| Femmes Fatales | Jun 17 2023 |
I've decided to start a nudist colony. What do you think? Any chance of success?
Monica Gayle was a b-movie actress extraordinaire, appearing in more than thirty mostly low budget films, including Switchblade Sisters, The Harem Bunch, The Erotic Adventures of Pinocchio, and, quite memorably, The Stewardesses, in which she's onscreen for only a few minutes but performs the lotus position in a way you've probably never seen. We also just saw her in Southern Comforts, which is why we're featuring her today—we figured after all those fuzzy screenshots we needed to give you a clearer look. Posing nude was no rarity for her. She appeared in probably a dozen men's magazines, often quite explicitly. This more modest shot of her comes from an issue of the nudist publication Sun Buffs and is from 1970.
Switchblade SistersThe JezebelsSouthern ComfortsThe Harem BunchThe Erotic Adventures of PinocchioThe StewardessesSun BuffsMonica Gaylenuditynudism
| Femmes Fatales | May 20 2023 |
The most inhospitable season just got worse.
Shelley Winters, née Shirley Schrift, was one of the top actresses in Hollywood for five decades. Her notable films are many, and include A Place in the Sun, Night of the Hunter, Lolita, Alfie, The Poseidon Adventure, and even Cleopatra Jones. The above photo sees her in moll mode and was made for her 1948 crime drama Larceny. It's yet another film we haven't seen, but we'll get to it.
LarcenyA Place in the SunNight of the HunterLolitaAlfieThe Poseidon AdventureCleopatra JonesShelley WintersShirley Schrift
| Vintage Pulp | Mar 7 2022 |
Elephants are the animal kingdom's gentle giants. Most of the time.
This collection of vintage magazine covers features angry elephants and a little of everything else too. The assorted great white hunters are mandatory, but you also get half a dozen tigers, various natives in deadly peril, including one being thrown at an elephant like a piece of furniture, which we have to say is most uncool, and numerous scantily clad women. We had no idea elephants hated tigers so much. Or maybe the tigers are the haters, and the elephants are merely reacting as anyone would. In any case, there are six tigers mixing it up with nature's gentle giants in this collection and we think they all lose. Consider these covers additions to our two groups of animal attack magazine fronts, which you can visit here and here. We also have a stack of adventure magazines we haven't scanned yet, but we'll get to that in due time. We're traveling tomorrow and the next day. Hope to see you on Thursday.
Male MagazineMen TodayMan's ActionMan's LifeMan's ActionMan's MagazineReal MenGusto MagazineStag MagazinePeril MagazineJungle StoriesSafari MagazineArgosyAction MagazineClash MagazineTop-NotchEscape To AdventureSportsmanReal AdventureAdventure MagazineHunting AdventuresTarzan MagazineOutdoor AdventureSafaris UnlimitedField & StreamCavalier MagazineAdam Magazinemagazine art
| Femmes Fatales | Nov 18 2021 |
I do everything big—guns, smokes, uh, pockets. Acting, of course. Everything is over the top.
Above: a cool shot of Betty Lou Gerson, made when she was starring in the 1949 anti-communist scare flick The Red Menace. We talked about it many years ago. Shorter version: the real menace was toward the filmgoers. Gerson, who is known today for narrating the Disney film Cinderella and voicing Cruella de Vil in One Hundred and One Dalmatians, did most of her acting on television, appearing on such shows as Gang Busters and Adventures of the Falcon. Looking at the above image, we actually aren't sure whether the gun was big, or Betty Lou was small, but either way, it makes her look pretty menacing.
Walt Disney ProductionsThe Red MenaceCinderellaOne Hundred and One DalmatiansGang BustersAdventures of the FalconBetty Lou Gersontelevision
| Vintage Pulp | May 9 2021 |
Adventure magazine takes a look at what the better half is doing.
We've written a lot about vintage men's adventure magazines. Today the tables turn. Above you see the cover of a May 1956 issue of True Woman's Adventures. We're not going to kid you, though—it's still a men's magazine. Easiest way to tell? There are no photos of studs in bathing suits. But even though this women's magazine is really a men's magazine, it at least celebrates rugged women, with stories on bullfighter Patricia McCormick, French aviator Maryse Bastié, and explorer/travel writer Ginger Lamb. We'd like to do a deep dive into their biographies, but it'll have to wait for another day.
