Pulp International

May 20 2019

I didn't know that a girl like you could make me feel so sad...

A couple of weeks ago we shared a Mexican movie poster we weren't 100% sure was actually from Mexico. This time we're sure—this beautiful promo Antonio Caballero painted for the melodrama La red says right in the lower left corner “impreso en México.” In that previous write-up we also talked about how popular locally produced films were in Mexico before the industry was suffocated by U.S. business and political interests, and this effort is an example. It was made by Reforma Films S.A., based in Mexico City, and starred Libyan born Italian actress Rossana Podesta, Costa Rican actor Crox Alvarado, and U.S. born actor Armando Silvestre. Enticing a burgeoning international star like Podesta over from Europe indicates how established the Mexican film industry was in 1953, when La red was made.

Interestingly, when the movie played in the U.S. it was titled simply Rosanna, which makes sense, because it would be nothing without Podesta. It struck us that even though Toto didn't write their song of obsession “Rosanna” about Podesta, they might as well have. The film begins when a group of men botch a robbery, a shootout commences, and one of the bandits, Antonio, played by Alvarado, tries to help his wounded comrade. But the dying man gasps to Antonio, “Save yourself—for Rossana.” So we know she's a special woman even before seeing her. Antonio does save himself and goes to live on the seaside with Podesta, where the two harvest sea sponges. It's idyllic, but as a wanted thief he has to lay low, which means sending her alone to town to sell their catch. And the men in the town are... well... see below:

I am intrigued by this spicy redhead.

I too find myself somewhat taken with this mysterious chile pepper of a woman.

Perhaps I'll invite her to coffee and a cronut. That's a cross between a croissant and a donut, my friend, and living out there on the idyllic seashore as she does, I bet she's never had one.

I wonder if she's a fan of our great romantic poet Salvador Díaz Mirón?

I'm certain she has no idea how quickly European skin can burn in this tropical climate.

I'm admittedly less high minded than other men, and mainly wonder what she looks like naked, and whether the carpet is red too.

What the hell are all these guys staring— Oh. I think it's me.

Clearly, these trips into town are menacing affairs for Podesta. If you were to screen the sequences at an anti-sexual harassment seminar, every guy in the joint would bow his head in shame. Important to note, though, that within the narrative these aggressively pervy guys are depicted in a negative light, with even the soundtrack music growing ominous. When one of Antonio's robbery compatriots shows up in town, he gets into a shootout that leaves two men dead, and therein are sown the seeds of future troubles. We won't say more, save that the film is stagy, stylized, operatic, almost devoid of dialogue, and largely remembered because of Podesta's role. It all worked well enough to earn the Prix International du film le mieux raconté par l'image, aka the Award for Visual Narration, at the Cannes Film Festival.

Moving on to the poster, have a look at a previous Mexican promo we shared last year. It's here. We'll wait. Back? You'd think it was the same person who painted both, but the reason we wanted you to glance at the other one is because it exemplifies the strange phenomenon of artists within the same film industry biting each other's styles. It happened in Italy and Sweden too. Either through direct influence from the studios, or through osmosis due to mutual association, several Mexican artists delved into this art deco tinged style. Check out Leopoldo Mendoza Andrade here. Interesting, right? You'll see what we mean even more clearly when we share posters from other Mexican artists, for example Juan Antonio Vargas. That'll be soon. La Red premiered in Mexico today in 1953.

Mexico Italy Costa Rica Libya France Cannes Film Festival Reforma Films S.A.La red Rossana Rossana Podesta Crox Alvarado Armando Silvestre Antonio Caballero poster art cinema movie review

Femmes Fatales

Dec 2 2018

From behind the microscope to in front of the camera.

You don't know U.S. actress Emily Yancy but she's been around for a long time. She started performing on television in 1963 and is still going strong as of 2018. Of her few cinematic efforts two were notable—the blaxploitation classics Cotton Comes to Harlem and Blacula. Her small screen appearances include Starsky & Hutch, The Mod Squad, and MacGyver.

The above photo is from 1961, and it was made when she was eighteen years old and competing in the Miss American Beauty Pageant, not be confused with the Miss America Pageant. Interesting story, she was a biology major and was working at NYU Medical Center operating an electron microscope when her coworkers persuaded her to give parading up and down a stage in a swimsuit a shot. She won Miss American Beauty, which gave her a chance to compete again in France.

