Vintage Pulp

December 3 2024

I, EXECUTIONER

Anatomy of murder through a rifle scope.

We noticed 1967’s Eye of the Sniper by Hal Kantor because of its premise, but it wasn’t quite what we expected. We knew there would be a serial killer, but not one who, using a rifle from a distance, makes victims only of women with whom he’s had sex. Pretty weird. Determined to nab this slayer of nine and counting at the book’s opening are police lieutenant Sam Sturgis and private dick Mitch Caiden, who in classic form do not like each other or cooperate in their efforts. A sleaze novel with constant violence? Um, okay. Was it any good? Not really. But it was different.

Pad Library, Hal Kantor, cover art, literature

Intl. Notebook

December 3 2024

GOING FOR A SPIN

So do you hang around here often?

This image, which we’ve seen around online a bit lately, shows a group enjoying a spin on an amusement park attraction often referred to as a centrifugal ride (in Newtonian mechanics centrifugal force is fictitious, for those who want to dig deeper). We’ve also heard these machines referred to as rotors, and some people call them gravitrons, but those are actually slightly different rides that weren’t invented until the 1980s. The rotor was created by German engineer Ernst Hoffmeister in 1948, and first unveiled during Oktoberfest a year later

If you’ve never seen a rotor and don’t know how they operate, basically it’s a spinning drum that accelerates until its riders are stuck to the wall, then the floor drops. The contraptions typically accelerated to about thirty-three rpms, creating an outward force of close to three times that of gravity. You notice below a couple of the more advanced riders managed to turn themselves upside down, which is pretty slick. These are interesting shots of good clean fun, made at a place called Luna Park, in the suburbs of Melbourne, Australia, circa mid-1950s.

Australia, Germany, Melbourne, Ernst Hoffmeister

Vintage Pulp

December 2 2024

TELL-ALL HOTEL

Her? She's not a guest. She's one of the amenities we offer our gold star clients.

The iconic Jim Thompson’s A Swell-Looking Babe has been re-issued a few times, but we’re fond of its debut edition as a Lion Books paperback in 1954. It has uncredited cover art, but it’s a nice effort. The star of the story is young Dusty Rhodes, who works as a bellboy in the fictional Manton Hotel and breaks the house rules when he gets involved with beautiful guest Marcia Hillis. The novel takes a weird, Oedipal twist when his feelings are revealed to be rooted in love for his mother, but in any case, he’s obsessed by Hillis. Later, to help her out of a jam, he accepts a favor from a resident gangster named Tug Trowbridge, and is subsequently pressured into helping rob his workplace. At first it looks like Dusty and Tug have pulled off the caper successfully, then in true pulp form things go pear-shaped. The consensus is A Swell-Looking Babe is a lesser Thompson. It definitely feels as though it lacks polish, but it’s still an okay time expenditure. We don’t know if he’ll ever top Pop. 1280. We’ll keep reading him to answer that very question.

Lion Books, Jim Thompson, cover art, literature

Vintage Pulp

December 1 2024

FEAR FACTORS

Girls don't cry. They seek revenge.

Above: a bo-ekibari style promo, and a zoom, for the pinky violence clash Kyôfu joshi kôkô: Animal dôkyôsei, known in English by the attention garnering title Terrifying Girls High School: Animal Courage. It starred Reiko Ike, Ryôko Ema, and Natsuko Yashiro. You can see the tateken promo here, and the standard promo here, as well as read what we thought about the film.

Japan, Toei Company, Kyôfu joshi kôkô: Animal dôkyôsei, Terrifying Girls High School: Animal Courage, Reiko Ike, Ryôko Ema, Natsuko Yashiro, pinku, pinky violence, poster art, cinema

Femmes Fatales

December 1 2024

A LIGHT SLEEPER

She may be using a candle but she's still electric.

Virginia Mayo demonstrates the stimulating properties of pajamas that are just a shirt in this 1953 promo image made when she was filming She’s Back on Broadway. We’ve also shared a couple of fun Mayo promos here and here, and she’ll return soon.

She's Back on Broadway, Virginia Mayo

Vintage Pulp

November 29 2024

THE DYING TRAPEZE

One of them is about to fly through the air with the greatest of unease.

Today’s issue of Adam magazine was published this month in 1960, with cover art meant to illustrate an interesting short story titled, “Yellow Isn’t for Cowards,” by Damon Mills. He wrote often for Adam during the early 1960s. In fact, this is the fourth tale of his we’ve run across, and his best, we think. It’s about an experienced circus aerialist, his younger competition in both love and acrobatics, and the triple somersault the younger one can perform but the older one can’t—usually. Yellow is said to be bad luck in the aerialist community, so the scene above shows the love interest jinxing one of the flyers. The tales in Adam varied greatly in quality, but Mills had talent.

Back around 1960 Adam was using pretty poor paper stock, which accounts for the grainy scans below. There was also not as much beautiful art as later, which accounts for the smaller than usual number of pages uploaded. Furthermore, humidity got to the magazine in the eighty or so years it was in storage. The bottom line is today’s share will consist of only nineteen panels. But one of those has famed nudist model Diane Webber, so that’s something anyway. Plus, though there aren’t many art pieces, a few are nice, including one by the hard working Jack Waugh. A final note: this is the eighty-eighth issue we’ve shared. Hey, we’re impressed by that. Adam will return, as always.

Australia, Adam Magazine, Damon Mills, Diane Webber, Marguerite Empey, Jack Waugh, magazine art, literature

Vintage Pulp

November 28 2024

GAMBLING ON HEALTH CARE

I like working in medicine here. All my patients are basically fine with the idea that they might go broke.