Some of the articles here are also written by women, with credits given to Carole Lewis, Jean Mayfield, Christine Herman, and Peggy Converse. This was the debut issue of True Woman's Adventures, but unfortunately, the only one. Was it always intended to be a one-off? We don't know. The cover was painted by George Giguere, whose signature you can see at lower left. Even so, we're amazed Mark Schneider didn't paint it—the style is so close. Check what we mean here. And check out the thirty scans below. As always, we have more adventure magazines to come.
FranceTrue Woman's AdventuresGeorge GiguerePatricia McCormickMaryse BastiéGinger LambHerbert McClureMichael Herbertmagazine artliterature
| Femmes Fatales | May 24 2020 |
Don't change a thing for anybody.
You know we're Stella Stevens fans here. Though we prefer the thirty-plus version of her, she first turned heads as a model in her early twenties, posing for a Playboy centerfold published in 1960, sessions from which the above shot originates. Stevens had begun acting before then, appearing in three films released in 1959. The next year she won a Golden Globe for New Star of the Year, and eventually appeared in dozens of films and television shows. She was always a good actress, but never scored prestige roles. She did, however, grace some low budget classics, foremost among them the blaxploitation flicks Slaughter and Cleopatra Jones and the Casino of Gold. Mixed in were cheeseball hits like The Poseidon Adventure and The Silencers, and an occasional good movie, such as The Ballad of Cable Hogue. All in all she's had an amazing career, on pause since 2010. But she'll never be on pause on this website. More Stella here and here.
Edit: We recieved an e-mail from Herman, a man who knows a thing or two about mid-century celebs and has helped us with corrections, and he wanted to remind us:
I certainly appreciate that image of Stella. Although I have been a fan of PB since the mid 50s as a boy, I don't believe I have seen this particular photo. Of course, I have to say I believe you left some important points out of your commentary about her. I believe you said once you are not a particular fan of Elvis Presley (that may have been someone else) but without the 1962 Girls, Girls, Girls appearance I don't think she would have caught on so quick. Don't forget that the reason PB recognized her in the first place was because of her appearance in Li'l Abner in 1959. I know you didn't set out to do a biography on her, but these were points I think are important in her chronology.
Agreed, H, Stevens has a long and interesting story. We didn't set out to write a biography, as you said, but we may need to spend a little more time on her to give her proper due. She's not a subject we'll tire of easily.
PlayboySlaughterCleopatra Jones and the Casino of GoldThe Poseidon AdventureThe SilencersThe Ballad of Cable HogueGolden Globe AwardStella Stevensblaxploitationnudity
| Vintage Pulp | Dec 1 2019 |
Joan Collins finds herself shipwrecked on Temptation Island.
Our Girl Friday is not by any stretch of the imagination anything close to pulp style, but we stumbled across the film and figured we'd briefly expand our scope. This one premiered in Great Britain today in 1953, and played in the U.S. in 1954 retitled The Adventures of Sadie. In this day and age it's considered uncouth to perv over an actress but we don't care, so here goes: the only reason to watch this is for the all-too-brief moments of Joan Collins in a bikini. She's an absolute goddess, spun from seafoam, illuminated by moonlight, and delivered to Earth by cherubs and songbirds. Otherwise the movie is a waste of time.
Basically, it's about four people who get stranded on a deserted island. You have Joan and three guys of widely varying type—nervous geek/uneducated cad/debonair yuppie—who all want to sample her tropical fruit. There's a moment when it seems she won't choose any of these chumps, and that would have been a nice lesson to impart about never settling for less, but this is the 1950s, which means somebody is going to get her. Who she chooses and why doesn't matter and you won't care. The truth is no mortal human could deserve her anyway.
Joan Collins was defined for us when we were kids by her late-career television roles. Back then we never even had a notion of her as a young woman. Thanks to maintaining Pulp Intl. we've been able to correct that omission, because, while she was pretty hot as a fifty-year-old troublemaker on Dynasty, she's really something as an ingénue. The other thing about this film that's worthwhile is its British promo poster, above, rendered largely in lovely sky blue. The depiction of Collins is nice, as well. We don't know who painted it, but they did a bang-up job.
BritainOur Girl FridayThe Adventures of SadieJoan CollinsGeorge ColeKenneth MoreRobertson Hareposter artcinemamovie review
| Vintage Pulp | Oct 20 2019 |
We're not on the fence about it—this magazine is a lot of fun.
As macho names for men's magazines go Matclif Publications' Savage Adventure is right at the top of the list. This issue from October 1960 was its debut. We gave it a read and it lived up to its name. Our favorite story was “Lizzie Russel and Her Riverboat Bordello,” by George Peterson, which deals with a floating brothel called The Virgin Queen plying the Yukon River during the 1890s gold rush. Basically, the tale is one of bad decisions and bad luck, and indeed gets pretty savage.
