A KICK IN THE HEAD

Never mess with a woman in a jumpsuit.

This is the poster on which yesterday’s high-kicking image of Rika Aoki found a home, promoting Konketsuji Rika, aka Rika the Mixed-Blood Girl. In the film Aoki is the offspring of one of the American G.I.s who raped her mother, suffers the loss of her own virginity to a rapist, and is a product of constant physical abuse. Thus we have the two crucial ingredients needed for a pinku movie: a woman who really hates men, and men who really deserve whatever she does to them. The plot behind all the bloody mayhem involves her trying to save her gang of delinquent girls, who have been captured by crooks planning to sell them as sex slaves to American soldiers in Vietnam. Aoki gives a game performance, but she doesn’t radiate the pure heat a movie like this could use at its center. However, she does have the physical size needed to make her destruction of the evil men seem realistic, and in general the movie has enough blood, bullets, blades, and girl-fights to please fans of the genre. As a bonus for fashionistas, Aoki wears some sick jumpsuits. But if you dress like her, you better be able to kick ass. Konketsuji Rika, which was based on a manga comic and is the first film of what would become a trilogy, premiered in Japan today in 1972.

Japan, Kindai Eiga Kyokai, Konketsui Rika, Rika the Mixed-Blood Girl, Kö Nakahira, Rika Aoki, pinku, poster art, cinema, movie review

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HISTORY REWIND

The headlines that mattered yesteryear.

June 13

1971—First of the Pentagon Papers Are Published

The New York Times begins publication of the Pentagon Papers, a top-secret U.S. Department of Defense history of the country’s political-military involvement in Vietnam from 1945 to 1967. The papers reveal that the U.S. had deliberately expanded its war with carpet bombing of Cambodia and Laos, coastal raids on North Vietnam, and Marine Corps attacks, and that four presidential administrations, from Truman to Johnson, had deliberately misled the public regarding their intentions toward Vietnam.

June 12

1978—Son of Sam Goes to Prison

David Berkowitz, the New York City serial killer known as Son of Sam, is sentenced to 365 years in prison for six killings. Berkowitz had acquired his nickname from letters addressed to the NYPD and columnist Jimmy Breslin. He is eventually caught when a chain of events beginning with a parking ticket leads to his car being searched and police discovering ammunition and maps of crime scenes.

June 11

1963—Buddhist Monk Immolates Himself

In South Vietnam, Buddhist monk Thích Quảng Đức burns to death after dousing himself with gasoline and lighting a match. He does it to protest the persecution of Buddhists by the Ngô Đình Diệm led government, choosing a busy Saigon intersection for his protest. An image of the monk being consumed by flames as he sits crosslegged on the pavement, shot by Malcolm Browne, wins a Pulitzer Prize and becomes one of the most shocking and recognizable photos ever published.

June 10

1935—AA Founded

In New York City, Dr. Robert Smith and William Griffith Wilson, who were both recovering alcoholics, establish the organization Alcoholics Anonymous, which pioneers a 12-step rehabilitation program that is so helpful and popular it eventually spreads to every corner of the globe.

June 10

1973—John Paul Getty III Is Kidnapped

John Paul Getty III, grandson of billionaire oil tycoon J. Paul Getty, is kidnapped in Rome, Italy. The elder Getty ignores a ransom demand for $17 million, thinking it is a joke. When John Paul’s ear later arrives in the mail along with a note promising further mutilation, he negotiates the ransom down to $2.9 million, which he pays only on the condition that John Paul repay him at four percent interest. Getty’s kidnappers are never caught.

TIT FOR TAT

Swapping literature was a major subset of midcentury publishing. Ten years ago we shared a good-sized collection of swapping paperbacks from assorted authors.

DIAL A FOR ASSASSINA