume his identity, which certainly throws the locals for a loop. The cops immediately try to arrest him for the murder but they have no evidence except fingerprints, and weirdly, Wilson doesn’t have any because his were burned off during a fiery bus crash. It gets even weirder. The crash caused amnesia. But Wilson remembers his buddy McBride because he also survived the crash, leading to the pair becoming pals afterward. Later, though, McBride dies falling off a bridge (unlucky, these two).

As the Lyncastle section of the story develops, you get a crime kingpin, a femme fatale who’s kept naked so she can’t leave the house, and other hard-boiled elements. While Wilson is no Mike Hammer, he’s plenty tough. He even makes a couple of hardened thugs faint dead away just by glaring at them. Spillane tops all the craziness off with a triple-twist ending. Degree of difficulty—high. Deductions—several. But the old routine is still pretty fun when it comes from a legend like Mickey.

Signet Books, Mickey Spillane, Barye Phillips, cover art, literature

Vintage Pulp

October 2 2024

SUMMER OF SIXTY-NINES

An idyll in the islands turns one woman's life upside down.

We’ve shared a couple of colorful posters by Italian artist Mario de Berardinis for the sexploitation movie Lesbo, but only last night did we get around to watching it. Written and directed by Edoardo Mulargia, it’s the story of famous writer’s wife, played by a twenty year-old Carla Romanelli, who on the island of Lesbos finds herself attracted to a fashion journalist played by Gisela Dali. Carla’s husband is impotent (and cries about it), but Romanelli isn’t looking to stray. She resists her urges but her husband begins to think she and Valli ending up in bed is inevitable, so he pays a gigolo to seduce his wife. The logic behind this is simply that— Well… actually we’re not sure. No wait—we get it. The gigolo will make Carla remember how much she loves dick, and keep her from caving in to Dali’s advances. Makes perfect sense.

Where would sexploitation cinema be without the Greek Isles? It’s a sobering thought, because the film world would be unbearably grey without those rocky archipelagos and islands stripping away the inhibitions of fevered European actresses. Not that you can see Lesbos well in the copy we watched. But having been to the Isles, we were able to use our memories to fill in the visual data. Lesbo’s heavy dramatics play out not only against travelogue scenery, but a sinuous soundtrack by Francesco de Masi. However, since the film was made during the censorship regime of Greece’s rightwing dictatorship it doesn’t generate much heat, and lesbianism is roundly condemned—while slapping around one’s wife is not. Do you want to put yourself through that? We didn’t think so. Lesbo premiered today in 1969.

Greece, Italy, Lesbos, Lesbo, Gisela Dali, Gizela Dalli, Giuseppe Cardillo, Peter Howells, Carla Romanelli, Kathe Haack, Mario de Berardinis, poster art, cinema, sexploitation, lgbt, movie review

Intl. Notebook

October 1 2024

THE SUBSTANCE OF FIRE

It takes planning and skill to contain a Blaze.

Burlesque dancer, nudist, and tabloid personality Blaze Starr is captured in oils by painter Joseph Sheppard in a photo made in his studio this month in 1955. Starr was only twenty-three, but well known thanks to an appearance the previous year in Esquire. Sheppard was also well known, and would continue growing into an artist of international renown. In addition to his numerous paintings, he was also a highly regarded sculptor with many works to his credit, and would eventually create the Brooks Robinson statue that stands outside Oriole Park at Camden Yards in Baltimore.

This portrait wasn’t the only one Starr and Sheppard made together, but it’s the only one that was photographed in progress. Or seemingly in progress, anyway. Considering that the painting actually looks finished, the shot may be staged. But it’s nice anyway. Sheppard also made either a study or a separate piece in pencils, with a reverse orientation, which you see below too. We probably won’t see Sheppard here again, but if you’re interested in his work there’s a website that shares his pieces and the details of his life. As for Starr, she’ll be back eventually. You can count on it. Meanwhile, see her again here and here.

Baltimore, Esquire Magazine, Blaze Starr, Joesph Sheppard, burlesque

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HISTORY REWIND

The headlines that mattered yesteryear.

October 7

1959—Dark Side of Moon Revealed

The Soviet space probe Luna 3 transmits the first photographs of the far side of the moon. The photos generate great interest, and scientists are surprised to see mountainous terrain, very different from the near side, and only two seas, which the Soviets name Mare Moscovrae (Sea of Moscow) and Mare Desiderii (Sea of Desire).

October 6

1966—LSD Declared Illegal in U.S.

LSD, which was originally synthesized by a Swiss doctor and was later secretly used by the CIA on military personnel, prostitutes, the mentally ill, and members of the general public in a project code named MKULTRA, is designated a controlled substance in the United States.

October 5

1945—Hollywood Black Friday

A six month strike by Hollywood set decorators becomes a riot at the gates of Warner Brothers Studios when strikers and replacement workers clash. The event helps bring about the passage of the Taft-Hartley Act, which, among other things, prohibits unions from contributing to political campaigns and requires union leaders to affirm they are not supporters of the Communist Party.

October 4

1957—Sputnik Circles Earth

The Soviet Union launches the satellite Sputnik I, which becomes the first artificial object to orbit the Earth. It orbits for two months and provides valuable information about the density of the upper atmosphere. It also panics the United States into a space race that eventually culminates in the U.S. moon landing.

October 4

1970—Janis Joplin Overdoses

American blues singer Janis Joplin is found dead on the floor of her motel room in Los Angeles. The cause of death is determined to be an overdose of heroin, possibly combined with the effects of alcohol.