Vintage Pulp

April 13 2025

SUMURU THE DAY

From the moment a man meets her nothing goes right again.

We thought we’d take another trip through the sinister brain of Sax Rohmer. His phantasmal criminal mastermind Sumuru, aka the Madonna, intrigued us in 1950’s Nude in Mink. In 1951’s sequel Sumuru (you see a Gold Medal edition above with Barye Phillips cover art) she’s fled London for New York City, where she’s once again orchestrating a global reordering that requires the downfall of men from positions of power. This time Rohmer’s protagonists are special agent Drake Roscoe and newspaperman Tony McKeigh, though the first book’s Mark Donovan and Claudette Duquesne—now married—also put in an appearance, and come to believe Sumuru wants to abduct their toddler daughter for eventual indoctrination into the evil Order.

But it’s mainly Roscoe and McKeigh’s show, as the cat-and-mousing crisscrosses Manhattan, and detours to Fort Lauderdale, before Sumuru once again—no spoiler here since the series went five books—gives her pursuers the slip and leaves them angry, baffled, a bit admiring of her brilliance, but frightened too. We love how they call Sumuru “a greater menace than the atom bomb.” There’s a good lesson there—Rohmer thinks it’s better for men to reign in hell than to serve in heaven. That’s a catchy line. Wonder who said that? Doesn’t matter. Global peace is not an aspiration if men can’t run the show. We don’t think Rohmer meant for these books to be an indictment of the patriarchy, but if you squint they read that way. We managed to get the first three books of this series, so we’ll get around to the next entry later.

Florida, Fort Lauderdale, New York City, Fawcett Publications, Gold Medal Books, Sax Rohmer, Barye Phillips, cover art, literature

Vintage Pulp

February 18 2025

GAMES OF CHANCE

The dice haven't been kind, but there's still one way he can leave the casino a winner.

This is a nice orange cover painted by Raymond Johnson for William Ard’s 1956 thriller Mr. Trouble. Johnson is good every time out, and you already know that Ard at his worst is decent, while at his best he’s better than almost anyone. This one stars his recurring insurance investigator hero Timothy Dane, who’s sent to Tampa to retrieve a stolen diamond but—thanks to his gun falling out of his suitcase—is thought to be a hitman sent to eliminate two Vegas gamblers who owe money to the mob and have fled to Florida. He soon finds himself in the crossfire between the gamblers and the real hitman sent to eliminate them, all while trying to pry the diamond from the clutches of femme fatale Leora Grant. The book has an involving scattered narrative of half a dozen characters operating from mistaken assumptions, and it all comes together seamlessly in the end, resulting in another Ard winner, no trouble at all. The guy is good. Buy it.

Florida, Tampa, Popular Library, William Ard, Ben Kerr, Ray Johnson, cover art, literature

Vintage Pulp

February 13 2025

A STORMY MARRIAGE

Okay! I promise to stop telling you to grow up and get rid of your pointlessly huge collection of Superboy comics! Now save me!

Storms and disasters. We’re always drawn to this style of covers. Too many to point to today. But two that have almost this exact theme are here and here. My Bride in the Storm came from Theodore Pratt for Avon Publications in 1950, and had been originally published as The Big Blow in 1936. It’s about a Florida a farmer who, after all his many travails, is wiped out by a hurricane but finds redemption in the tragedy. Or some such. The novel was made into a 1938 Broadway play with Edwin Cooper, Kendall Clark, Dorothy Raymond, and Kate Cloud, so it must have been pretty good. We’re not surprised. Pratt has already delivered for us twice—with Tropical Disturbance (man loves big winds), and The Big Bubble.

Florida, Broadway, Avon Publications, Theodore Pratt, Edwin Cooper, Kendall Clark, Dorothy Raymond, Kate Cloud, cover art, literature

Vintage Pulp

January 31 2025

IN NITA SOME ENJOYMENT

You have a filthy mind. I like that in a man.

Harry Whittington wrote an absolute raft of novels, under his name and more than fifteen others, producing them at a pace we suspect damaged their potential quality. 1960’s Nita’s Place, one of ten books he published that year, could have been excellent if he’d had perhaps more time to focus on it. As a concept it’s fascinating. It tells the story of Jay Wagner, forty-four but with a bad heart his doctor says will soon kill him. He’s packed up his life and moved to fictional Cape View, Florida, taking up residence at the Cape View Motel, within site of the Launch Operations Directorate on Cape Canaveral, where he and other residents, all of whom have issues, drink, swim, and watch test rockets lift off.

