| Vintage Pulp | Mar 25 2022 |
This is no lie—Gasparri was a unique talent.
This poster for Catherine Spaak's 1965 comedy La bugiarda—which would translate as “the liar” but which was known in English as Six Days a Week—is the excellent work of Italian illustrator Rodolfo Gasparri, who we've featured before. We have to stop there for a second and confess that, though Gasparri is a great talent, we can't help laughing whenever we see his name because it reminds us of the 1990 comedy The Freshman with Matthew Broderick, where's he's greatly dismayed to have the fake identity Rodolfo Lasparri forced upon him. Minor difference in the name, but still. Anyway, we weren't able to track down La bugiarda to watch, but we thought Gasparri's brilliant version of Spaak as a sort of elongated pin-up was worth a share. We liked it so much, in fact, that we wiped off a little text and made a clean zoom below. You can see more from Gasparri here and here. You can also see Spaak in one of the greatest outfits ever at this link.
| Hollywoodland | Dec 25 2018 |
Kenneth Anger explores Hollywood's darkest recesses in his landmark tell-all.
Kenneth Anger's Hollywood Babylon is the grandaddy of all Tinseltown exposés. It was published in 1965, banned ten days later, and shelved until 1975. It's exactly as advertised, outing everybody that was anybody for everything. Entire chunks are devoted to Charlie Chaplain, Lana Turner, Errol Flynn, Fatty Arbuckle and other cinematic luminaries. Some of its claims have been proved false—for instance the assertion that Lupe Velez died with her head in a toilet, and that Clara Bow screwed the USC football team (we doubt anyone really believed that one, even back then). But other tales are basically true, including accounts of various legal run-ins and feuds.
Anger's writing is uneven, but at its most effective mirrors the type of pure tabloid style that influenced the likes of James Ellroy and others. Besides the salacious gossip the book has a ton of rare celeb photos, and those are of real worth. We've uploaded a bunch below. They came from a digital edition because our little paperback was too fragile to get on a scanner. By the way, don't feel as if we're working overtime on our website this Christmas morning—we uploaded everything in advance and are actually nowhere near a computer today. We're glad you took a minute to drop by. Copious vintage Hollywood below.
Hollywood BabylonKenneth AngerJayne MansfieldCharlie ChaplainGloria SwansonMarion DaviesClara BowFrances FarmerOlive ThomasPaul BernDavid MdvaniMae MurrayPrincess MdvaniFatty ArbuckleJean HarlowLana TurnerJohnny StompanatoGinger RogersLewis StoneRobert MitchumBugsy SiegelBenjamin SiegelBarbara La MarrErrol FlynnMae WestSalvador DaliRudolph ValentinoElsa MaxwellLinda DarnellGwili AndreJohn GilbertLupe VelezJanet GaynorMarlene DietrichRory Calhounsuicidemurder
| Modern Pulp | Vintage Pulp | Oct 31 2017 |
A dozen bloody reasons to love Halloween.
This poster is a special edition promo painted by Nanpei Kaneko for The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, which was showing at the Tokyo International Film Festival on its fortieth anniversary in 2014. The Japanese title 悪魔のいけにえtranslates to “devil sorrowfully” or “Satan sorrowfully,” and that's a mystery to us, as we're sure there are chainsaws in Japan, as well as the concept of massacres, and some general inkling about Texas, but whatever. Sorrowfully it is—the poster is amazing.
Below, in honor of Halloween, which is becoming more and more of an event here overseas where we live, we have eleven more Japanese posters for 1970s and 1980s U.S.-made horror films. They are, top to bottom, The Prowler (aka Rosemary's Killer), The Fog, Lifeforce, An American Werewolf in London, Bug, Halloween II (aka Boogey Man), Let Sleeping Corpses Lie,Torso, The Evil Dead, Link, and Death Trap.
We've put together horror collections in the past. We have five beautiful Thai posters at this link, fifteen Japanese horror posters we shared on Halloween two years ago here, and we also have a collection of aquatic creature feature posters we shared way back in 2009. And if those don't sate your appetite for the morbid and terrible, just click the keyword “horror” below, and you can see everything we've posted that fits the category. No tricks. Only treats.
Below, in honor of Halloween, which is becoming more and more of an event here overseas where we live, we have eleven more Japanese posters for 1970s and 1980s U.S.-made horror films. They are, top to bottom, The Prowler (aka Rosemary's Killer), The Fog, Lifeforce, An American Werewolf in London, Bug, Halloween II (aka Boogey Man), Let Sleeping Corpses Lie,Torso, The Evil Dead, Link, and Death Trap.
We've put together horror collections in the past. We have five beautiful Thai posters at this link, fifteen Japanese horror posters we shared on Halloween two years ago here, and we also have a collection of aquatic creature feature posters we shared way back in 2009. And if those don't sate your appetite for the morbid and terrible, just click the keyword “horror” below, and you can see everything we've posted that fits the category. No tricks. Only treats.
JapanTokyo International Film Festival悪魔のいけにえThe ProwlerRosemary's KillerThe FogLifeforceAn American Werewolf in LondonBugHalloween IIBoogey ManLet Sleeping Corpses LieTorsoThe Evil DeadLinkDeath TrapNanpei Kanekoposter artcinemahorror
| The Naked City | Jun 20 2014 |
Top of the world one second. An anecdote the next.
Mobster Bugsy Siegel met his end in a Los Angeles bungalow belonging to his girlfriend Virginia Hill. His killer attacked from the dark through a window, spraying a burst of automatic fire from a .30-caliber military M1 carbine as Siegel was sitting on a sofa. Accounts of the damage to Siegel are all over the map, but the morgue photos tell the story. The shots came from a front rightward angle. He was hit in the torso with bullets that pierced his lungs, and he was hit twice in the head—once in the right cheek, and once in the right side of the nose. The pressure from that bullet passing through his skull blew his left eye out of its socket, but he was not actually shot in the eye. It happened today in 1947.
| Vintage Pulp | Sep 26 2012 |
Hey, Boss, am I the only one this is putting in the mood for crème brûlée flambé?
Today we have another copy of Myron Fass’s true crime magazine Crime Does Not Pay, with one of its infamous torture covers. We thought the last one was bad, but this time the uncredited artist opts to depict the dreaded blowtorch treatment. This issue is from September 1969, and inside you get stories on Vito Genovese, Elliot Ness, Bugsy Siegel, Abe Hummel, Charles Ponzi, and various other crooks, cops, feds, crooked cops, and crooked feds. Twenty-one scans below, and you can see more gory goodness from Crime Does Not Pay here.
Crime Does Not PayMyron FassVito GenoveseElliot NessBugsy SiegelAbe HummelCharles Ponzitrue crime magazine
