What do they want? Change! When do they want it? Now!
When we saw this poster for Outlaw Women we were hoping for semi-serious b-level western action. No such luck. It’s a comedy. But we watched it anyway, and it’s about a town called Las Mujeres, controlled by women and led by tough Marie Windsor. They don’t want more men there, by any stretch, but the place needs a doctor, so traveling sawbones Richard Rober is kidnapped and brought into the fold, where he immediately bemoans what he considers to be the unnatural state of distaff rule. He may get his wish that women be toppled from power when a federal judge gallops into town and announces elections. While nine of ten residents in Las Mujeres are women, they can’t vote, and can’t hold political office.
No need for more plot discussion. As we said, this is a lightweight movie, so everything will sort itself out about the way you expect, weddings and all. The film is certainly interesting to watch in today’s social climate. On the surface it’s meant to be a cute and chauvinistic little romp, and with the good feelings and flirting cranked up to ten it works pretty well. But it’s also—accidentally—a good illustration of a meme from a couple of years ago in which a woman is asked by a man, “If there are no men around who’s going to be there to protect you?” The woman responds, “Protect us from what?” That’s the real lesson of Outlaw Women. We don’t recommend the movie, but we can’t slam it either. It’s fine. It premiered today in 1952.
It's one thing to know she'll say it. It's another thing entirely to know when she'll say it.
Being in the right place at the right time is an art. The three guys on the cover of Amanda Moore’s 1964 sleaze novel The Yes Girl hope to have mastered it, but we didn’t buy the book to find out. We’ve read a fair number of Midwood paperbacks now and, though we love the covers, as a rule the writing is pretty bad. That said, we have a few Midwoods sitting on our shelves awaiting attention. You’ll see those later.
We have a bit of modern pulp for you today. When we were in Mexico we shot this photo at a place we nicknamed the Three Fingers Bar. We were curious about the Coca Cola placard you see above, and debated whether it was vintage or new. When we got back to our computers we found that it was new, and part of an entire series of faux vintage Coke items, which you see a few of below. All the women are actually computer generated, despite a few Monroesque iterations. Actually, in the bar we were fooled for a bit. Monroe on an unlicensed Coke ad? Gotta have it on the website.
We posted it for another reason, which is to let you know we do plan to share a couple items from the trip, but we’ve been delayed on that and other fronts due to a mishap that occurred, a couple of blows to the head that required PSGP to get his skull drained of blood. He’s fine, though the surgery was extremely painful. They did it under local, but the anesthesia doesn’t go into the bone. So basically, you get a hole drilled in your head and feel every second. You’re thinking we left some details out from the trip. It’s no biggie. He had no idea there was even a problem until days later, and the only true casualty was a bit of luxurious hair, which will return. Just another day in the life of Pulp Intl.
This photo features U.S. actress Shelley Winters from her 1970 actioner Bloody Mama. Winters had been in some excellent movies, such as the 1948 film noir Cry of the City, the 1951 drama A Place in the Sun, and the 1955 suspense classic The Night of the Hunter, but at this point was getting the shit kicked out of her in Cleopatra Jones and fondling skeletons in Who Slew Auntie Roo? In other words, she wasn’t picky. Maybe she needed to keep income rolling in, or maybe she simply loved to act. Either way, not being picky led to more than one-hundred sixty credits, and that’s not easy to do. She’s an immortal.
Are those my only two choices? Seems like a third or even fourth option would be useful here.
Above: another great cover from Italian illustrator Giovanni Benvenuti. The lucky recipient of his talent this time was British author Gordon Ashe, aka John Creasy, who published Kill or Be Killed originally in 1949, with this edition sold in all parts of the British Commonwealth beginning in 1959. Benvenuti, who is not nearly discussed enough in vintage paperback circles, was a genius. Full stop. The Alec Baldwinesque look of his armed tough guy is an interesting coincidence, all things considered. Maybe choice three would be a manslaughter charge and dismissed case. See a selection of some of Benvenuti’s unique work here, here, and here.
