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Harlem hath no fury like a righteous man scorned.

This Japanese poster for the 1990s period crime drama A Rage in Harlem happened to catch our eye, partly because the art by Joe Batchelor is great, but also because we knew the American promo featured not this painting but a rather banal group photo of the cast. We don’t know why Japan got the better promo, but we can speculate. By this time global audiences were acclimated to photographic promo art, but in Japan the cast—Forest Whitaker, Robin Givens, and several established actors of the period—were unknown to local filmgoers, so the distributors marketed the movie as an art film, a sort of exotic trip to 1950s Harlem. The text on the poster’s reverse seems to confirm that: 1956, Harlem. Jazz clubs, dancehall dresses, and people in suits, with a nightlife unfolding in a Harlem-style destination.

Chester Himes’ novel For Love of Imabelle provided the source material, and it features everything the poster promises. The story deals with a naive and religious young Harlem undertaker played by Whitaker who’s taken in by scam artists, tries to retrieve his money, but runs into an array of complications, some of them comical, most of them lethal. The movie follows the book pretty closely, which means it’s bound to have good moments, but the direction by Bill Duke is a bit ponderous in the early stages, the script’s many interjections of humor lack the zest of Himes’ writing, the soundtrack is often a mismatch of mood, and the entire production suffers from budgetary constraints. It wasn’t shot in New York City, but rather Cincinnati. While architecturally that made sense because Cincinnati has scores of brownstone houses in the style of old Harlem, there’s really no substitute for the Big Apple.

On the plus side, the cast is interesting. Whitaker would later become a respected Hollywood figure, though here he’s a little green, still feeling his way as an actor. Danny Glover, Bajda Djola, and Gregory Hines are entertaining in supporting roles. Givens fits the part of a femme fatale like a glove—which is to say, she’s slinky as hell and startlingly beautiful. And turning back to the setting, while, as we said, Cincinnati is no Harlem, the many brownstone apartment houses did create a workable backdrop, and Duke uses the city in every advantageous manner he can manage. These are enough attractions, we think, to push the movie onto the plus side of the ledger. After its 1991 U.S. run A Rage in Harlem reached Japan in 1992. The rear of the poster gives a premiere date of May 2.

Reading for pleasure takes on a new dimension.


Remember that Paul H. Oelman nude we shared a while back? We thought we’d bring him back today because he has a shot that might be of interest to people who enjoy reading, which you see above. It’s titled, for obvious reasons, “Bookends.” The model here, doubled to serve as both halves of the set, is unidentified. It seems as if Oelman didn’t usually bother with attributions, which is no surprise, since he worked mainly with amateurs far from the professional model-filled coasts, in the unlikely base of Cincinnati. See the other Oelman and learn a little about him here.

Well done. You survived another one.

A toast, friends, for though the years keep piling high, you’ve survived yet another. Hopefully those years are getting better for you all the time. Ours certainly are—knock on wood. The festive photo above was made by U.S. lensman Paul H. Oelman, feautures an unidentified model, and dates from the early or mid-1940s. Oelman was born in 1880 and began his career in Dayton, Ohio, where he met the Wright Brothers and shot photos of their airplane flights. His nude period came later, when he moved his base to Cincinnati, a place which, considering its conservative values, seems a dangerous locale for erotic photography. But he made himself a success there just the same.

Oelman eventually became known throughout the U.S., gave talks to regional camera clubs, and in 1948 founded a national lecture program for the Photographic Society of America. Interesting note about his work method: he preferred to shoot local society girls, and did so with their mothers present as chaperones. We can’t even conceive of how that would be viewed today. Would the mothers be called groomers? Anyway, Oelman titled this particular work “Pagan,” and that seems as good a wish as any for the upcoming year. We plan to have a positively pagan year, and we hope you have whatever type of year you seek. 2023! Let’s do this!

Is there anything sweeter than a beautiful movie palace?


