Intl. Notebook

October 7 2017

BODY COUNT

We'll put our six against their six anytime.

This cover of Midnight from today in 1968 gets us back into more tolerable tabloid territory after some hair-raising recent examples from National Spotlite dealing with rape and incest. Today we deal merely with scientists resurrecting the dead. Since they chose experimental subjects of no particular importance, it got us thinking about six people who could do some actual good if brought back. We restricted ourselves to figures from the pulp and post-pulp eras—no Cleopatra or Leonardo DaVinci. Here’s our list:

George Orwell, because his wit and political insight are sorely needed in this day and age.

Babe Ruth, because we never saw him play, and we love the idea of someone who was great without taking what he did very seriously.

Marilyn Monroe, because nobody was better on a movie screen, and also because one of her most valuable qualities—usually overlooked—was how her ditzy characters always reduced supposedly smarter men to weak little boys.

Martin Luther King, Jr., so whenever some multi-millionaire cable pundit professes an understanding of him we can go straight to the source and hear: “I was against you and everyone like you.”

Albert Einstein, because perhaps only he could convince the growing ranks of proud know-nothings that intelligence, learning, and worldliness are good qualities.

Paul Rader, Rudy Nappi, George Gross, or any one of about a dozen other departed illustrators, because art.

So there you have it. We had a difficult time coming up with six, but after a few days playing around with about a dozen names we narrowed it down to a group we think would really enrich our existence. Honorable mentions: Amelia Earhart, Willie Mays, George Carlin, Richard Pryor, Elmore Leonard, et al. Maybe you would find choosing easier. Give it some thought and see what your list looks like.

Midnight, tabloid

Hollywoodland

September 20 2017

THOROUGHLY MODERN MARIE

St. Cyr tells all for the cheapie tabloid Midnight.

This Midnight published today in 1964 has the usual clickbait on the front cover—I Ripped My Baby To Pieces. Why? Because she hated her husband. Very interesting, but today we’re drawn to the banner and Lili St. Cyr’s “Torrid Life Story,” in which, for the most part, she talks about her sexual attitudes. The interior header screams that she seduced a 14-year-old boy, and that’s again the equivalent of today’s internet clickbait. St. Cyr was sixteen herself, which is an age difference we’d hardly call scandalous. The clickbait worked, though. It made us quite eager to read the story. It’s written in first person and touted as a Midnight exclusive.

Ordinarily we’d be skeptical a cheapie tabloid could score an exclusive with a world famous celebrity, but in this case we think Midnight is telling the truth. We have a few reasons: Midnight was a Canadian rag, headquartered in Montreal; St. Cyr was from Minnesota, but spent her early years dancing in Montreal; and Midnight was too well known a publication to get away with lying about the source of the story. Thus we can be sure St. Cyr wrote the piece. She eventually authored an autobiography in French, which makes us suspect she wrote this article

for the Canadian Midnight—which was called Minuit—and it was translated and printed in the U.S. later. Just a guess. It was apparently part of a series, by the way, but we don’t have the other issues of Midnight. Now on to the juicy stuff.

On virginity: “When you have it you try like hell to keep it. You lose it with an unconscious sigh of relief, and once you’ve lost it you wonder why you tried so hard to keep it in the first place.”

On her first: “Right now, as I write these lines, [all I] can recall about him is that he was blonde and his first name began with an R. As a matter of fact, I don’t remember any of my first intimate boyfriends.”

On her others: “I’ve been called a child snatcher dozens of times because that is the way I like my men. I can’t help it.”

On Hollywood star Victor Mature: “One bad thing about Vic though. Liquor and sex just don’t mix for him. If he makes love, he’s got to be cold sober or he can’t perform.”

On Las Vegas: “There is something dead and decadent about the town. It builds to nowhere. It accomplishes nothing. And the people in it are infected with this live-for-today attitude.”

Those are the highlights. Except that readers also get three photos with the article. We already shared a much better version of one of those way back in 2009. The other two are in this post—the shot of St. Cyr as a child, when she was still Willis Marie Van Schaack, and the one below of her in goddess mode. Midnight was printed on cheap-ass paper, but the scans still look pretty good. Willis Marie’s tale is interesting too. She was ahead of her time. What she writes could have been written by a character on Girls. It’s impossible for us to not respect her boldness and determination to have exactly the life she wanted, particularly during the age in which she lived. We have plenty on St. Cyr in the website. Just click her keywords below.

Canada, Montreal, Las Vegas, Midnight, Minuit, Lili St. Cyr, Victor Mature, tabloid

Mondo Bizarro

July 12 2017

GRANNY GOT HER GROOVE BACK

She liked little boys when she was little, and she loves little boys now.

