Vintage Pulp | Jun 18 2020 |

Sophia Loren is priceless as always.
Not much we can say about this. It's a brilliant Japanese promo for Sophia Loren's 1960 film The Millionairess, one of many movies, such as El Cid, Houseboat, and Arabesque, that she made in English at the height of her fame. Some were Hollywood productions, but this one was produced and shot in England and co-starred Peter Sellers. There's no Japanese release date on it, but if we had to guess we'd say between 1962 and 1965. We haven't watched this yet, but we'll report back.
Intl. Notebook | May 12 2020 |

Hitchcock says no festival for you this year!
The 73rd edition of the Festival de Cannes, aka the Cannes Film Festival, would have kicked off today in the south of France, but was cancelled a while back. It's just one of a wave of event cancellations that will cascade through the year. Festivals as diverse as Burning Man and San Fermin, aka the Running of the Bulls, have also been shelved. But getting back to Cannes, we thought this would be a good moment to commemorate past fests with some historical photos. Above you see Alfred Hitchcock on a boat with the town in the background, in 1972, and below are about fifty pix from the 1940s through 1970s, documenting various iconic moments, and a few quieter ones. Maybe the Cannes Film Festival will back next year, maybe not. At this point, predicting anything is an exercise in futility. But at least we'll always have the memories.





















































FranceCannesFestival du CannesCannes Film FestivalPalme d’OrLa dolce vitaA Man Called AdamThe BirdsAlfred HitchcockEdith PiafDiana DorsGinger RogersKirk DouglasBrigitte BardotMichèle MorganRobert MitchumSimone SylvaRomy SchneiderAlain DelonSidney PoitierJean SebergNatalie WoodGrace KellySammy Davis Jr.Sharon TateRoman PolanskiMarlene DietrichTippi HedrenGene KellyMaria CallasSophia LorenCarlo PontiRaquel WelchJane BirkinJoan ScottDorothy DandridgeRobert RedfordJohn LennonCynthia LennonYoko OnoRock HudsonLauren BacallHumphrey BogartGeorge BakerBella DarviJayne MansfieldTatiana SamoïlovaCatherine DeneuveFrançoise DorléacFernandelArlette PatrickJeanne MoreauDanielle DarrieuxBernard BlierPhilomène ToulouseMonica Vittiposter artcinema
Hollywoodland | Apr 24 2020 |

Sometimes you simply have to look.
You know you shouldn't look at them. You try to direct your gaze where it belongs—at the band, or at the Champagne pyramid, or maybe at the roasted baby pig platter. You see people staring and know if you do too they'll all catch you. But the effort of not looking becomes a Sisyphean task. Lateral gravity becomes your enemy. Your eyes keep getting puuuuulled in that direction and you keep stopping them, just barely, by firing the reverse thrusters full power. But then, after many slow mintues of this torture, you figure, well screw this, maybe one day the planet will be in lockdown and this opportunity won't even exist. So you decide to take a really good look, just one, to get it out of the way, because if you don't you'll be fighting it all night. Plus she wants them to be looked at. Clearly. So you look—and flash! Someone takes a photo and your glance is immortalized as the evil side-eye of all time.
That moment happened April 12, 1957, as Sophia Loren attended a glittering Paramount Pictures dinner where she was the guest of honor. It was held at Romanoff's in Beverly Hills, a chic and popular restaurant, and Mansfield—being Mansfield—arrived last and sucked up the oxygen in the room like a magnesium fire. Every camera in the joint was following her—and by extension Loren, because the seating chart had placed them adjacent. Loren was a big star, but stars sometimes get trapped in other stars' orbits. Loren and Mansfield got locked into the same space-time continuum, eyes moved to boobs, and the infamous photo was shot. The images of the encounter were all in black and white. What you see above is a colorization, a pretty nice one, except the retoucher didn't do their homework. Mansfield's dress was pink that night. She nearly always wore pink. It was her favorite color. Even her house was pink.
The colorization below gets the dress right, and this second angle shows just how much skin Mansfield was revealing, which gives a clearer indication why Loren had to look. Mansfield's nipples were coming out. They had fishhooked Loren's eyes. She couldn't not look. Not not doing something is an ethical conundrum we've discussed before, and it's baffled some of the greatest minds of all time. As you might imagine, Loren hates the shot. Sometimes fans ask her to autograph it and she says she always refuses. The dinner that night was intended to welcome her to Hollywood. Well, she was welcomed in more ways than one. Mansfield showed her a surefire method for playing the celebrity game, by always making a big entrance—even if it meant almost making a big exit from her dress.
Hollywoodland | Apr 16 2020 |