The mood of the book is captured by the title of the first section: “The Rim of Space.” As in a dying man on the edge of the unknown. We’d almost say Whittington was channelling “The Snows of Kilimanjaro,” if his style weren’t so dissimilar. The Cape View Motel, its bar, and its pool all draw passing travelers, scientists from the launch center, and pilots from nearby Patrick Airbase. With such a mix, Wagner’s frail heart is tested by regular intrigues—but most importantly by Nita Miller, beautiful owner of the place, and Callie, her sexually voracious younger sister.

Wagner’s resigned demeanor presents as calmness and wisdom to others, and he becomes a source of advice and help. Simultaneously he allows himself—as a man with no future very well might—to be moved without resistance whichever way the wind blows. A pointless fight with a bully? Sure. A night or two in bed with Callie? Why not? But he really sees something like redemption in Nita. Whether he’ll find what he’s seeking or thinks he needs before he dies is the question. As we said, the book could be better, but through mood and setting Whittington managed to produce something okay here. We liked it. Its cover art, which is excellent, is uncredited.

Florida, Cape Canaveral, Pyramid Books, Harry Whittington, cover art, literature

Mondo Bizarro

February 23 2024

DOGGY STYLE

New positions can really spice up your sex life. So can new species.

In the great state of Florida recently police were totally unsurprised when they uncovered a case of bestiality between a woman and a dog in Lee County, located in the southwest coast on the Gulf of Mexico. Samantha White, 26, was repeatedly recorded by her husband John, 29, as Samantha engaged in carnal acts with the canine, 4. The couple were outed after someone saw or became aware of videos posted online and notified local authorities. As mondo bizarro stories go, this one is out there. It’s even weirder than that bag of random hands found in Russia a while back.

We picture the tawdry affair beginning by accident when Samantha mistook the dog for her husband, who looks sort of like a werewolf. She only realized her error when she and the dog got stuck together. John, who was busy in the back yard restoring his Camaro IROC-Z all this time, heard her screams for help, rushed into the house and separated the animal from his wife by throwing a bucket of cold water on their fused privates. That’s the way it’s said to work dog-on-dog, anyway, so why not dog-on-human? From that point we expect the Whites realized they enjoyed the weirdness of the episode—et voilà. A side hustle was born.

Unfortunately, putting videos of that type online will enrage and distress animal lovers, then likely come to the attention of police. “I am disgusted by the actions of these two residents,” commented one of the local lawmen. “I will not tolerate any kind of abuse.” Except, of course, abuse of civil rights. As a Florida law official he had to swear an oath on that. The dog, for his part, was removed to an animal shelter, and in a press conference admitted his guilt, profusely and convincingly. He’s now negotiating a book deal.

Florida, John White, Samantha White, mugshots

Vintage Pulp

January 3 2024

OCEANIC PANIC

It's amazing how fast calm can vanish at sea.

Though James Bama was a major illustrator, we haven’t seen much of him here on Pulp Intl. over the years because he painted many fronts for western novels, and we rarely read those. This is his work on the front of Frederick Lorenz’s 1957 thriller A Rage at Sea, the story of a down and out charter captain named Frank Dixon who’s gone alcoholic after losing his beloved boat in a poker game. He’s given a chance at redemption when he’s offered a job captaining a yacht from Florida through the Caribbean.

The man paying for the boat is a philandering millionaire, and the person who recommended Dixon for the job is a dangerous and sneaky opportunist perfectly willing to admit that somehow this charter is supposed to lead to the millionaire being bled for his money. Any rational captain would refuse the job, but Dixon wants another boat and the pay he’s being offered is a step along that path. It’s also a step into a seagoing snakepit, and the situation goes from uncomfortable to terrible when he gets stuck in a life-or-death battle for survival.

We liked the book, but Lorenz does make a misstep or two. For example, there are seven people on the yacht, and while the engineer is an important secondary character, we never get to know—or for the most part even really meet—the other guests, which is a narrative choice we consider to be a flaw. Brushing off passengers in a closely confined yacht setting isn’t realistic. But we get it—the story Lorenz wanted to tell is one of a man caught between a predator and victim, both of whom are awful people.