This issue of Midnight published today in 1967 has a cover that’s the opposite of the last one we shared, which was about the world’s youngest mother. This one has the world’s oldest mother, and goes for the double tabloid whammy by adding an underaged father to the mix. According to the sources we checked, the oldest pregnancy confirmed by birth records occurred at age 70, a feat shared by three women, all of them, weirdly, from India. So this cover is not only untrue, but because it’s fiction it casts doubt upon the previous claim from Midnight about the world youngest mom. We already knew that, though. Still, we do hope to be getting it on at eighty-six. Chances are slim, but it’s a worthy goal.

India, Midnight, tabloid

Mondo Bizarro

June 21 2017

MIDNIGHT TRAIN TO BURMA

Going back to find a simpler place and time.

This issue of the tabloid Midnight was published today in 1965, and as you can see the cover touts a story about a girl who gave birth at age four. Her name is Nang Rwan and she’s supposedly from the town of Naung-nga-yan, Burma (now Myanmar). Midnight scribes Leroy Hansen and David Lee tell readers that Rwan is a member of the Pa’O ethnic group, a people whose girls are known for early fertility, like ten years old. But fertility at four is extreme even for the Pa’O, which led village elders to consider her early period to be a gift from the gods. Because of this, even though everyone admits Rwan was raped, and this criminal still walks among them because they have no idea who did it, their belief is that the child is a god-king destined to lead the Pa’O to prosperity and happiness.

We’ll just stop there for a moment and say we consider this all to be very unlikely. Not the rape and pregnancy part—distressingly, a confirmed list of youngest mothers contains girls who bore children at age five and up. No, the unlikely part is that Midnight claims to have caught wind of the pregnancy early on and were able to get to Burma to witness the birth. Hansen and Lee embarked on a “difficult” journey to reach the village and arrived as Nang was nearing full term. Once there, they met her in person, with the story informing readers, creepily: “Nang walked in, dressed in a flowing red robe embroidered with beads. We asked to see her alone and she undressed. With our own eyes we saw her body as mature as 16-year-old girl’s and as pregnant as any mother imminently facing the birth of a baby.”

Thus the two Midnight writers were in the village for the big event, and report that the infant, which was a boy, was whisked away to be cared for various village midwives. Nang Rwan, once recovered, was displayed in the center of the hamlet while people trekked hundreds of miles to offer her gifts that made her the richest person in the region. But the elders never allow her near the golden child. She hears her baby cry in its special god hut but she can’t see him or hold him. So while she’s proud to have given birth to a deity, she’s unhappy.

Bittersweet indeed. But there’s one problem with this whole Nang Hwan story. Actually, there are numerous problems, none of which we need to detail because you’re having the same problems, we suspect. But the problem that concerns us in terms of veracity is that Nang Rwan isn’t on that official list of world’s youngest mothers we mentioned, which seems odd considering Midnight devotes two full pages to her and she should have been well known. But we were not able to confirm any of the tabloid’s assertions outside the story itself. So as interesting and detailed and morbid as the tale is, we have to call it fiction. At least until further evidenced. See more from Midnight by clicking its keyword below.

Burma, Myanmar, Midnight, Nang Rwan, tabloid

Vintage Pulp

January 22 2017

BARBI DOLL

Tabloid conjures yet another imaginary woman who can't say no.

Midnight fabricates an actress named Barbi Simms on this cover from today in 1968. She’s supposedly sixteen and unable to control her sex urges, which is a common enough claim in cheapie tabloids. And she supposedly gained this appreciation from being raped, also a common claim in cheapie tabloids. But unusually, Midnight editors revealed the title of a film she was starring in: The Lights Are Cut, which she was shooting in Liverpool when interviewed. This is not common. Generally, details subject to confirmation are lacking in these phony tabloid stories.

It was easy enough to determine that The Lights Are Cut never existed, nor did any actress named Barbi Simms. And even if she had, she would never have claimed to be more-or-less okay with being sexually assaulted. Duh. As we’ve pointed out before, these tales spring wholly from the minds of second-rate male editors. We picture them hunched over typewriters in smoky offices above neon lit liquor stores, coughing up phlegm and chortling, “Oh, this is good. This is gold. Our readers’ll love this.” The weird part is they must have been right—Midnight was a very successful publication.

Liverpool, Midnight, Barbi Simms, tabloid

Mondo Bizarro

November 4 2016

THE PLOT THICKENS

Fact challenged tabloid may have predicted presidential assassination plot.

