Steve Brackeen's, aka John Farris's, Baby Moll tells the tale of a former mob tough guy who's dragged away from the normal life he's built for himself to help his former boss survive the attentions of an assassin. It seems that years ago the bossman torched a building and a young girl survived with burns. The girl has grown up and is presumably behind the murder attempts. But the book isn't really focused on her, which makes Barye Phillips' excellent cover art and the accompanying tagline a bit misleading. The various women spend little time on the page. Baby Moll is really about how the protagonist goes about his investigation. There's a good amount of action and an assortment of interesting characters, but we wouldn't go so far as to call the book either exceptional or well written. It's okay. It goes in the South Florida crime bin, so the setting might be enough to put it over for many readers. 

This steamy poster was made to promote the roman porno flick Showa onnamichi: Rashomon, aka Showa Woman: Naked Rashomon, aka Naked Rashomon, which starred Hitomi Kozue and Elmei Esumi. In case you're wondering, “rashomon” was an ancient city gate located in what is now Kyoto, which makes the title rather curious, but it's borrowed from the 1950 Akira Kurosawa period drama Rashomon, which used the gate locale as a central element. That film was famous for its four characters narrating four versions of the same terrible event.

Does Naked Rashomon have anything to do with city gates or multi-p.o.v. narratives? Well, no. When a nobleman's wife can't bear him a son, he turns to a mistress to get the job done and she gives birth to twins—a boy and a girl. The boy will be the nobleman's heir; but he orders the mistress and infant daughter killed. The bodyguard responsible for this heinous task instead secretly sends the pair away. Two decades later the daughter has grown up to be a beautiful woman and, unaware of her true ancestry, crosses paths with her father and twin brother with shocking results.

It's a bizarre premise but a good movie, considered one of director Chûsei Sone's best. And it has Pulp Intl. fave Kozue in a double role as both the mistress and her grown daughter, which can only make matters better. Compared to most Nikkatsu Studios roman pornos this one qualifies as high art, which means it's not just recommendable, but is also a reasonable place for the uninitiated to dive into the genre. But you might not want to dive too deep. It gets pretty gnarly down there. Showa onnamichi: Rashomon premiered in Japan today in 1973.

Keeping on the lookout for pulp style in unusual places, we ran across this GGA style sleeve for Francis Scott and His Orchestra's Moods for Twilight. It's part of a series of records that include Moods for Starlight, Moods for Firelight, and Moods for Candlelight, but this is the only one with cover art that could front a paperback. We're guessing the couple is supposed to be parked above L.A.'s San Fernando Valley, possibly on famed Mulholland Drive. What's this album sound like? Haven't heard it, but since it's orchestral renditions of pop hits we can guess that it's pretty cheeseball stuff, even for 1952. The artist on this was not credited.

A long while back we shared a couple of shots of Japanese actress Terumi Azuma wearing a cool yellow visor. She must have liked visors because here she is circa 1975 wearing another one, this time made of leather. We're thinking these should come back into fashion. 

We've seen May Britt in exactly one movie but we thought she was quite good in it. That was 1959's The Blue Angel. Above you see the Signet tie-in edition of Heinrich Mann's source novel, which was called Professor Unrat when it was published in Germany in 1905. Britt fronts this paperback looking alluring but a little shabby too, which is of course what her character is all about. You can read a bit about the film here.