DEAD END STREET

Wow, it's unusually bloody out tonight. There's always been some slaughter, but lately the neighborhood's really gone downhill.

Victor Kalin painted this cover for Louis Falstein’s 1953 novel Slaughter Street, published by Pyramid Books. It’s excellent art, and this was an interesting book. It’s about a regular guy named Johnnie Constable who snitches the whereabouts of a wanted organized crime figure and experiences two negative results. First, the two detectives who later arrest the crook try to claim the $10,000 reward for themselves; and second, Constable comes increasingly under threat by unknown figures, presumably avatars of the mob boss, until his life, his pregnant fiancée’s life, his parents’ lives, and even those of his neighborhood friends are all at risk. He can’t even escape his block without coming under attack, and wouldn’t be able to go far without the reward money. He buys a gun, holes up in his apartment, and prepares for the worst. The narrative mostly operates as a family drama, and keeps the mob figure and police in the far background. The dual moral offered by Falstein is clear: never stick your neck out; never help the cops. This is a good, well written tale.

An order of fish and chips? No, sorry, that must be next door. I'm expecting some spotted dick.

This striking Japanese poster’s large red figures—売春仕業速—translate as something like, “work fast prostitution.” Japanese posters for movies made in Britain and the U.S. sometimes also bear the original titles, and in this case you see Room 43, cleverly present in the form of a key fob. But that was just one English title. The movie is also known—and probably best known—as Passport to Shame. It’s a sex work drama starring the inimitable Diana Dors. We discussed it here. Oh, and for any who don’t know, spotted dick is a type of British dessert that to the rest of the world would be considered a cake. Dors, being British, would have found the dick mouthwatering. Passport to Shame premiered in 1958 and reached Japan today in 1962.

Two craggy middle-aged guys that go great together.

There are movies, and there are beloved movies. We first saw the Clint Eastwood/Burt Reynolds vehicle City Heat a long time ago, and it’s been a go-to evening for us since, something we screen every several years. While a comedy, it’s also a period piece set during the Great Depression, thus it falls comfortably within the pulp era and is, doubly, an action flick with plenty of fights, gunfire, and general mayhem. In a similar way as Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid, it tries to push hard-boiled detective tropes to absurd extremes, while wearing a pervasive love for those ideas on its sleeve.

Reynolds plays a low-rent private dick named Mike Murphy who tries to solve a murder, but gets caught between organized crime, the police, and his personal obligations. As we said a while back, anything with Reynolds is worth watching, and this features him at his smart-mouthed best. Eastwood, as Reynolds’ police lieutenant frenemy Speer, mostly channels a 1935 version of Magnum Force, portraying with grim-countenanced perfection the one man in the department with whom nobody in their right mind wants to tangle.

For fans of vintage crime fiction or film noir, City Heat is a must. The slapstick-adjacent fistfights alone—of which there are many—are reason enough to queue it up. With Reynolds carrying the bulk of the film using his incandescent charm, and with contributions from an iconic movie dick in the form of Shaft star Richard Roundtree, plus comic relief from Madeline Kahn, all your bases are covered here. If you know what’s good for you you’ll watch it. It premiered in the U.S. today in 1984.

Once the needle touches the skin there's no turning back.

We’ve had this poster sitting around for six years. We were holding it back in hopes we’d track down the movie, but we’ve given up. This was made to promote Shojo no irezumi, which premiered today in 1976. It had no Western release, thus no English title, however 処女の刺青 translates as “virgin tattoo.” We gather the movie is a documentary or pseudo-documentary. A few posters of this type that we’ve shared were painted by Kaname Ozuna, but this artist is unknown, and that’s another reason we resisted uploading it. But maybe it’s better to see whether any of you know who painted it. If so, feel free to tell us.

Do you think about sex all the time? It's okay. That's how you're wired.

This photo shows U.S. actress Tanya Boyd, who was among the best elements of films such as Black Shampoo, Solomon King, Black Heat, and of course, Ilsa, Harem Keeper of the Oil Sheiks, as well as an enhancement to television shows like Good Times, What’s Happening, and the epic mini-series Roots. She’s seen here in a shot from around 1973 that makes us remember, like every good Freudian, that sex is really at the root of everything. Mid-century crime writers understood this, which is why, while all appetites are indulged rampantly, from the craving for drink to the obsession with money, sex is nearly always the catalyst for rash action. In essence: Do this insane thing and you’ll get laid. Accumulate riches and you’ll get a Boyd of your own.

Of course, women could refuse to be impressed. In that way they’re all-powerful, but like the gods of Olympus, rife with human flaws. You’ve surely wondered, if women were able to en masse deny sex to destructive men, whether about 75% of the nonsense that goes on in the world would come to a screeching halt. But—hah hah—women are voraciously sexual too. It’s a cosmic chicken-egg riddle. Around and around we go, whether seeking partnership with the same sex or not, gravitationally locked binary entities, hurtling through a deep void. Amazing, isn’t it, what a single photo of Boyd can make a brain do? Well, the sophomore philosophy discussion group is over for today. We’re out. Feel free to ponder an additional time-stopping image of her here.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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HISTORY REWIND

The headlines that mattered yesteryear.

1944—Velez Commits Suicide

Mexican actress Lupe Velez, who was considered one of the great beauties of her day, commits suicide by taking an overdose of sleeping pills. In her note, Velez says she did it to avoid bringing shame on her unborn child by giving birth to him out of wedlock, but many Hollywood historians believe bipolar disorder was the actual cause. The event inspired a 1965 Andy Warhol film entitled Lupe.

1958—Gordo the Monkey Lost After Space Flight

After a fifteen minute flight into space on a Jupiter AM-13 rocket, a monkey named Gordo splashes down in the South Pacific but is lost after his capsule sinks. The incident sparks angry protests from the American Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, but NASA says animals are needed for such tests.

1968—Tallulah Bankhead Dies

American actress, talk show host, and party girl Tallulah Bankhead, who was fond of turning cartwheels in a dress without underwear and once made an entrance to a party without a stitch of clothing on, dies in St. Luke’s Hospital in New York City of double pneumonia complicated by emphysema.

1962—Canada Has Last Execution

The last executions in Canada occur when Arthur Lucas and Ronald Turpin, both of whom are Americans who had been extradited north after committing separate murders in Canada, are hanged at Don Jail in Toronto. When Turpin is told that he and Lucas will probably be the last people hanged in Canada, he replies, “Some consolation.”

1964—Guevara Speaks at U.N.

Ernesto “Che” Guevara, representing the nation of Cuba, speaks at the 19th General Assembly of the United Nations in New York City. His speech calls for wholesale changes in policies between rich nations and poor ones, as well as five demands of the United States, none of which are met.

2008—Legendary Pin-Up Bettie Page Dies

After suffering a heart attack several days before, erotic model Bettie Page, who in the 1950s became known as the Queen of Pin-ups, dies when she is removed from life support machinery. Thanks to the unique style she displayed in thousands of photos and film loops, Page is considered one of the most influential beauties who ever lived.

1935—Downtown Athletic Club Awards First Trophy

The Downtown Athletic Club in New York City awards its first trophy for athletic achievement to University of Chicago halfback Jay Berwanger. The prize is later renamed the Heisman Trophy, and becomes the most prestigious award in college athletics.

Barye Phillips cover art for Street of No Return by David Goodis.
Assorted paperback covers featuring hot rods and race cars.

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