You probably recognize Grauman’s Chinese Theatre, in Los Angeles. These days it’s called TCL Chinese Theatre, because it’s owned and operated by TCL Corporation—based in China, ironically. Since we write so often about movies we thought it appropriate to discuss the beautiful buildings in which the films were exhibited. Back in the day these were usually purpose-built structures, though some did split duty for stage productions and concerts. While many of these old palaces survive, nearly all surviving vintage cinemas in the U.S. were under threat at some point. Generally, if they hadn’t been given historic protection they wouldn’t be upright today.

Other times, if a city was poor, real estate costs didn’t rise and old buildings stood unthreatened, usually idle. This happened often in the American midwest, where movie houses were neglected for decades before some were resurrected amid downtown revitalizations. It sometimes happens in Latin America too, although occasionally the formula fails. For example, Cartagena’s majestic and oft photographed landmark Teatro Colón, located in the historic section of Colombia’s most popular coastal tourist city, was torn down fewer than six months ago to make way for a Four Seasons Hotel.

Some of the cinemas below are well known treasures, while others are more unassuming places. But even those lesser known cinemas show how much thought and work was put into making moviegoing a special experience. The last photo, which shows the Butterfly Theatre in Milwaukee, exemplifies that idea. The façade is distinguished by a terra cotta butterfly sculpture adorned with light bulbs. As you might guess, many of the most beautiful large cinemas were in Los Angeles, which means that city is well represented in the collection. Enjoy.

Paramount Theatre, Oakland (operational).

Cine Maya, Mérida (demolished).

The Albee Cinema, Cincinnati (demolished)

Cooper Theatre, Denver (demolished).

Paras Cinema, Jaipur (operational).

Cathay Cinema, Shanghai (operational).

Academy Theatre, Los Angeles (operational).

Charlottenburg Filmwerbung, Berlin (demolished).

Pacific’s Cinerama Theatre, Los Angeles (operational).

York Theatre, Elmhurst (operational).

La Gaumont-Palace, Paris (demolished).

Essoldo Cinema, Newcastle (demolished).

Théâtre Scala, Strasbourg (operational).

Teatro Colón, Cartagena (demolished in 2018).

Teatro Coliseo Argentino, Buenos Aires (demolished).

Pavilion Theater, Adelaide (demolished).

El Molino Teatro, Barcelona (operational).

Fox Carthay Theatre, Los Angeles (demolished).

Kino Rossiya Teatr, Moscow (operational).

Nippon Gekijo, aka Nichigeki, Tokyo (demolished).

Cine Impala, Namibe (operational).

Cine Arenal, Havana (operational).

Teatro Mérida, Mérida (operational, renamed Teatro Armando Manzanero).

Ideal Theater, Manila (demolished).

Odeon Cinema, London (semi-demolished, converted to apartments).

Mayan Theatre, Los Angeles (operational).

Rex Cinema, Port au Prince (being restored).

Urania Kino, Vienna (operational).

Tampa Theatre, Tampa (operational).

The Butterfly Theater, Milwaukee (demolished).

Work halted on San Francisco renovation after 19th century coffin is uncovered.
In San Francisco, where high-end property renovations are occurring all over the city at breakneck speed, even the dead are being pushed out by gentrification. Last week workers digging beneath a home in the Richmond neighborhood unearthed a metal and glass coffin from the 1870s that holds the body of a little girl.
 
We had no idea such items existed, but after doing a little research we discovered that ornate metal caskets, usually made of cast iron or lead, were popular during the mid- to late-1800s among the more affluent. A Providence, Rhode Island man named Almond Fisk was the first to patent them, which he displayed in 1849 at the New York State Agricultural Society Fair in Syracuse, and the American Institute Exhibition in New York City.
 
He called them Fisk Metallic Burial Cases, and they came in an amazing variety, including Egyptian style sarcophagi. The coffins were airtight, helping preserve bodies during an era when the embalming arts were not as advanced as today and a week could elapse before arrangements were made to bury a loved one and family gathered for the send-off. They were also welded shut, preventing grave robberies—a serious problem of the times, not only due to valuables that might be buried with bodies, but also due to the price a well-preserved corpse could fetch from unscrupulous medical schools looking for research cadavers.