She was sent to Cannes and finished second in the Miss Cannes Film Festival competition. After that Hollywood called and those boring old electrons were forgotten. Television, film, nightclub performing, modeling and a lot of travel followed. There's a lesson in this story, and maybe not one that should be taught to little girls—Forget science! Give us a little leg!—but you don't need a microscope to see that Yancy takes a great picture, and her career longevity suggests she made a good choice.

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Modern Pulp

Aug 27 2018

Huh? What do you mean you tipped him enough earlier to cover our whole stay?

David Dodge was a very deft writer. When he died in 1974 The Last Match hadn't been published, but Hard Case Crime put it out in 2006, and it falls into the same category as his To Catch a Thief, as well as jet-set grifter novels by other authors. For us this was tremendously entertaining. Dodge takes his protagonist to Spain, southern France, Tangier, Central America, Brazil, and other exotic locales, weaving in foreign vocabulary and mixing it all up to reflect his character's life as an international rolling stone. Like when he explains offhand that the Brazilian soft drink guaraná is fizzy like a Portuguese vinho verde, but sweet, and perfect for mixing with cachaça. Little things like that give the tale great flavor. And the story of an inveterate con man knocking about from country to country while stalked by a smitten aristocratic beauty (who he refers to as Nemesis) has plenty of amusements. Some say it's not Dodge at his best because it has no plot, but stories only need to entertain. Dodge, like his main character, is remembering the highlights of his life and mixing in a portion of male-oriented fantasy. We'll admit to having a weakness for the tale because we've been to most of the places mentioned, had high times drinking guaraná mixed with cachaça, and met more than one charming hustler or beauty who arrived from parts unknown to send the town reeling. But as objectively as we can manage to assess, we think The Last Match is good, lighthearted fun. Highly recommended.

France Brazil Peru Spain Morocco Cannes Tangier Marrakech Hard Case Crime To Catch a Thief David Dodge cover art literature

Vintage Pulp

Jun 5 2018

In the land of bad men the one eyed woman becomes queen

Above is a promo poster for the Swedish sexploitation flick Thriller - en grym film. When it was released in the U.S. it was retitled Thriller: A Cruel Picture, then edited and given the revised name They Call Her One Eye, and still later dubbed Hooker's Revenge, which we think gives a bit too much away. But what do we know? It's not like we have marketing degrees. Anyway, the poster above for the film's Thriller incarnation has an unusual shape sometimes referred to as subway size because such promos were usually displayed on mass transit vehicles. As far as we know, no standard vertically oriented poster was ever made with the title Thriller: A Cruel Picture. But if any do exist, you can be sure they're worth a fortune.

Sweden's best export Christina Lindberg stars here as a Frigga, a young woman gone mute due to a sexual assault in her youth. Terrible luck strikes again when, as an adult, she's abducted, addicted to heroin, and forced into prostitution. She resists, but after she harms a customer her pimp punishes her by cutting her eye out with a scalpel. After enduring further indignities she eventually musters the courage to try and escape. Heroin addiction is the leash her pimp counts on to keep her in line, but she's otherwise free to use her down time as she wishes. With the little money she has she secretly buys lessons in martial arts, shooting, and tactical driving, then when the moment is ripe she finally goes on a revenge spree.

There's nothing here you won't find in other 1970s revenge sexploitation flicks except lots of slo-mo, but for Lindberg's fans—among them Quentin Tarantino, who borrowed the eyepatch look for Daryl Hannah when he made Kill Bill—this is probably a must-see. As a side note, you'll sometimes find Lindberg referenced as a porn actress because of this movie. BAV Film made two versions, one with x-rated inserts and one without. The explicit stuff was done by a stand-in. Or a lay-in. In an interview Lindberg once said the hardest part of her career was resisting the constant pressure to do porn. We suspect this was a film she had in mind when she said that. After premiering in France at the Cannes Film Festival in 1973 and later playing in Sweden, Thriller: A Cruel Picture first opened eyes in the U.S. today in 1974.

