 Cinema killed the Radio star. 
We found this unusual magazine in Bayonne, France last year and picked it up because of its striking cover star, who happens to be French actress Simone Renant. She had a fifty-year career in cinema but we were not aware she also worked in radio. But it says right on the cover she could be heard in Les sept mensonges de l'impératrice, aka The Seven Lies of the Empress. Radio is filled with broadcast schedules. Pages of them for the entirety of France, from metro Paris to Nice to Bretagne. But Renant’s presence hints at cinema overlap and, indeed, film star Rita Hayworth makes an appearance. And because readers cannot live on celebrity alone, there’s a bit of politics, opera, dance and, of course, boobs. This issue appeared today in 1947, which is why 47 appears in the name. The next year’s issues had a 48, and so forth, from 1943 until the publication faded away in the early 1950s, when dramatic radio was also on the way out. We have a few scans below.   
 All she wants to do is dance. 
Though it doesn’t fit strictly into the idea of pulp, we picked up this issue of Paris Match published this month in 1949 because we liked the colorful cover. Actually, that’s not true. We picked it up because one of the Pulp girlfriends saw it and said, “Oooh, ballet!” This was in Bayonne, France back in September. When we knew we’d be in the vicinity one of the Pulp boys (BB) said “Oooh, duck hearts!” So there’s your Mars/Venus moment for today: we popped by Bayonne craving sautéed duck hearts as only the French can make, and got Paris Match for two euros. The cover star is French ballerina Yvette Chauviré, who was born in 1917, rose to become the lead dancer of l'Opéra de Paris, and later ascended to its directorship. Inside you get more photos of her, plus shots of American boxer Robert Charron, and shots of his wife (referred to only as Mme. Charron) in a ringside seat watching her husband fight. Take note guys—this is what your girlfriend/wife looks like when you’re getting the living shit kicked out of you. Also inside are photos of actress Cécile Aubry and conservative politician Paul Reynaud. All for you. Enjoy.             
 Qui? Police is modern pulp with a very vintage look. 
It’s amazing how fertile France is for vintage pulp. It’s by far the best hunting ground after the U.S., and that’s true even in smaller cities like Bayonne. For example, Bayonne is a town that we made time to go to for one reason—because we knew of a restaurant that specialized in duck hearts. Afterward, feeling strong like a duck, we strolled the cobbled side streets and stumbled into two vintage bookshops straightaway. Actually, one was a bookshop. The other was an African handicrafts store with two big shelves of printed matter. See what we mean? Even a handicrafts store might have something great. Qui? Police has a vintage feel, but this issue actually dates from 1979, so that makes it modern pulp, the way we categorize things. So what do we know about this mag? Not much. We saw an issue published in February 1947 that was numbered 33, so on a weekly schedule that gives an inception year of 1946, with the first issue hitting newsstands in June. And that’s pretty much the extent of our knowledge. But we’ll find out more. In the meantime check out the inside of this thing. It’s a black, white, and red amalgam of true crime reportage, grainy photography, excellent courtroom art, cartoon humor, and cheesecake. Paging through it conjures all our favorite French words—crime, vengeance, rage, menace, lurid, voyeur. Did you know those were all French words? Well, there you go. You’re well on way to having the tools you need to survive a trip to France. Eighteen scans below.                  
 When we said the Devil is in the details, we had no idea how prophetic that would turn out to be. 
So, we got an email a few days ago from a reader named Paul about our Mort au diable post "The Devil Is in the Details" from last month, and we were asked if we were 100% sure the art for that poster was painted by Jacques Thibésart. Well, we thought we were. Then we realized we weren’t. Turns out the poster was from Belgium’s S.P.R.L. Belgique, and they have a mark that, if you aren’t paying close attention, looks like Thibésart’s signature. Thibésart signed his work Mik, Tib, or with his own name sometimes, but the Mort au diable signature, which reads Wik, is obviously different (see above). S.P.R.L. is a famous press, and their signature is well known—to everyone but us, as of a couple of days ago. Below is the last portion of our reply to Paul: It's actually rather interesting, because for us the site is just simple fun, and we often joke in our posts about how we don't take it seriously. However our analytics tell us that people are continually cross referencing here and using it for research, and the traffic is far larger than we ever expected [snip]. With that in mind, we pledged a while back to try and get all our information correct, and we are quite diligent nowadays, but something still slips through occasionally. Without readers checking our facts, we'd never get everything right, so you've done us a big favor.
So there you have it. Epic fail on Mort au diable, but every mistake makes us a little better. We’ve corrected the earlier post, but didn’t want the change to go unacknowledged. As it happens, yesterday we were in France, in a town called Bayonne, and at a vintage bookshop we saw another piece from S.P.R.L. Belgique. We didn’t have any Thibésart handy to use for a detailed comparison of the signatures, but there was no need—we already knew we’d gotten it wrong. Now the good news. First, we picked up a stack of great French pulp. And second, we’re going to get this Thibésart thing right today. All the great covers below are his. They’re from the imprint Presses Mondiales for their series Amour et Police, and were published during the 1950s. 100% on this. Seriously.
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The headlines that mattered yesteryear.
1927—Mae West Sentenced to Jail
American actress and playwright Mae West is sentenced to ten days in jail for obscenity for the content of her play Sex. The trial occurred even though the play had run for a year and had been seen by 325,000 people. However West's considerable popularity, already based on her risque image, only increased due to the controversy. 1971—Manson Sentenced to Death
In the U.S, cult leader Charles Manson is sentenced to death for inciting the murders of Sharon Tate and several other people. Three accomplices, who had actually done the killing, were also sentenced to death, but the state of California abolished capital punishment in 1972 and neither they nor Manson were ever actually executed. 1923—Yankee Stadium Opens
In New York City, Yankee Stadium, home of Major League Baseball's New York Yankees, opens with the Yankees beating their eternal rivals the Boston Red Sox 4 to 1. The stadium, which is nicknamed The House that Ruth Built, sees the Yankees become the most successful franchise in baseball history. It is eventually replaced by a new Yankee Stadium and closes in September 2008. 1961—Bay of Pigs Invasion Is Launched
A group of CIA financed and trained Cuban refugees lands at the Bay of Pigs in southern Cuba with the aim of ousting Fidel Castro. However, the invasion fails badly and the result is embarrassment for U.S. president John F. Kennedy and a major boost in popularity for Fidel Castro, and also has the effect of pushing him toward the Soviet Union for protection.
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