Part of me really loves nature and solitude. But then part of me wants a frappuccino and a cheese danish.
Frisco Dougherty is back, and as impressed with himself as ever, if we judge by how many times he refers to himself in the third person. Last seen in 1951's Jewel of the Java Sea, he's still knocking around Indonesia in 1960's The Half-Caste, eternally seeking the big score that will earn him enough money to escape the tropics for San Francisco. His newest chance comes in the form of a trio of Americans who have arrived in Java to repatriate the bones of an anthropologist who died in the jungle. Dougherty suspects the coffin they plan to recover contains not a body, but a treasure, and formulates a complicated plan to steal whatever is inside. He follows the group into deepest Borneo, funded by the Wuch'ang crime cartel, who he also plans to betray.
There are two main positives to The Half-Caste. First, the exotic setting mixed with deep background concerning the Dutch East Indies evolving into an indepedent Indonesia influenced by a rising China is interesting; and second, the contents of the coffin are a clever surprise. Overall, though, we considered the book an unworthy sequel to Jewel of the Java Sea. Dougherty always verged on caricature, but now he's fully up that river. While still calculating, bigoted, chauvinistic, and pervy, he's bereft of charm, which used to be his saving grace. We suspect Cushman wanted to show how the tropics had decayed Dougherty's psyche since the first book, but he comes across too unsympathetic. It feels as if Cushman returned to the character unwillingly.
As for the half-caste of the title—Annalee, aka Sangra Brueger—she's one of the trio of coffin seekers, but because Dougherty spends nearly the entire book tracking the group from afar, she's barely in the narrative physically until the last forty pages. Dell Publications used Annalee's meager presence, with an assist from Robert McGinnis cover art, to lure readers, but it's a slight misrepresentation. The book is basically all Dougherty, along with his two male partners. During the era of good girl art there were nearly always women on paperback covers, no matter how flimsy the rationale, so you have to expect this sort of thing. We can't really complain, because certainly, the art is brilliant. We're happy to have it.
I've been working on some fresh runway poses. I call this one: sociopathicool.
Above: a cover for Australian author Neville Jackson's, aka Gerald Glaskin's 1965 novel No End to the Way. What you see here is a 1967 edition from the British publisher Corgi. This is a significant book, one of the first novels with gay themes to be widely available in Australia. It wasn't legal to mail into the country, so Corgi, the legend goes, flew it in aboard chartered planes to skirt the law.
Plotwise what you get here is a drama about Ray and Cor, two men who meet in a bar and form a relationship that becomes committed, and seems aimed toward permanence—which is exactly when their most serious challenge arises in the form of a bitter ex-lover. This ex is determined to ruin what Ray and Cor have built, up to and including slander, career damage, and more.
We were quite interested in the cover art because Corgi was a mainstream publisher, and with this bright yellow effort they gave this controversial book the full court press. The push, the art, and the quality of the story worked—it was reprinted at least twice, and in fact was Jackson's/Glaskin's best selling book. He was an eclectic and fairly prolific writer, so maybe we'll run across him again later. There's a good bio here. Now we're going to work on that pose.
Zumba, huh? Never heard of it. But anything that involves dancing around in this heat I'll take a pass on.
A glance at this Barye Phillips cover for Dan Cushman's 1951 novel Jewel of the Java Sea and you immediately expect it to be filled with lyrical old place names, with their romantic connotations for Westerners of a certain age—Siam, Burma, Celebes, Dutch East Indies, and broadly “the Orient,” names that have dissipated into history, though colonial memory continues to associate them with riches, adventure, and freedom. The name Java is still in use, and that's where Frisco Dougherty, a musician by training, but a fortune hunter and brawler in practice, has been knocking around for fifteen years attempting to make his fortune.
Dougherty has had little luck at this, which is why when he comes into possession of a yellow diamond said to be part of a priceless larger set, he goes into treasure hunter mode with sharp tongue, clenched fists, and hot lead. This jewel he's stumbled upon is supposedly one of five known collectively as the Taj Nipa, with those in turn married to a larger diamond called the Taj-i-nur. The whole kit and caboodle is presumed to reside in the vault of the Maharajah Sir Jagadipendra Bahadur, G.S., C.I., C.C.E.I., LMNOP. But that presumption could be wrong. Maybe the stones were liberated from their vault, though nobody has reported a theft.