Above: a shot to get you in the mood for summer, an image made today in 1952 of beauty contestant Ester Beckstead, who was hoping to compete at the Miss Universe pageant the week of June 23 to 30, with a grand prize of $30,000. You’ll see similar shots on photo sites like Getty, but they aren’t the same one. They’re also dated wrong. They all say the copyright is October 1951, but we have the reverse of this one. It’s from today, 1952. The pageant was won by Finnish contestant Armi Kuusela, sadly for Beckstead. Well, she may have lost, but at least she didn’t do this.
We don’t often run across paperback covers by French artist Jean David, so when we do it’s an actionable event. Today we’ve posted his effort for Fille de l’amour, written by Stephane Lauran and published by Paris based E.D.I.C.A. for its Collection Audacieuse. That means “bold,” and it’s the right word. This is beautiful. There’s no copyright date inside, but David was working with E.D.I.C.A. in the early- to mid-1950s, so figure it’s from around then.
When it came to lingerie she had to draw the line.
This seems like a good pairing with the above post. We’ve read that during World War II, when silk and nylon production were diverted for the making of parachutes, nets, and other items, some women wore liquid stockings. Basically, this was a type of make-up for their legs that gave the illusion of hosiery, and those who wanted to go a step further drew on seams with eyebrow penciles. Austran actress Nadja Tiller takes that idea the next logical step by drawing on the world’s flimsiest undies. We’d personally be pretty jazzed if we found this drawn on under someone’s clothing. We mean just for a change of pace.
Tiller appeared in list of films and television shows long enough to weave into fabric and make real underwear. Something like one hundred credits, we think. Nearly every one of those films were made in Europe, but she starred in at least one English language film—1959’s The Rough and the Smooth, directed by Robert Siodmak of The Killers and Criss Cross fame. While those are seminal noirs, The Rough and the Smooth seems to be more of a romance. Well, maybe we’ll dig into her German language output and see if there’s anything crime related hiding there.
Look! He just stabbed that guy! Quick—get me another rum punch before I start to care!
British author Andrew Garve’s No Mask for Murder, an excellent thriller, is also by chance a pointed tale for the current moment in U.S. history, though we had no idea when we decided to buy it. We just liked the price and cover. It’s colonial fiction set in a British colony in the Caribbean, which we took to be either Jamaica or Trinidad, but decided was the former because of its capital city Fontego—which rhymes with Montego, and rhyming is conclusive evidence, right?
So let’s get this out of the way—and delicate types can skip this next part. The Spanish and British enslaved more than two million humans on Jamaica, and every year for more than three hundred years these stolen souls died of diseases, punishment, and overwork, all to enrich masters who pontificated about their own brilliant work ethic and superior morals. Therefore, the underpinning of all colonial fiction is this: murder and/or trafficking of people; establishment of a rigid caste and control system; and cruel punishment for failing to obey the system. Those are facts. To the comfort of many in the U.S., they might not be taught for a while, as the latest doomed attempt to suppress equal history grinds away.
In No Mask for Murder, when a graft scheme lures colonial administrator Dr. Adrian Garland into accepting illicit money, he’s willing to kill to protect his position. In his way stand an ambitious assistant and an oblivious witness to his bribery scheme. They’re both black, so must both go. Garland has virtually no pangs of guilt about it. But those murders soon may require more. Subsequent victims would be white. That’s when the pangs start.
Garve achieved exactly what he intended. Every white character here save central couple Martin West and Susan Anstruther is virulently, irredeemably racist. Every black character is imperfect as seen through colonial eyes, therefore unworthy of consideration or survival. A challenge for Garve to write this? You bet. But he kills it by constructing a story of ambition, greed, bribery, and colonial manners in which white characters turn their keen gazes upon everyone but themselves.
The book is seepingly atmospheric, moving from the capital, to majestic coastal homes, to a leper colony, and weathering a mid-narrative hurricane (which you know we always enjoy). Garve sets the main action around his fictive island’s yearly fiesta, which we took to mean Jamaican carnival. During this orgiastic celebration with masks and music the villain just might be able to succeed in his crimes. Other set-pieces resonate too. The chapter where a klatch of cocktail swilling colonials discuss the deficient culture and rampant crime of the island without a single reference to the humans they’ve slain over centuries to allow for their veranda idyll is so cringeworthy it’s nearly comical.