They always get the best seat in the house.
Below, a collection of film stars, in Hollywood and other places, looking large and in charge while seated in director's chairs. In panel three the actress in the “Bonanza's guest” chair is Karen Sharpe. We don't expect you'll need help with the others, but if so our keywords list them in order.





















BonanzaSusan HaywardAva GardnerKaren SharpeGregory PeckBoris KarloffSophia LorenMarlene DietrichBette DavisAngie DickensonSteve McQueenRichard WidmarkMarilyn MonroeEartha KittRita MorenoRita HayworthHarry BelafonteDorothy DandridgeDebbie ReynoldsLana TurnerRosemary ClooneyBing CrosbySharon TateJayne Mansfield
Intl. Notebook | Feb 5 2020 |

Hi, I'm Sophia Loren, here to tell you that when I eat eels, I eat Comacchio eels.
We live in a community of old fishermen. We've learned some things. Sophia Loren, we can declare without much doubt, is an old fisherman's dream. Hairy armpits, safety pin holding her shirt closed, mismatched buttons, rope for a belt. All of that indicates an uncomplicated attitude, which old fishermen appreciate. And, most importantly, Loren apparently loves eels. This photo shows her holding aloft a tin of Comacchio canned eels, and before you judge, let us just say that eels taste great. We've never eaten the Italian variety, but we suspect one canned eel tastes very much like another. Please don't send emails telling us how wrong we are and that eels vary greatly depending on which waters they slither through. They're eels. How different can they really be?
Let's focus on Loren. This is one of her most famous photos, and the reason she looks this way is because she's in costume as her character Nives Mongolini from the 1954 film La donna del fiume, aka The River Girl, which was shot in Comacchio, a town famous for its tinned eels. The photo was made by Federico Patallani, and while we've heard it was used for an advertisement, we've never seen the ad, so we're dubious on that. We think it's just a film promo designed to call attention to the fact that Loren filmed in Italy's most famous eel town. But even if it isn't an ad, we bet it caused a spike in eel sales, and possibly caused bald-pitted women to consider ditching the razor. If you can make it look as good as Loren (or Eleonora Giorgi or Kuroki Kaoru) why not? We have another Loren image below from the same session, with her pits covered, for you hair haters.
Let's focus on Loren. This is one of her most famous photos, and the reason she looks this way is because she's in costume as her character Nives Mongolini from the 1954 film La donna del fiume, aka The River Girl, which was shot in Comacchio, a town famous for its tinned eels. The photo was made by Federico Patallani, and while we've heard it was used for an advertisement, we've never seen the ad, so we're dubious on that. We think it's just a film promo designed to call attention to the fact that Loren filmed in Italy's most famous eel town. But even if it isn't an ad, we bet it caused a spike in eel sales, and possibly caused bald-pitted women to consider ditching the razor. If you can make it look as good as Loren (or Eleonora Giorgi or Kuroki Kaoru) why not? We have another Loren image below from the same session, with her pits covered, for you hair haters.