Such capers are the core of these types of books, but there are also women. Anna, a Dutchwoman cast adrift in the islands, tells Dougherty she's searching for her missing father, an army major. She's important, but Dougherty is particularly intrigued by Locheng, an exotic dancer in the town of Pontianak, Borneo, and to his eye, a mix of all things good about Asia. He tells the reader she's, “Indo-Chinese, Malay, child of the melting pot, and [with] white blood, enough white blood make her vivid, give her fire.” Uh huh, Frisco loves him some Locheng, though he has a mighty brusque way of showing it:
He decided not to knock. He swung the door open. She sprang up to face him. She was naked. He took a deep breath and looked at her. She seized her sarong and swung it around her hips, tucked it tightly around her waist. Her breasts remained bare, after the fashion of native women.
“Why did you do that?” he asked. “Is it the Western influence that makes you think a body should be hidden? Let me see you as you were. You are so beautiful.”
The Western influence. We didn't notice him wandering around naked to demonstrate his liberation. But maybe that's his point—he's too corrupted to be free, but luckily—his luck, not hers—she isn't. At this point he's met Locheng exactly once before, and she called him a hodah orang—ugly man, according to the book, though not according to Google translate—and showed him the door. But he clearly thinks being cursed out was just a flirtatious prelude to his inevitable conquest of Locheng, and indeed, as these South Seas novels are usually male literary fantasies, that conquest will come soon enough.
Dougherty is interesting. He's impulsive and self-entitled; bigoted, though this appears to be more class than skin based; and sexist, to which we add no qualifiers considering he always wants women to parade around naked. But he's also sentimental and defends the underdog. We think he's an accurate depiction of a certain type of wayfaring American male endemic to the wilder reaches of the world. As former inhabitants of a couple of those reaches ourselves, we've met the type. Cue the Pulp Intl. girlfriends: “Met? You are the type.” Well, not really, though. We've always sought adventures, but our resemblance to Dougherty stops where he demands unearned respect, crosses lines of consent, and calls grown men, “boy.”
In the end, Jewel of the Java Sea is a South Asian thriller that sits neither at the top nor bottom of the genre. Frisco Dougherty might be worth having a beer with, but only until he says something offensive and refuses to apologize. What we'd prefer to hear from him are reflections about something other than how Western influence has ruined his chances to enjoy boobs al fresco. That may yet happen. Reading the book, we got the feeling he was supposed to become a franchise. A series never took root, but he did pop up in one sequel, 1960's The Half-Caste, also set in Asia. We already purchased it a little earlier today, because Cushman can write. What will be interesting is to see if Dougherty can grow.
Hallo everyone! I am from Holland, I am waanzinnig for seks, and I am told I can find very trashy people here.
Above you see a cool little treat—a colorful cover for Zonde op wielen from Amsterdam based publisher Uitgeverij Orion. It's a Dutch translation of the 1962 Midwood Books sleaze novel Sin on Wheels (larger image for laptop and desktop users here), written by Loren Beauchamp, who was in reality sci-fi legend Robert Silverberg. The art is a translation too, sort of. It's a new angle on Paul Rader's painting for the Midwood original—and as you can see, it features the same character in the same groovy outfit standing in front of the same trailer, but painted from a different angle. It's the first time we've seen this—an artist painting what another artist painted, but changing the viewpoint. We think the Uitgeverij cover is even better than Rader's. We know—sacrilege, but we really like it. Or maybe we're responding to the impact of its novelty. Let's just say they're both excellent efforts.
The brush responsible for the Uitgeverij art belonged to Dutch illustrator J.H. Moriën, whose distinctive signature you see at the righthand edge. He was born in 1897 and was active during the 1920s and ’30s, then after a mid-life hiatus began producing a lot of art again during the ’50s and ’60s. Maybe he wanted an RV of his own in retirement, but realized he didn't have enough cash. We found other pieces by him, so maybe we'll get back to him later. Though this one will be very hard to top.
If she were architecture she'd be streamline moderne.
Above, a Columbia Pictures promo image of Dutch actress Nina Foch made for her 1949 drama Johnny Allegro. She looks like she's getting her gloves on for some shady activity or other, which fits, since in the movie she plays a woman with a very mysterious background. We may revisit the subject later. In the meantime you can see another Foch photo here.
Suddenly petroleum products don't seem so bad.
Above, a beautiful photo of model Inga Vasa, who was touted as a soon-to-be-star for a hot minute back during the late 1960s. This shot was made by photographer Rico May, and came from a 1968 issue of the Dutch magazine De Lach. Was Vasa Dutch? We can't say. More likely Swedish. But she's so obscure we can't be sure either way. Nice shot, though.
Need to spice up your book cover? Try a splash of color.