Our friends here in Spain can never wrap their heads around the fact that a medical issue in the States can cost someone their life savings. We recently learned that more than half of U.S. debt collections are for medical bills. So with a cover like this, well, it’s hard to go any other direction with a joke. Medical sleaze is a sub-genre we’ve covered a lot, and we’ve folded nurse romances into that grouping, such as here, here, and here, but nurse novels were popular in their own right. Maybe more so than male oriented efforts, though we have no data to confirm that suspicion. This one, Las Vegas Nurse by Jane L. Sears, a top nurse romance author, is from 1963 and was published by Avon.

Las Vegas, Avon Publications, Jane L. Sears, cover art, literature

Vintage Pulp

November 27 2024

MANCHE TRAP

You can't spell “demon” without Demongeot.

French filmmakers often gravitated toward English language crime novels for inspiration. Une manche et la belle, another thriller set in the fertile South of France, was based on British author James Hadley Chase’s 1954 thriller The Sucker Punch. Henri Vidal plays an ambitious young exec at Pacific Bank, for whom trouble starts when he aces his colleague out of a rich client. The client, played by Isa Miranda, takes a personal liking to Vidal. Isa’s secretary is Mylène Demongeot, and she takes a liking to Vidal too, in that flirtatious but elusive way she was good at bringing to the screen. Vidal marries Miranda and the two head off on a Venetian honeymoon, but rich people need staff, so the cherubically beautiful Demongeot is brought along for the ride. But three’s a crowd. Under the circumstances, wedded bliss develops a quick end date. A murderous one, if Demongeot has her way.

Can she entice Vidal into a reckless decision? Well, sure, who wouldn’t get reckless for her? Imagine if there were a murder trial. The judge: “Can’t show you any leniency without suffering professional ridicule and the loss of my cushy gig up here on the bench, but bro—I get it.” The entire world got it, which is why Demongeot became a popular cinematic sex symbol. You’ll frequently see the movie cited as one in which she was topless, but the bare frontage on display was that of a body double, which we determined thanks to the wonders of the pause button. Too bad—even playing purest evil Demongeot is special. She might be the original inspiration for the ubiquitous “Distracted Boyfriend” meme. Une manche et la belle, a pretty fun flick all things considered, premiered in France today in 1957.

France, Italy, Nice, Venice, Une manche et la belle, A Kiss for a Killer, Henri Vidal, Mylène Demongeot, Isa Miranda, James Hadley Chase, poster art, cinema, movie review

Vintage Pulp

November 26 2024

THE LINES ARE DRAWN

Putting the finishing touches on this cover required some linear thinking.

This unusual cover for Jerome Wiedman’s What’s in It for Me? was painted by Victor Kalin for Avon Publications’ 1960 re-issue of the 1938 title. The vertical grid makes the tagline and mini-review a little hard to read, so maybe an experienced graphic designer would call this effort a misfire, but we like it anyway because it’s so different. If you want to know a little more about Weidman, a very important literary figure in his day, you can read a bit at this link.

Avon Publications, Jerome Weidman, Victor Kalin, cover art, literature

Femmes Fatales

November 26 2024

LIGHT YEARS AHEAD

Can humanity make it to the 41st century? Maybe, if it looks like this.

Two thoughts here. First, we really wish we could go back in time and have the job of making 1960s prop sci-fi guns. They’re so fun. No need to look practical at all. A beam of light added by the efx department and you’re good. We’d love to have this example on a shelf. Second, a good thing about this site is that it makes us seek out films beyond the obvious ones. Jane Fonda is best known for Barbarella, Klute, On Golden Pond, and maybe 9 to 5, but she was a staple in cinemas, and we’ve gotten to appreciate her choices and range over the years. Everything from Les félins to Coming Home to They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? to Youth were interesting at a minimum, and great often. Oh, and a third thing: Fonda was one of the hottest phenomena on Earth or in space around the time she made this photo in 1968. See more Barbarella shots here, here, here, and here. Why so many? Because the movie is like a costume design orgy, which makes every promo image worth seeing.

Barbarella, Klute, On Golden Pond, 9 to 5, Les félins, They Shoot Horses Don’t They?, Coming Home, Youth, Jane Fonda, sci-fi

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HISTORY REWIND

The headlines that mattered yesteryear.

December 3

1964—Mass Student Arrests in U.S.

In California, Police arrest over 800 students at the University of California, Berkeley, following their takeover and sit-in at the administration building in protest at the UC Regents’ decision to forbid protests on university property.

December 3

1968—U.S. Unemployment Hits Low

Unemployment figures are released revealing that the U.S. unemployment rate has fallen to 3.3 percent, the lowest rate for almost fifteen years. Going forward all the way to the current day, the figure never reaches this low level again.

December 2

1954—Joseph McCarthy Disciplined by Senate

In the United States, after standing idly by during years of communist witch hunts in Hollywood and beyond, the U.S. Senate votes 65 to 22 to condemn Joseph McCarthy for conduct bringing the Senate into dishonor and disrepute. The vote ruined McCarthy’s career.

December 1

1955—Rosa Parks Sparks Bus Boycott

In the U.S., in Montgomery, Alabama, seamstress Rosa Parks refuses to give her bus seat to a white man and is arrested for violating the city’s racial segregation laws, an incident which leads to the Montgomery Bus Boycott. The boycott resulted in a crippling financial deficit for the Montgomery public transit system, because the city’s African-American population were the bulk of the system’s ridership.

November 30

1936—Crystal Palace Gutted by Fire

In London, the landmark structure Crystal Palace, a 900,000 square foot glass and steel exhibition hall erected in 1851, is destroyed by fire. The Palace had been moved once and fallen into disrepair, and at the time of the fire was not in use. Two water towers survived the blaze, but these were later demolished, leaving no remnants of the original structure.