| Vintage Pulp | Oct 1 2023 |
French toast, French doors, French kissing, and now French nursing. You people make an art out of everything.
Above: a very nice cover plus textless original art painted by Lou Marchetti for Florence Stonebraker's 1954 sleaze digest Intimate Affairs of a French Nurse. There's a lot of Stonebraker out there on the auction sites (and in Pulp Intl.), but we consider all the ones that interest us to be a little too expensive. Fortunately, she wrote more than eighty novels, which means that, inevitably, something will turn up at a good price.
| Vintage Pulp | Sep 4 2023 |
It's not robbery if someone wants you to take it.
Above is another digest novel from Florence Stonebraker, this time writing as Tom Stone to produce Stolen Love. It was originally published in 1937 as Too Much Love, with this Griffin Books re-issue arriving in 1946 fronted by a cover painted by Glenn Cravath. The book deals with popular New York City radio personality Kay Brinkley—better known as the Voice of Romance—who hosts a lonely hearts call-in show, but is actually cynical about love and thinks her job is a high paying joke.
Her boyfriend asks her to head out to San Francisco to close a business deal for him, and she develops a case of wandering eye before the train even reaches the Rocky Mountains. Once out west she's smitten with the man who's supposed to provide her with important papers, while a couple of other guys, in turn, are seriously smitten by her. Complications arise when her NYC boyfriend unexpectedly flies to San Fran, putting him in direct romantic competition with his business acquaintance.
Kay gets laid with a total of three men as required by most of these digests, and attacked by one, definitely not a requirement, before finally returning to her original boyfriend, a forbearing sort who doesn't begrudge Kay her carnal explorations. The story is a tangled web, written in the usual Stonebraker style, already well in evidence though this was one of her first books. It's no wonder she became such a popular author. She's no Jane Austen, but in the realm of sleazy romance she's about as good as it gets.
New York CitySan FranciscoGriffin BooksThomas StoneFlorence StonebrakerGlenn Cravathcover artliterature
| Vintage Pulp | Jun 7 2022 |
She's a love and let love type of girl.
Above: a cover for Love Life of a Hollywood Mistress by Florence Stonebraker, 1950. The artist is uncredited. There's interior imagery in the form of photos of models posing scenes from the story, and as usual when these digests contain such pages, they're difficult to scan without destroying the book. Besides the front, we were able to scan the inside of the front cover and five of the fourteen interior photos. Stonebraker tells the story of Wanda Russell, who one fateful night tries to resist being forcibly taken by a date and accidentally pushes him out a high window to his death. Good on her, but remember, these were the days when a single woman in a man's hotel room could not have claimed self defense, so Wanda goes on the run.
She can't hide without help, so she turns to her acquaintance Chet, who, when he finds out Wanda is a virgin, decides he can make a fortune by pimping her out to a rich acquaintance. Yeah, it's a little flimsy as a method for cop avoidance goes, but this is mid-century sleaze, so you follow where the author leads. Wanda is to become mistress to Shelby Stevens, big time romantic actor, who would love to have a virgin. But wanting to thwart these creepy men in the one way she can, she gives her virginity to her friend Danny, who has always loved her. Danny is crushed when she leaves him and goes to live in Shelby Stevens' beach house for the summer. These triangles are, you know by now, the rocket fuel that powers digest romances.
So Wanda lives with Stevens, but Stevens turns out to be a rat, and Wanda decides to flee. Stevens won't let her go, but Danny, who has sat by in silent suffering as Wanda has been used as a plaything, shows up to beat Stevens within an inch of his life. He doesn't do it because of Wanda. He does it because it turns out his younger sister Thelma had been an earlier plaything for Stevens, and had ended up dead. In one fell swoop Danny gets revenge for his sister, sort of, and rescues his true love Wanda. Oh, and Chet the pimp ends up dead, shot by his girlfriend Bertie, who considers Wanda a rival. We won't even go into all that. And the guy Wanda pushed out a window? That's never truly resolved.