Fisk’s sales materials boast that not only could his burial cases be drained of air, aiding preservation, but—if one chose—filled with any type of atmosphere or fluid. Just a year after he displayed them at those New York exhibitions, former U.S. Vice-President and Secretary of State John C. Calhoun died and was buried in one. The publicity caused a wave of nationwide interest that prompted Fisk to license his expensive invention to other companies. Eventually, Crane, Breed & Co., of Cincinnati and New Orleans acquired a license, and made coffins sporting the types of viewing windows featured on the San Francisco discovery.

What will happen 
the little girl’s body is still unknown. San Francisco ordinances make her the property owner’s responsibility. Reburial has been mentioned by said property owner, but we’d be surprised if anthropologists didn’t get a look at the girl first. Autopsies on bodies of
that age have uncovered troves of data about diet, disease, and more. Afterward she can be laid to rest somewhere well out of the way of San Francisco’s ongoing makeover into millionaire Disneyland.

A sequel dealing with the world’s worst men ran more than 100 volumes.

This is a rather nice 1959 edition of Bernard O’Donnell’s The World’s Worst Women, a collection of bios on assorted female murderers. Among them are Belle Gunness, who we wrote about several years ago, Martha Wise, who was known as the “Borgia of America,” Vera Renczi, who poisoned thirty-five people in Bucharest, Romania, and Anna Marie Hahn, who killed five people in Cincinnati, Ohio. Other famed killers include such colorfully named characters as the Red Witch of Buchenwald (Ilse Koch), the Poison Widow of Liege (Marie Alexandrine Becker), the Ogress of Paris (Jeanne Weber), and the Angel Makers of Nagyrév, a group of women who poisoned up to 300 people in Hungary. We were just kidding about a sequel dealing with men. Finding enough paper to print something like that would wipe out half the world’s forests…  

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HISTORY REWIND

The headlines that mattered yesteryear.

1933—Prohibition Ends in United States

Utah becomes the 36th U.S. state to ratify the 21st Amendment to the United States Constitution, thus establishing the required 75% of states needed to overturn the 18th Amendment which had made the sale of alcohol illegal. But the criminal gangs that had gained power during Prohibition are now firmly established, and maintain an influence that continues unabated for decades.

1945—Flight 19 Vanishes without a Trace

During an overwater navigation training flight from Fort Lauderdale, five U.S. Navy TBM Avenger torpedo-bombers lose radio contact with their base and vanish. The disappearance takes place in what is popularly known as the Bermuda Triangle.

1918—Wilson Goes to Europe

U.S. President Woodrow Wilson sails to Europe for the World War I peace talks in Versailles, France, becoming the first U.S. president to travel to Europe while in office.

1921—Arbuckle Manslaughter Trial Ends

In the U.S., a manslaughter trial against actor/director Roscoe ‘Fatty’ Arbuckle ends with the jury deadlocked as to whether he had killed aspiring actress Virginia Rappe during rape and sodomy. Arbuckle was finally cleared of all wrongdoing after two more trials, but the scandal ruined his career and personal life.

1964—Mass Student Arrests in U.S.

In California, Police arrest over 800 students at the University of California, Berkeley, following their takeover and sit-in at the administration building in protest at the UC Regents’ decision to forbid protests on university property.

1968—U.S. Unemployment Hits Low

Unemployment figures are released revealing that the U.S. unemployment rate has fallen to 3.3 percent, the lowest rate for almost fifteen years. Going forward all the way to the current day, the figure never reaches this low level again.

1954—Joseph McCarthy Disciplined by Senate

In the United States, after standing idly by during years of communist witch hunts in Hollywood and beyond, the U.S. Senate votes 65 to 22 to condemn Joseph McCarthy for conduct bringing the Senate into dishonor and disrepute. The vote ruined McCarthy’s career.

Barye Phillips cover art for Street of No Return by David Goodis.
Assorted paperback covers featuring hot rods and race cars.
A collection of red paperback covers from Dutch publisher De Vrije Pers.

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