The brothel's owner is warned that her paddlewheeler is too big to make it upriver to White Horse, and sure enough, it runs onto a sandbar in a remote area. Left aground in deadly below freezing temperatures, the boat's two Chinese engine stokers decide to take advantage of the work stoppage with a little opium break, but overdose. Late that night everyone wakes up to a freezing ship. The captain discovers the bodies and simply chucks them overboard. When they thud instead of splash that's how he discovers the river has frozen solid. Pretty savage already, this story, but it gets crazier.
The captain gets the fire going again, but because he doesn't know what he's doing the engine boiler explodes. Fire ravages the boat so quickly that half the women going overboard don't even have clothes. One prostitute jumps but lands head first on the ice. Not good. Another catches on fire. A third runs from her flaming cabin directly into the sub-zero air and the shock stops her heart. Stranded ashore, miles from White Horse, the only heat source is the flaming boat, but once the conflagration dies they're all going to freeze to death, some of them naked.
We'll stop there—remember, no spoilers—but as savage tales go, “ Lizzie Russel and Her Riverboat Bordello” is pretty good. Other wild stories include Carl Williams' “The Grizzly Came for Breakfast,” and Jim Cooley's “I Listened To Them Scream.” We're glad we picked this magazine up. We imagine, since it was the debut issue, the editors really tried hard to get it just right. Mission accomplished, at least in our opinion, but Savage Adventure folded after only four issues. That makes this example exceedingly rare.
The cover is signed, illegibly, but thanks to the internet we were able to learn that the cropped scrawl at the bottom of the art says Norm Eastman. We've featured his work before—here. Aside from the fiction, Savage Adventure offers readers a couple of exposés, some glamour photography, and several rather interesting ads. We scanned our two favorites—one for burlesque dancer Honey Bee, and another telling readers that they can make a mint investigating auto accidents—sexy auto accidents. You'll see what we mean below.
CanadaWhite HorseSavage AdventureNorm EastmanBarry WaldmanLew BruceTed LewinSusan WoodBob CorreaCarl WilliamsJim CooleyHoney Beemagazine artliteratureburlesque
| Vintage Pulp | Aug 9 2019 |
She's not the first girl who met her idol and decided to take him home.
This is the second issue of Adventure magazine we've scanned and uploaded. The first was from 1958. This issue was published this month in 1966, and there's been a complete turnover in staff, from editor, to associate editors, and the entire art department. But the magazine is basically unchanged in content. The cover was painted by Shannon Stirnweis for a story to whose amateur author Adventure paid a $200 prize. The tale concerns a woman's attempt to steal a ruby-encrusted native idol by grabbing it and running away hella fast. For some reason she and her companion do it naked, so that's kind of fun.
Actually, what's truly fun is Stirnweis's painting, which we consider a classic in the men's magazine realm. He was another illustrator who, as they often did, moved into fine art. He focuses mainly on historic Native American scenes, western landscapes, and wild animals, and from a look at his website it seems he sells his work successfully. He was responsible for a couple of Adventure's interior illustrations also, working under his pseudonym F. Bolivar. And you get art from Marshall Davis and the well known Basil Gogos. We have thirty eight images below for your enjoyment, and another Adventure at this link.
| Vintage Pulp | Jan 8 2019 |
Around the world in sixty pages.
Exotic Adventures was a men's magazine put out by NYC based Gladiator Publications, Inc. It seems obvious the company had great ambitions, but it managed only six issues before folding. This one came in 1959 with cover art signed “Louis,” whose full identity is not given. In fact, only three people are listed as staff—editor George P. Wallace and two others—so the cover artist wasn't the only hard worker who got short shrift. The individual authors are given bylines, though, as are the men who narrated their "true" tales to biographers.
Exotic Destinations lived up to its name, with pieces set in Kashmir, French Cameroon, Morocco, Honduras, Malaya, and Borneo, and nude models who are supposedly from Japan, Brazil, France, and Germany. It was all printed on glossy paper, which is why you won't see the usual yellowing you get with old magazines, though the printing got a little streaky and inconsistent in the middle pages. Still, taken as a whole Exotic Adventures is a high quality publication, which we snared courtesy of the now idle Darwin's Scans blog. Forty-plus panels below.
MoroccoHondurasFranceMalayaKashmirParisFrench CameroonNew York CityExotic Adventuresmagazine artliterature