Midnight claims in this issue published today in 1968 that a conspiracy was afoot to assassinate Richard Nixon during his presidential campaign, but with mid-century tabloids the question is always: Is this true? We found no mention of the plot anywhere, though Midnight is pretty authoritative in its assertions, claiming three men were involved, two of whom were in FBI custody, with the third having been picked up by Mexican police in Tijuana. But authoritative or not, the paper got this one wrong.

Weirdly, though, there may have been a plot to kill Nixon in 1968, but a week after the above Midnight hit newsstands. Though the episode is little remembered today, a man of Yemeni origin named Ahmed Rageh Namer was arrested along with his two sons Hussein and Abdo on November 12—a full eight days after Midnight made its arrest claims—and charged with conspiracy to assassinate Nixon, who had won the presidential election the previous Tuesday. You can see Namer under arrest in the photo just below.

The evidence against him and his sons was scant—an informant claimed the father possessed two rifles, had asked him join him in the killing, and had offered him money to do so. This was back before the word of a shady informant could get a person thrown in a black pit in Guantanamo for ten years, so the Namers actually got a trial and their defense lawyer of course shredded the case. All three men were acquitted in July of 1969.

But how weird is it that Midnight would fabricate an assassination story a week before the FBI uncovered what they thought was an actual assassination plot? Maybe Namer read Midnight and got the idea. Nah… he was probably just innocent in the first place. But still, how odd. Sometimes history is stranger than fiction. Elsewhere in the issue you get a bit of Hollywood gossip and a pretty cool photo of Maureen Arthur and another of Carmen Dene, below. See more Midnight at our tabloid index.

Mexico, Yemen, Tijuana, Midnight, Richard Nixon, Ahmed Rageh Namer, Hussein Namer, Abdo Namer, Maureen Arthur, Carmen Dene, tabloid

Intl. Notebook

April 26 2016

WICKED WISH

Midnight proves that sexual desire sells.

Above, a cover of Midnight from today in 1962 with French actress Véronique Vendell telling readers she wants to be wicked. If you’ve seen Midnight before you know this was its modus operandi—pair a model or actress on the cover with a quote about her sexual availability. Examples:

Gila Golan: I’m Hooked on Sex.

Evi Mirandi: I’ll Marry Any Man Who Can Tame Me.

Nobu McCarthy: I’m Wild Wicked and Willing.

Raquel Welch: Adultery Can Save Your Marriage.

Yvette Mimieux: Who Wants To Make Love to Me?

Were any of these quotes truthful? Doubtful, but they must have worked to attract readers, because Midnight was around for a long while.

Midnight, Veronique Vendell, tabloid

Sex Files

October 2 2015

CLEAR AND PRESENT D’ANGERS

Virginity wasn't against the law, but topless dancing was—until she came along.

Burlesque dancer Yvonne D’Angers graces the cover of this Midnight published today in 1967. She was born in Teheran, Iran and reached the height of her fame after a 1965 obscenity trial, a government threat to deport her, a publicity stunt where she chained herself to San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge, and a 1966 appearance in Playboy. There’s surprisingly little about her online—not even a measly Wikipedia page. But she was important within her milieu—she was one of four defendants in the aforementioned obscenity trial, along with Carol Doda, Kay Star, and Euraine Heimberg, and the acquittal legalized topless dancing and waitressing in San Francisco. That decision made San Fran the first city in the U.S. where this was the case.

D’Angers’ main haunt was the Off Broadway on Kearney Street, but she also danced at Gigi’s, which was located on Broadway, and she worked in Las Vegas, in addition to touring the U.S. She was married to Off Broadway owner Voss Boreta, and he was her manager, making her part of a client list that included Doda and the topless girl-band The Ladybirds. She was also—though this is not often noted—a college graduate and

a painter. She billed herself as being naturally endowed, but both she and Doda were said by people who knew them early in their careers to have been worked on by cosmetic surgeons. The above shots of D’Angers, pre-fame, pre-blonde, versus post-fame, 44D, hanging out with Trini Lopez, seem to confirm those stories. We’ll have more on D’Angers (and Doda) later.

Iran, Teheran, San Francisco, Las Vegas, Midnight, Playboy, Carol Doda, Kay Star, Euraine Heimberg, Voss Boreta, Trini Lopez, tabloid, burlesque

Vintage Pulp

August 30 2015

LITTLE HITLERS

There’s nothing like the pitter patter of little jackboots.