On the plus side, the book moves fast, the lines of conflict are propulsive and believable, and the setting and characterizations work. We’ll look for more from Lorenz, who was really Lorenz Heller, and under the pseudonyms Lawrence Heller, Larry Holden, and Laura Hale authored intriguingly titled novels such as Hot, Night Never Ends, and A Party Every Night. Hopefully we’ll get our hands on one of those and report back.

Florida, Lion Books, Frederick Lorenz, Lawrence Heller, Larry Holden, Lorenz Heller, Laura Hale, James Bama, cover art, literature

Intl. Notebook

January 2 2024

PAGE AFTER PAGE

Riveting from the first to the last.

Cheesecake postcards were widespread during the mid-century era, featuring many famous and semi-famous models, but Bettie Page appeared on so many that she’s now her own industry of vintage collectible mailers. We’ve run across many interesting examples, so we thought we’d share a few for your enjoyment today. Above and below we present a group culled from auction sites showing the revered model in her usual mode of dress—not much. The same shots were used on multiple cards. In the last she’s posed with regular collaborator, Florida based photographer Bunny Yeager, who appears with Page and a couple of exotic cats on the last card. Most if not all of the shots were made in Florida, despite an allusion to Hawaii and a reference to Washington. As always, Page will return.

Hawaii, Florida, Washington, Bettie Page, Bunny Yeager

Vintage Pulp

November 8 2023

CONSENTING ADULT

He's about to have a growth spurt.

We were unable to learn who painted this Belmont Books cover for Edward S. Fox’s 1963 novel Thus a Boy Becomes Man, but it’s nice work, possibly a crop and zoom of a larger piece. We vacillated about buying it. We’d never read anything by or about Fox, and we weren’t in the market for a simple romance or coming-of-age novel, but in the end we took a flyer, the international mails operated without problems, and the book appeared at our door. It turned out to be a short novel, brief enough to be knocked off in an afternoon, but despite its brevity it was a tale we enjoyed.

The protagonist is young Gil Stuart, who has no experience with women, until two appear in his neck of the Florida Keys—teenaged Georgette and twenty-ish Christine. Georgette is a new Florida resident who lives on a nearby key, while Christine is a seasonal arrival, daughter of a rich Boston railroad executive heading up a project. Both girls are pretty, and both fall for Gil, but he’s resistant to them, mainly because he lacks acuity in sexual matters. For that reason, though he’s in his early twenties, he feels more like a mid-teen, like a sixteen-year-old. And for that reason, it feels like Fox was shooting for a subtropical Holden Caulfield.

Any book set in the Florida Keys has to be concerned with real estate, seemingly, and this one has a parallel plot about the building of a rail line cutting off bay drainage and subjecting residents to catastrophic flood peril. When appeals to the railroad company yield nothing, some of the conchs decide, as hurricane season approaches, to dynamite the embankment being built for the train tracks. This is a compelling backdrop for Gil’s story, as both plot threads suggest that the future—whether bringing romance or trains—is inevitable. Subtle? Maybe not. But it basically worked, faux Caulfield and all.

Florida, Belmont Books, Edward S. Fox, cover art, literature

Vintage Pulp

August 28 2023

EVIL IDEAS

I take it from the way you're sprawled across the front seat that dinner and a movie is no longer the plan.

April Evil is a book that showcases John D. MacDonald on literary cruise control, as he confidently weaves together the tale of an elderly, widowed ex-doctor whose has a safe in his study filled with cash, the greedy relatives that hope he leaves his loot and property to them, and how, because rumors of the money have spread, three criminals decide to rob his house. Matters are even more complicated because the doctor has taken in a young married couple, and while the wife is not scheming to get his fortune, the husband is, and he has a big mouth. That mouth entices a psychopathic killer into hijacking the robbery scheme, with the ultimate plan of killing both his partners and—probably—everyone living in the house. For people acquainted with MacDonald but who haven’t read April Evil, the approach will be familiar, particularly the character crosscurrents and fateful timing. It’s well written, enjoyable, and free of pseudo-sociological content, which we consider to be a problem with McDonald’s Travis Magee novels. We recommend it, even more so if you can score Dell’s 1956 edition with Robert McGinnis cover art.

Florida, Dell Publications, John D. MacDonald, Robert McGinnis, cover art, literature

Vintage Pulp

April 26 2023

BOUND TO HAPPEN

Lines in the sand have a way of getting crossed.