Some vintage authors delved into this genre with no sense of irony or history. They pretended not to get it because they were propagandists for colonial invasion. Not Garve. He doesn’t deal in literalism—at least not here. No Mask for Murder is blunt and demanding, but you can tell that he expected readers understand the extra he’d woven through what could have been a desultory murder tale. Readers that didn’t understand derived nothing from the book, we’re sure. It was first published in 1950, and this Dell mapback edition came in 1952 with art by Robert Stanley.
Something pretty for you now, a Japanese poster (or actually a two-sided flyer which they call chirashi) for the Italian sexploitation flick La fine dell’innocenza, known in English speaking countries as Annie, and in the U.S. mainly as Teenage Emanuelle. Why not just translate the original title and call it “the end of innocence”? That’s a good question. Maybe the U.S. marketers thought “teenage” was the ticket. In Japan it was called 愛の妖精, which means “love fairy.” See the difference?
Anyway, this starred the beautiful French pixie Annie Belle, aka Annie Brilland, who was twenty years old at the time. She made more than thirty films, largely in this Eurogirl-in-the-tropics vein, and posed for magazine and book covers. We have some production images below that will get your exotic juices moving, we have have another Japanese poster for La fine dell’innocenza here, and we have a write-up about the actual movie here. It premiered in Japan today in 1977.
Norwegian ethnographer and adventurer Thor Heyerdahl and his five man crew set out from Peru on a giant balsa wood raft called the Kon-Tiki in order to prove that Peruvian natives could have settled Polynesia. After a 101 day, 4,300 mile (8,000 km) journey, Kon-Tiki smashes into the reef at Raroia in the Tuamotu Islands on August 7, 1947, thus demonstrating that it is possible for a primitive craft to survive a Pacific crossing.
1989—Soviets Acknowledge Chernobyl Accident
After two days of rumors and denials the Soviet Union admits there was an accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Ukraine. Reactor number four had suffered a meltdown, sending a plume of radioactive fallout into the atmosphere and over an extensive geographical area. Today the abandoned radioactive area surrounding Chernobyl is rife with local wildlife and has been converted into a wildlife sanctuary, one of the largest in Europe.
1945—Mussolini Is Arrested
Italian dictator Benito Mussolini, his mistress Clara Petacci, and fifteen supporters are arrested by Italian partisans in Dongo, Italy while attempting to escape the region in the wake of the collapse of Mussolini’s fascist government. The next day, Mussolini and his mistress are both executed, along with most of the members of their group. Their bodies are then trucked to Milan where they are hung upside down on meathooks from the roof of a gas station, then spat upon and stoned until they are unrecognizable.
1933—The Gestapo Is Formed
The Geheime Staatspolizei, aka Gestapo, the official secret police force of Nazi Germany, is established. It begins under the administration of SS leader Heinrich Himmler in his position as Chief of German Police, but by 1939 is administered by the Reichssicherheitshauptamt, or Reich Main Security Office, and is a feared entity in every corner of Germany and beyond.
1937—Guernica Is Bombed
In Spain during the Spanish Civil War, the Basque town of Guernica is bombed by the German Luftwaffe, resulting in widespread destruction and casualties. The Basque government reports 1,654 people killed, while later research suggests far fewer deaths, but regardless, Guernica is viewed as an example of terror bombing and other countries learn that Nazi Germany is committed to that tactic. The bombing also becomes inspiration for Pablo Picasso, resulting in a protest painting that is not only his most famous work, but one the most important pieces of art ever produced.
1939—Batman Debuts
In Detective Comics #27, DC Comics publishes its second major superhero, Batman, who becomes one of the most popular comic book characters of all time, and then a popular camp television series starring Adam West, and lastly a multi-million dollar movie franchise featuring such leads as Michael Keaton, George Clooney, Val Kilmer, Robert Pattinson, and Christian Bale.
1953—Crick and Watson Publish DNA Results
British scientists James D Watson and Francis Crick publish an article detailing their discovery of the existence and structure of deoxyribonucleic acid, or DNA, in Nature magazine. Their findings answer one of the oldest and most fundamental questions of biology, that of how living things reproduce themselves.