Sweden France BAV Film Cannes Film Festival Thriller: A Cruel Picture They Call Her One Eye Hooker's Revenge Thriller - en grym film Christina Lindberg Quentin Tarantino Daryl Hannah poster art cinema sexploitation xxx movie review

Sex Files

Oct 30 2017

Cannes goods take on a whole new flavor.

Today in 1976 the U.S. porno movie Sensations premiered in Japan. We talked about it five years ago and shared an amazing Japanese promo poster painted by William Stok. That piece was an alternate promo. The one you see above was more widely used. While it's no Stok, in its own way it's almost as interesting, with star Brigitte Maier seeming to fellate psychedelic emissions of unknown composition and provenance. Of course, the Japanese designers merely painted over what she was really tasting. The visual effect is rather nice, we think.

Sensations—referred to on the poster as Sensation—was well received upon release. Bruce Williamson of Playboy called it a “sensually pulsating sextravaganza” that was “the best bet of all for outright voyeurs.” The film was so highly regarded it even screened at the Cannes Film Festival. Does that mean it's good? Not exactly. Not by any normal standard. But we mention the Cannes thing because if someone walks in unexpectedly while you're watching it you are now equipped to indignantly inform them: “Porn? Porn? I'll have you know this played in Cannes!”

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Hollywoodland

Feb 21 2017

New tabloid explodes onto the gossip scene.

When we describe Dynamite as a new tabloid, it's only partly true. It was a new imprint. But its publisher, the Modern Living Council of Connecticut, Inc., was headquartered at the Charlton Building in Derby, Connecticut, which is where Top Secret and Hush-Hush based operations. When you see that Dynamite carried the same cover font as Top Secret and Hush-Hush, and that those two magazines advertised in Dynamite, it seems clear that all three had the same provenance. But unlike Top Secret and Hush-Hush, it doesn't seem as if Dynamite lasted long. The issue above, which appeared this month in 1956, is the second. We are unable to confirm whether there was a third. But if Dynamite was short-lived it wasn't because of any deficiencies in the publication. It's identical in style to other tabloids, and its stories are equally interesting.

One of those deals with Henry von Thyssen, the Dutch born, German descended heir to an industrial fortune, and his wife, Nina Dyer, heiress to a tea plantation in Sri Lanka, back then called Ceylon. The von Thyssen family manufactured steel in Germany, including for Hitler's Third Reich, and came out of World War II unscathed, as big companies that profit from war always do. Dyer was a dilettante famed for making bikinis popular on the French Riveria. According to Dynamite, von Thyssen was so desperate to marry Dyer that he allowed her to keep her boyfriend, the French actor Christian Marquand. Society gossips whispered,

but both spouses were fine with the set-up until von Thyssen accidentally ran into Dyer and Marquand in Carrol's nightclub in Paris and was forced to save face by starting a fight. The couple soon divorced, but not because of infidelity, as many accounts claim. What finally broke the couple up was that Dyer dropped Marquand. Dynamite tells readers: “[von Thyssen] has ditched his sloe-eyed Baroness because now she's decided she loves him.”

Interesting, but there are many similar stories about open high society marriages. What interested us, really, was the portrayal of Dyer. Apparently she had at some point been strongly influenced by Asian women. Her husband described her as “soft and feminine and oriental looking.” Dynamite painted this word picture: “She walks as though she has a water pot balanced on her head, her dark, slanting eyes are inscrutable, and her movements are so languorous and cat-like that von Thyssen gave her a baby panther as a companion.” Dyer eventually had two panthers, and was often seen walking them on the Croisette in Cannes. After her marriage to von Thyssen ended she quickly married Prince Sadruddin Aga Khan, but that marriage ended in divorce. Over the years she had been given many gifts. Besides the panthers there were cars, jewels, and a Caribbean island. But the one thing money never bought for her was happiness. She committed suicide at age thirty-five.

There's a lot more to learn about Nina Dyer—her modeling career, her adventures in the south of France, her free-spirited ways in the Caribbean, her 1962 E-Type Jaguar Roadster that was found in Jamaica in 2015 and restored for a November 2016 auction, and more. So we'll be getting back to her a little later. We still have about fifty tabloids from the mid-1950s and we're betting she appears in more than a few. Meanwhile, elsewhere in Dynamite is a story tracking Marilyn Monroe's movements around Fire Island during a summer 1955 vacation, a report about Frank Sinatra being barred from the Milroy Club in London, an exposé on prostitution in Rome, a breakdown of the breakdown of Gene Tierney's engagement to Aly Khan (Sadruddin Aga Khan's brother), and a couple of beautiful photos of Diana Dors. We have about thirty scans below for your enjoyment. Odds are we'll never find another issue of Dynamite, but we're happy to own even one. It's great reading.