Check an English language bio on Gisela Fleischer and it’ll likely say she’s a West German woman who claimed to be Adolf Hitler’s daughter, and that the Swiss paper Tribune de Genève broke the story in 1966. Well, guess what? The above Midnight is from today in 1965, and inside, readers are told that Abigail Van Buren—aka Dear Abby—received a letter from West Germany that began: “I need some advice in a hurry. Should I marry a rabbi? I am the daughter of Adolf Hitler.” Fleischer’s mother Tilly Fleischer had competed in javelin at the 1936 Olympic games. According to Gisela, Hitler was impressed enough to invite her mother to the Berghof for dinner and that meeting in Obersalzberg was the beginning of an eight-month affair.

Gisela claims to have been born in December 1937 at a special Nazi clinic, but never knew who her father was until later in life. Midnight journo Cyrus Bell claims to have spoken to Fleischer, and the gist is basically that learning she was Hitler’s daughter was a good thing, because it helped her finally know and accept herself. She says at the end, “Now I can say, like Antigone in the tragedy by Sophocles, that I was born for love and not for hate.” But by now you know that Midnight couldn’t land a scoop if you dropped the entire editorial staff into a Breyer’s factory. While the Dear Abby connection might well be true, it turns out Fleischer first made her Hitler claims in mid-1965 in the European magazines Oggi, Ici Paris, and Bunten, and Midnight merely reprinted them.

Fleischer was mostly ignored until she revealed all in a 1966 book called Mein Vater Adolf Hitler, published in France as Adolf Hitler mon père. Reactions to this event were skeptical, to say the least. A famous wit of the day wrote a satirical piece called, “I was Hitler’s toothbrush.” Fleischer kept her story alive with interviews in other magazines, but she had stiff competition—two people claiming to be the offspring of Hitler and Eva Braun had surfaced, a woman named Eleanor Bauer claimed to be Hitlerspawn, and the same assertion was made by a Frenchman named Jean Marie Loret. Even Martin Bormann’s son claimed to be in reality the result of an encounter between Hitler and a girl known only as Uschi.

Proof will probably never turn up in any of these cases, but is it very hard to believe a man with Hitler’s power and obsession with Aryan womanhood was sowing his seed whenever the urge struck? As Goliath books and Hans von Bockhain have documented, 1930s Germany was an extraordinarily decadent time anyway. In addition, it’s rare that dictators do not have mistresses. From there it’s easy to imagine children being the result. Some historical researchers have portrayed Hitler as a sexual deviant—impotent shit freak seems to be the favored theory—but most historians believe he had a normal sex life, whatever that is. We’ll have more from Midnight later, and you can see other issues by visiting our tabloid index.

Vintage Pulp

April 28 2015

DARKEST MIDNIGHT

In tabloid publishing no tragedy is taboo.

The Canadian tabloid Midnight, never what you would call a classy publication, goes beyond the pale with this issue published today in 1969. The child on the cover did not suffer the effects of diet soft drinks, but rather those of the anti-nausea drug thalidomide, which was routinely prescribed to pregnant women during the 1960s to prevent morning sickness. The results for 10,000 or more expectant mothers and their infants were what you see above—or worse. Midnight takes that still raw wound and pretty much rips it open with this cover, but hey—anything for sales, right? When things like this happen, the after-effects echo on endlessly. An $81 million thalidomide lawsuit settled just two years ago, and scores of other filings remain in court systems around the world.

Canada, Midnight, tabloid

ABOUT

EMAIL

LEGAL

SEARCH PULP INTERNATIONAL

PULP INTL.
HISTORY REWIND

The headlines that mattered yesteryear.

December 2

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.

December 1

1955—Rosa Parks Sparks Bus Boycott

In the U.S., in Montgomery, Alabama, seamstress Rosa Parks refuses to give her bus seat to a white man and is arrested for violating the city’s racial segregation laws, an incident which leads to the Montgomery Bus Boycott. The boycott resulted in a crippling financial deficit for the Montgomery public transit system, because the city’s African-American population were the bulk of the system’s ridership.

November 30

1936—Crystal Palace Gutted by Fire

In London, the landmark structure Crystal Palace, a 900,000 square foot glass and steel exhibition hall erected in 1851, is destroyed by fire. The Palace had been moved once and fallen into disrepair, and at the time of the fire was not in use. Two water towers survived the blaze, but these were later demolished, leaving no remnants of the original structure.

November 29

1963—Warren Commission Formed

U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson establishes the Warren Commission to investigate the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. However the long report that is finally issued does little to settle questions about the assassination, and today surveys show that only a small minority of Americans agree with the Commission’s conclusions.