 I love you so much, money—er, I mean honey. 
As long as we're on poster art today, here's a colorful promo for the 1947 victorian thriller Love from a Stranger, starring Sylvia Sidney and John Hodiak in an adaptation of the Agatha Christie short story “Philomel Cottage,” the second pass Hollywood had taken at the material after a 1937 version starring Ann Harding and Basil Rathbone. The movie is a cautionary example of the dangers of failing to be satisfied with a good thing when you have it. Sidney's character Cecily Harrington wins money in a lottery and instead of marrying her perfectly adequate fiancée decides to ditch him for life as a one-percenter. Cue Hodiak, a gold-digger who has already offed three previous wives and gotten away with it. He sets his sights on Cecily—and her pile of cash. She's oblivious at first, of course, but after the two marry disturbing clues start to pile up. Luckily her jilted fiancée cares enough about her wellbeing to keep a concerned eye on her from afar. Us, we'd never do that. We'd be like, “What? You get rich and then dump me for an obvious serial killer? ’kay, good luck. Have fun during your suspiciously isolated honeymoon.” Decent flick, excellent poster. Love from a Stranger V.2 premiered today in 1947.
 Never trust a man in expensive clothes. 
The Pulp Intl. girlfriends want more depictions of men on the site. Can we oblige them? Probably not. Vintage paperback art features women about ninety percent of the time, and they’re often scantily clothed. Men, on the occasions they appear, are not only typically dressed head to toe, but are often sartorially splendid. There are exceptions—beach-themed covers, bedroom depictions, gay fiction, and romances often feature stripped down dudes. We’ll assemble some collections of all those going forward, but today the best we can offer is an assortment of g’d up alpha males, with art by Victor Kalin, Robert McGinnis, and others. Enjoy.            
 What’s the best kind of pulp? The free kind. 
Yesterday we showed you two of the most expensive pulp paperbacks we’ve ever run across. Today we’re going to do the opposite and show you something that was free. Above is the cover of Agatha Christie’s 1950 Miss Marple mystery Se anunucia un asesinato, aka A Murder Is Announced, and we found it in a disused closet in the stairwell of our building. The collage style cover is credited to P. Ramírez, and there are also interior illustrations credited to someone billing himself simply as Moreno. It’s funny that we went all the way to Morocco expecting to find pulp when just one floor below there was a closet stacked high with hundreds of Spanish, English, and French magazines that go back forty years. Most of it seems unremarkable at first glance, but we haven’t had much time to explore, so there’s no telling what we’ll find. Since the door isn’t locked, we’re thinking it all probably belonged to a departed tenant. If not, well, it’s easier to ask forgiveness than permission.   
 Looks like the “do not disturb” sign isn’t working. 
Walter Brooks isn’t mentioned as one of the great paperback illustrators, and he probably wasn’t, but certainly this cover for Harold R. Daniels’ The Girl in 304 is dynamite. From the angled, ominous male shadow, to the stylish font, and the blue color palette with checks of red and a splash of pink flesh and yellow fabric, this one is a winner in all categories. Brooks, who was born in Glasgow, served as president of NYC’s Society of Illustrators, wrote books about painting, and designed U.S. postage stamps. And notably, he was the art director at Dell Publishing in 1958 when he was shown the work of Robert McGinnis by agent Don Gelb. Brooks assigned McGinnis his first two covers, thus helping to launch a legendary career. He also gave William Teason, who illustrated more than 150 Agatha Christie covers, his first shot that same year. So even if Brooks was not a great himself, he certainly knew talent when he saw it. This piece dates from 1956.
 Not the hair! Not the hair! 
Mignonette Eberhart was an acclaimed mid-century crime writer who was the first to create a female sleuth, which she did in her book The Patient in Room 18. This was a year before Agatha Christie created her immortal sleuth Jane Marple in Murder at the Vicarage. Eberhart soon veered away from pure whodunits and into romance-mysteries that usually centered on good women involved with bad men. The tagline of 1940’s The Hangman’s Whip—“Death is quicker than divorce”—gets that idea across succinctly. It was in these writings that Eberhart flourished, becoming internationally known and highly paid. She authored fifty-nine books, six of which were adapted to film, along with three of her short stories, and in 1971 she earned the Mystery Writers of America Grand Master Award. Eberhart died in 1996, but she changed the romance genre and entertained millions while doing it. Her books—including The Hangman’s Whip—remain widely available.
 Okay, *gasp*, you win, *wheeze*, there is a tide… 
Evocative cover art painted by William Rose for Agatha Christie’s 1948 mystery There Is a Tide, aka Taken at the Flood. Other possible akas include: I Was Only Choking My Dear, Blue Crush, All Hands on Neck, and Squish You Were Here. Are we lucky or just good?
 I think I'll just catch some fresh air. 
The novel 4:50 from Paddington, one of Agatha Christie’s beloved Miss Marple mysteries, was published in 1968 and features Miss Jane working in tandem with young Lucy Eylesbarrow to solve the case of…well, you get the gist from the title. We’ve seen several covers for this book, but never one with the subject of the mystery captured in mid-flight. Spoiler alert! She doesn’t survive the landing.

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The headlines that mattered yesteryear.
1908—Tunguska Explosion Occurs
Near the Podkamennaya Tunguska River in what is now Krasnoyarsk Krai in Russia, a large meteoroid or comet explodes at five to ten kilometers above the Earth's surface with a force of about twenty megatons of TNT. The explosion is a thousand times more powerful than the Hiroshima atomic blast, knocks over an estimated 80 million trees and generates a shock wave estimated to have been 5.0 on the Richter scale. 1971—Soviet Cosmonauts Perish
Soviet cosmonauts Vladislav Volkov, Georgi Dobrovolski and Viktor Patsayev, who served as the first crew of the world's first space station Salyut 1, die when their spacecraft Soyuz 11 depressurizes during preparations for re-entry. They are the only humans to die in space (as opposed to the upper atmosphere). 1914—Rasputin Survives Assassination Attempt
Former prostitute Jina Guseva attempts to assassinate Grigori Rasputin in his home town of Pokrovskoye, Siberia by stabbing him in the abdomen. According to reports, Guseva screamed "I have killed the Antichrist!" But Rasputin survived until being famously poisoned, shot, bludgeoned, and drowned in an icy river two years later. 1967—Jayne Mansfield Dies in Car Accident
American actress and sex symbol Jayne Mansfield dies in an automobile accident in Biloxi, Mississippi, when the car in which she is riding slams underneath the rear of a semi. Rumors that Mansfield were decapitated are technically untrue. In reality, her death certificate states that she suffered an avulsion of the cranium and brain, meaning she lost only the top of her head. 1958—Workers Assemble First Corvette
Workers at a Chevrolet plant in Flint, Michigan, assemble the first Corvette, a two-seater sports car that would become an American icon. The first completed production car rolls off the assembly line two days later, one of just 300 Corvettes made that year.
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