Femmes Fatales

Aug 2 2016

It isn't whether you win the game. It's who you play.

And speaking of summer, Sharon Tate is the picture of summertime in this shot of her playing ping pong on the beach. We've seen the photo around the internet, but of course with zero information, so for the record, she's attending the 21st Cannes Film Festival, held in 1968, not in the summer, but in spring—May to be exact. But summer comes early on the Côte d'Azur. Her husband Roman Polanski was on the festival jury that year, but since that isn't actual work, he made time to be at the other end of the table here. He may have lost the game for all we know, but when Tate is your partner you've already won.

France Cannes Cannes Film Festival Sharon Tate Roman Polanski cinema

Intl. Notebook

Jun 28 2016

A Schell of her former self.

Above is our second issue of Colleción Idolos de Cine, this one featuring Austrian born actress Maria Schell. Not well known now, Schell was an acclaimed figure who won best actress at the 1954 Cannes Film Festival for Die Letzte Brücke and won the Volpi Cup for best actress at the 1956 Venice Film Festival for Gervaise. As we mentioned before, we found these obscure Idolos magazines in Barcelona a while back and grabbed six. You can see the previous issue we posted here.

Spain Austria Barcelona Venice Cannes Cannes Film Festival Venice Film Festival Colleción Idolos del Cine Gervaise Die Letzte Brücke Maria Schell Horst Hächler cinema

Vintage Pulp

Nov 23 2015

Josep Renau Berenguer cooks up a classic poster for a classic film.

Arroz Amargo, with Silvana Mangano, Vittorio Gassman, and Doris Dowling, was originally made in Italy and called Riso Amaro, or Bitter Rice. We already delved into this particular rice paddy, but we wanted to show you this beautiful alternate Spanish poster painted by Catalan artist Josep Renau Berenguer. The movie premiered in Spain four years after it opened at the 1949 Cannes Film Festival and had a long run in Italy. That was today in 1953. If you’re interested you can read our original write-up and see the Italian poster here.

Spain Italy Catlonia Catalunya Cannes Film Festival Riso Amaro Arroz Amargo Bitter Rice Josep Renau Berenguer Silvana Mangano Vittorio Gassman Doris Dowling poster art cinema

Vintage Pulp

Oct 31 2014

Amid medieval Japan’s manners and restraint, how can a person tell the difference between love, honor, and duty?

Above is a poster for Teinosuke Kinugasa’s masterwork samurai drama Jigokumon, which was known in English as Gate of Hell. It was the first Japanese film shot in color, via the process Eastmancolor, which was a leap beyond three-strip Technicolor, and one that makes Jigokumon blaze like a supernova. The story, from a play by Kan Kikuchi, concerns a Heian-era samurai named Moritoh whose bravery during a battle is rewarded by his lord granting him anything he desires. What he desires is the Lady Kesa. Problem is she’s married to another samurai. The lord mistakenly grants Moritoh’s wish, which is soon revealed to be impossible, but Moritoh resolves to have Kesa anyway, by any means necessary—trickery, bribery, even all-out murder. What develops is not just a thriller about entitlement and lust, but a meditation on honor, love and, especially, social strictures.

Jigokumon was a sensation. A hit in Japan, it was a revelation to foreign audiences. It took home the Palme d’Or from the 1954 Cannes Film Festival, a 1955 special Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, an Oscar for Best Costume Design in a color film, and more prestigious nods. Along with Akira Kurosawa’s Rashomon, Kimisaburo Yoshimura’s Genji Monogatari, Kenji Mizoguchi’s Ugetsu Monogatari, and other films from the early 1950s, it marked the emergence of Japanese cinema onto the international scene. We’ve posted a large group of screen grabs below—perhaps overkill, considering how many—but the film just looks so damn good and the shots are so spectacular that we couldn’t help ourselves. Jigokumon premiered in Japan today in 1953.