Stonebraker churned out a lot of these books, some under the names Florenz Branch and Thomas Stone. Thirteen were published in 1950 alone. She would eventually write more than eighty, and she didn't even start until she was forty-one. All of which is to say Love Life of a Hollywood Mistress feels rushed, with its pat ending and central concept that barely hangs together. But Stonebraker, despite her full work schedule, has done well in other tales, so she can have a mulligan on this one as far as we're concerned. After all, she's a sleaze and romance author—expectations need to be kept in check. We have a couple more of her novels lined up, and we'll see how she does.
| Vintage Pulp | Mar 6 2022 |
*sigh* All the gluttony, drunkenness, and lust have been fun, but I need variety. You know—reviling, unholiness. Really esoteric ones.
Above: a cover by Bernard Safran for Sin Cruise, Croydon Books sleaze from the typewriter of Florence Stonebraker, 1954, about a virgin named Maggie Thompson who has a boatborne sexual adventure on a cruise out of New York City. As we've mentioned before, it was pro forma to have the female protagonist of these tales laid by a minimum of two different men, often three, though one time is often by accident (we won't even get into that), and in this case they're Jeff, John, and—atypically—Carlos Cardoza, latin lover. Atypical because we haven't seen anything but WASPs populate the male ranks of these books. It must have been a little risqué for 1954, but we doubt he's the last man standing. We'll see when we read it, which we can't do now because we have more than fifty vintage books waiting. With luck, we'll get to them all.
A funny thing—someone was selling a shit-quality black-and-white postcard of the cover of Sin Cruise for almost as much the book vendor was selling the novel. Just look at that thing. Did they make it by hand? Is that white-out on the top right? Even for a postcard this is really lame, but hey, everybody's gotta hustle. If they can sell this terrible merch, well, that's fine. But they surely will never sell it to us.And speaking of buying and selling, we've been buying a lot of sleaze digests (you may have noticed our write-ups on some of them over the past couple of years, such as here, here, here, and here), and if you plan to purchase any, note that pricing can be all over the place. We don't recommend spending more than twenty dollars per book. Almost without fail, the digest you see asking fifty or sixty bucks will turn up months later, offered by a different vendor for a pittance. Patience is needed, but it'll be rewarded.
| Vintage Pulp | Feb 18 2022 |
I'm not only beautiful. I'm expensive, inconvenient, and unreliable. You'll spend years explaining all this to your therapist.
We have another paperback collection for you today, and this one is a no-brainer for a pulp site. There are hundreds of covers featuring women in bars, many of which we've already shared, such as here, here (scroll down), and here. Above and below are more, and as soon as we uploaded them we went to do exactly what the art depicts. Have a happy Friday, everyone.
Monarch BooksPaul DanielsCharles GorhamCharles O. GorhamGlen WatkinsJack EhrlichJean PedrickJ.M. FlynnMike PanosFaber BirrenJames ClayfordHansford MartinAllan HorneJack NortonAlbert L. QuandtRichard MezatestaVicki EvansGerald FosterJoan ShermanRafael DeSotoGil BrewerMark ClementsCharles-Louis PhilippeFlorence StonebrakerEve LinkletterFan NicholsSimon KentMartin YoseloffHenry EllsworthFrank KaneMarch HastingsLindsay HardyJean BruceEric ThomasHoward BondGil BrewerPaul Rénincover artcover collectionliterature
| Vintage Pulp | Nov 3 2021 |
Since you're standing there, refill me, would ya? And if the chauffeur's union asks, tell them you drove me to drink.
Above: fun Bernard Safran art for Florence Stonebraker's 1954 sleazer Confessions of a Ladies' Chauffeur, for Croydon Books. We have other Stonebrakers, so we passed on this for $65. If it ever goes down we'll buy it and update this post. You have noticed we sometimes do that, right? Like this Stonebraker we updated not long ago.
| Vintage Pulp | Jan 21 2021 |
A nipple scope? Alright, blouse and bra coming off. I thought it was a stethoscope, but I'm no doctor.
The doctor sleaze keeps on coming. Here's another to add to our vast collection—Dr. Breyton's Wife by Florenz Branch, aka Florence Stonebraker, for Intimate Novels, 1953. You see this around the internet a lot, but it originally came from Sleazy Digest Books. We haven't read it, but we own two of Branch's other novels, which means you will hear from her a little later.
| Vintage Pulp | Dec 2 2020 |
Unlike a normal lottery nobody wants a ticket, and against all odds you're bound to get picked eventually.