Considering our website’s focus on beautiful art, you must be asking how we came to read Stanley Ellin’s 1970 novel The Bind, with its beige post-GGA cover treatment by Joe Lombadero. What happened was we decided to watch the 1979 Farrah Fawcett movie Sunburn, but stopped during the opening credits when we saw that it was based on a novel. We’d decided to see the movie because it was helmed by cult director Richard C. Sarafian, and also because its premise interested us, but we figured that premise was probably more fully and interestingly developed in the source novel. We won’t know for sure until we watch the film, but it’s pretty much a given when you compare literature to cinema.

Here’s the premise: insurance investigator Jake Dekker needs to get close to a secretive family to disprove a verdict of accidental death and save his employers a $200,000 payout, so he rents a house in their tony Miami enclave and hires an actress to pose as his wife. The family would be suspicious of a single man, but not a married couple. He’s carried out similar scams and worked with the same actress over and over, but when she can’t make the gig she instead sends down-on-her-luck colleague Elinor Majeski as a replacement. The fake wife aspect of Jake’s scheme immediately gets complicated, both because this new actress is smarter and more curious than is convenient, and because she’s unusually lovely. Uh oh. Professional comportment—out the window.

Ellin pushes his ripe premise for all it’s worth. Jake insists on realism, which involves he and Elinor getting comfortable around each other, whatever intimate circumstances might arise. The only line they aren’t to cross is sleeping in the same bed. Heh. How long do you think that lasts? Actually, it lasts a long while. Jake’s shell is hard. He’s borderline mean to Elinor, and therein lies the balancing act in the narrative. He’s mean, but occasionally charming. Ellin’s writing treads that crucial line well, but the book is overlong and its climax goes in a direction we didn’t like. But we’d read him again. In any case, now we’ll have to see what the filmmakers did with Farrah in the role of Elinor. Charles Grodin co-stars, so we expect the movie to be a bit silly, but who can resist Farrah?

Florida, Miami, Random House, Sunburn, Stanley Ellin, Farrah Fawcett, Charles Grodin, Joe Lombadero, Richard C. Sarafian, cover art, literature, cover collection

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HISTORY REWIND

The headlines that mattered yesteryear.

May 13

1960—Gary Cooper Dies

American film actor Gary Cooper, who harnessed an understated, often stoic style in numerous adventure films and westerns, including Sergeant York, For Whom the Bell Tolls, High Noon, and Alias Jesse James, dies of prostate, intestinal, lung and bone cancer. For his contributions to American cinema Cooper received a plaque on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and is considered one of top movie stars of all time.

May 12

1957—Von Stroheim Dies

German film director and actor Erich von Stroheim, who as an actor was noted for his arrogant Teutonic character parts which led him to become a renowned cinematic villain with the nickname “The Man You Love to Hate”, dies in Maurepas, France at the age of 71.

May 11

1960—Adolf Eichmann Is Captured

In Buenos Aires, Argentina, four Israeli Mossad agents abduct fugitive Nazi Adolf Eichmann, who had been living under the assumed name and working for Mercedes-Benz. Eichman is taken to Israel to face trial on 15 criminal charges, including crimes against humanity and war crimes. He is found guilty and executed by hanging in 1962, and is the only person to have been executed in Israel on conviction by a civilian court.

May 11

2010—Last Ziegfeld Follies Girl Dies

Doris Eaton Travis, who was the last surviving Ziegfeld Follies chorus girl, dies at age 106. The Ziegfeld Follies were a series of elaborate theatrical productions on Broadway in New York City from 1907 through 1931. Inspired by the Folies Bergères of Paris, they enjoyed a successful run on Broadway, became a radio program in 1932 and 1936, and were adapted into a musical motion picture in 1946 starring Fred Astaire, Gene Kelly, Lucille Ball, and Lena Horne.

May 10

1924—Hoover Becomes FBI Director

In the U.S., J. Edgar Hoover is appointed director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, a position he retains until his death in 1972. Hoover is credited with building the FBI into a large and efficient crime-fighting agency, and with instituting a number of modern innovations to police technology, such as a centralized fingerprint file and forensic laboratories. But he also used the agency to grind a number of personal axes and far exceeded its legal mandate to amass secret files on political and civil rights leaders. Because of his abuses, FBI directors are now limited to 10-year terms.

May 10

1977—Joan Crawford Dies

American actress Joan Crawford, who began her show business career as a dancer in traveling theatrical companies, but soon became one of Hollywood’s most prominent movie stars and one of the highest paid women in the United States, dies of a heart attack at her New York City apartment while ill with pancreatic cancer.