Over haar lijk was published in 1960 by Rotterdam based Uitgeversmij, and it's a Dutch edition of Richard S. Prather's 1959 thriller Over Her Dead Body. This caught our eye because the cover has the same art that was used on Steve Brackeen's Baby Moll, except with the background changed to an eye-catching blood red. Uitgeversmij often took U.S. covers and colored them. It sometimes led to cheap looking results, but occasionally, such as here and with Henry Kane's Snatch an Eye (which we showed you a while back), they lucked into beautiful results. We've seen this cover around, but we suspect it came from Flickr, so thanks to original uploader on this.
Any time is the right time for great cover art.
Above, a cover for K. Beerman's Baarnse Moord (Murder in Baarn), painted by Dutch artist Martin Oortwijn. We said we'd get back to Oortwijn and here we are, three years later. He remains, in our eyes at least, a unique talent. We were reminded of him because he illustrated the cover of a Christine Keeler biography, and Keeler is back in the spotlight thanks to the new BBC series The Trial of Christine Keeler, which we've been watching. So far so good on that, and we'll try to dig up more from Oortwijn.
Oh what a wonderful Day.
This nice floral themed photo features the beautiful U.S. model and actress Mary Weston—aka Venetia Day, Venecia Day, and Vinicia Day. The shot came from a Dutch magazine called Blacky. Yes, you just read that correctly. We just work here. Those old supersaturated Dutch nudie mags often didn't bother with copyright info, but we're guessing the image appeared around 1975. Weston/Day had several notable acting roles, including in the film Can I Keep It Up for a Week? and the television shows Smiley's People and The Chinese Detective. All good, but we particularly dig the fact that she had an uncredited appearance in the cheeseball sci-fi show Space: 1999, which we've been watching of late and really love, in that guilty pleasure sort of way. You may be wondering if Weston/Day ever got out from behind those flowers, and in fact she did. We'll show you one of those photos later. Meantime, you can see more of her inside a tabloid we uploaded several years ago. Look here.
Caught you! Get back to the book cover you came from, young lady, and stay there! Above is a rather nice cover for Knipoog naar de hel, which in Dutch means “wink to hell.” This was published by the Rotterdam based company Uitgeversmij de Combinatie, and it's a translation of Henry Kane's 1964 thriller Snatch an Eye. As you can see at right (unless you're on a mobile device, in which case it's above), Uitgeversmij borrows art from Frank Kane's (no relation) 1956 Dell Publications novel Green Light for Death. The art for that was by Victor Kalin. The Dutch art is obviously a reworking of the original. So here we go again. Is the copy by Kalin? Was it licensed? In this case, we think the art is Kalin's original, rather than a knock off by some random unknown, because the actual figure is identical, though the background has been replaced and the spotlight has a marginally different outline. Perhaps this was licensed and Kalin actually got paid, but we doubt it. Why bother to change it in that case? More likely it was appropriated via the use of a good camera, a crisp negative, and a little retouching. Whatever the case may be, we really like this piece.
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The headlines that mattered yesteryear.
1931—Nevada Approves Gambling
In the U.S., the state of Nevada passes a resolution allowing for legalized gambling. Unregulated gambling had been commonplace in the early Nevada mining towns, but was outlawed in 1909 as part of a nationwide anti-gaming crusade. The leading proponents of re-legalization expected that gambling would be a short term fix until the state's economic base widened to include less cyclical industries. However, gaming proved over time to be one of the least cyclical industries ever conceived. 1941—Tuskegee Airmen Take Flight
During World War II, the 99th Pursuit Squadron, aka the Tuskegee Airmen, is activated. The group is the first all-black unit of the Army Air Corp, and serves with distinction in Africa, Italy, Germany and other areas. In March 2007 the surviving airmen and the widows of those who had died received Congressional Gold Medals for their service. 1906—First Airplane Flight in Europe
Romanian designer Traian Vuia flies twelve meters outside Paris in a self-propelled airplane, taking off without the aid of tractors or cables, and thus becomes the first person to fly a self-propelled, heavier-than-air aircraft. Because his craft was not a glider, and did not need to be pulled, catapulted or otherwise assisted, it is considered by some historians to be the first true airplane. 1965—Leonov Walks in Space
Soviet cosmonaut Aleksei Leonov leaves his spacecraft the Voskhod 2 for twelve minutes. At the end of that time Leonov's spacesuit had inflated in the vacuum of space to the point where he could not re-enter Voskhod's airlock. He opened a valve to allow some of the suit's pressure to bleed off, was barely able to get back inside the capsule, and in so doing became the first person to complete a spacewalk. 1966—Missing Nuke Found
Off the coast of Spain in the Mediterranean, the deep submergence vehicle Alvin locates a missing American hydrogen bomb. The 1.45-megaton nuke had been lost by the U.S. Air Force during a midair accident over Palomares, Spain. It was found resting in nearly three-thousand feet of water and was raised intact on 7 April.
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