We all know that in cinema no idea lies fallow for long. They're all reused until they've given everything of value, and plenty that isn't. Part of the fun of watching movies is seeing the lineage of ideas. La decima vittima, for which you see a nice Mario de Berardinis poster above, was known in English as The 10th Victim, and resides in the sub-genre of films about humans killing humans for sport and gain. Other movies in the group include 1932's The Most Dangerous Game, 1972's The Woman Hunt, 1975's Death Race 2000, 1987's The Running Man, 2013's The Purge, and others.
In La decima vittima's near future, violence between citizens has been made legal and placed under the auspices of the Ministero della Grande Caccio, aka the Ministry of the Big Hunt. Those who hunt are given the identities of their prey, along with their locations and personal habits. Anyone can be hunted, even those who previously were hunters. The hunted can kill their hunters in self defense, but if they make a mistake and kill the wrong person—easy to do when you're paranoid and an unknown person is stalking you—that's old fashioned murder and off to prison you go. The purpose of all this slaughter? As the film explains, “Why have birth control when you can have death control?”
Ursula Andress, whose looks kill anyway, plays an adept hunter given an opportunity by a big corporation to monetize her tenth (and by law her final) murder. Marcello Mastroianni plays a one percenter who's been computer selected as her prey, and whom Andress' corporate benefactors want to film her assassinating for a tea commercial. Andress has agreed to kill Mastroianni at the Temple of Venus in Rome. Getting him there won't be easy, but the classic honeytrap, with the sun-kissed Andress as the sticky goodness, is a sure bet to work. It'd work on us.
We said the movie is in the same lineage as The Most Dangerous Game, The Purge, et al. Nearly all those films are better than La decima vittima. There are several problems here, not least of which is emotional tone-deafness—the characters love and hate because the script requires it, but there's no spark, no believability. The movie is probably worth watching anyway because of its super sex symbol cast rounded out by Elsa Martinelli, plus its sleek, retrofuturistic ’60s fashions, but don't go in expecting a landmark sci-fi, a brutal social commentary, a cutting satire, or anything of the ilk. In the end, just like the real future, it's so-so. La decima vittima had its world premiere in Rome and Florence today in 1965.
ItalyRomeFlorenceLa decima vittimaThe 10th VictimUrsula AndressMarcello MastroianniElsa MartinelliMario de Berardinisposter artcinemasci-fimovie review
| Vintage Pulp | Aug 23 2018 |
Despite my reputation the odds are very much against you.
Above is a cover for 50-50 Girl by Thomas Stone for Chicago's Merit Books, published in 1952. The title refers not to the odds of getting the lead character in bed, but the fact that she's forced to share her favors with two men. It isn't a consensual agreement, technically, because she gives herself to man number two—a rich playboy—as the price of freeing her sister from her former manager, an amoral hustler named Eddie. The author Thomas Stone was actually none other than Florence Stonebraker, the brain behind more than eighty novels. Which is quite a feat, considering she didn't get published until she was forty-one. We have plenty from her in the website but our favorite is this one.
| Vintage Pulp | May 20 2018 |
S'more where this one came from.
Today we have a small collection of covers, plus a couple of examples of clean art without text, from Wisconsin born illustrator Owen Kampen. Besides being a prolific paperback cover artist he was a bomber pilot during World War II who was escorted by the famed Tuskeegee Airmen, was a teacher of commercial art, and was an ace model airplane hobbyist who was inducted into the Model Aviation Hall of Fame. He was also a less-than-stellar husband, at least according to his wife Irene Kampen, whose book Life without George was based on her divorce and became the source material for The Lucy Show. Well, nobody's perfect. We have some very interesting pieces below and one more here.
World War IIThe Lucky ShowWisconsinOwen KampenIrene KampenLaura Z. HobsonFlorence StonebrakerFan NicholsThomas GallagherJohn D. MacDonaldSimms AlbertWilliam H. FieldingElio BartoliniEdward D. RadinCharles GorhamDouglas SandersonDavid GoodisSid FederBurton B. TurkusJoe Weisscover artliteraturecover collection