Vintage Pulp | Jan 16 2020 |

It was a different flavor of men's magazine.
Zest magazine, with its bold graphics and cover portraits, looks like a classic mid-century tabloid, but its banner tells you it's really a men's magazine. It lives up to its billing in this issue from January 1956—issue number one, actually—with short stories from Michael Avallone and H.P. Lovecraft, real life adventure tales, scare stories (“Is Your Daughter a Sex-Film Star?), glamour photography, and humor.
The Lovecraft tale, “Rats in the Walls,” is called “the greatest horror story ever written.” We wouldn't go that far, but it's freaktacular, like everything Lovecraft wrote. It had originally been published in Weird Tales in 1924, and we imagine that its bizarro mutant/cannibalism themes were pretty shocking back then. The Avallone story, “The Glass Eye,” is novella length. He had already published three novels and was building a reputation as a reliable author of thrillers, which makes his inclusion a nice coup for a new magazine.
The photography in Zest is just as impressive as the fiction. Readers get to see rare shots of major celebs such as Sophia Loren, Sabrina, and Delores del Rio. All in all Zest was a high budget effort, but it lasted only two issues. Why did it fold? No idea on that. Competition in the market was plenty stiff at the time. On the other hand, maybe two issues are all that were planned. We're thrilled to show you one of them, comprising thirty-plus scans below for your Thursday enjoyment.
Intl. Notebook | Aug 31 2019 |

Sophia Loren applies personal experience to her ideas about marriage.
Above is a cover of Midnight with a nice photo of Italian superstar Sophia Loren, and a header suggesting trial marriages for couples over twenty-one. Did she say it? Quite possibly. Her marriage to film producer Carlo Ponti was an international scandal thanks to popes and others sticking their noses into her private business. But back then they thought it was their right—actually, their holy duty—because divorce wasn't legal in Italy and Ponti was still married. He and his wife had split and had nothing to do with each other, but the Catholic church assured Loren she'd go to hell if she married Ponti. Well, she did it anyway by proxy in 1957 and officially in 1966. So in August 1970, when this issue of Midnight appeared, we think it quite likely that she had some well formed ideas about marriage. In any case, nice cover.
Intl. Notebook | Apr 28 2019 |

Loren is head and shoulders above the rest.
Our ongoing quest for unusual Japanese material continues today with this cool page featuring Sophia Loren in a photo feature about hats. It's from the magazine Heibon Punch and appeared in issue 10, published in 1964. You know what she needs under that hat? An iridescent wig.
Hollywoodland | Dec 8 2018 |

And you think America is polarized today.
The iconic polar bear rug. What can you say about them? Well, it's not a good look nowadays, but back then people thought these sorts of decorations were quite chic. When did that end? Possibly shortly after the three-hundredth Playboy model posed on one, or when many people began to see trophy hunting as the obsession of vain and unsavory millionaires. One of those two. Personally, we blame Hefner. In the shot above Jayne Mansfield and Mickey Hargitay take polar bear style to its pinnacle. Just look at that room. Besides the bear they have a copper ceiling, satin curtains, and a white shag rug. It's a pimp's wet dream and all of it must have cost a fortune. We like to imagine what the look on Jayne's face would have been if anyone walked in with a brimming glass of red wine. We bet she'd have turned whiter than the bear.
We have more photos in the same vein below. If you need help identifying the stars, their names are in our keywords in order of appearance. Looking at the entire collection, we tend to wonder if there were three or four bears that ended up in all the photos. You know, like bears owned by certain photography studios or prop departments. Just saying, a couple of them look suspiciously similar. But on the other hand, how different from each other do bears really look? You'll notice that the poor creatures were generally posed to look fierce. But by contrast Inger Stevens' bear, just below, strikes us as a bit reflective and melancholy, which is understandable. Elizabeth Montgomery, meanwhile, gets extra points for wearing her bear. We have twenty-plus images below, including another shot of Mansfield, sans Hargitay.
We have more photos in the same vein below. If you need help identifying the stars, their names are in our keywords in order of appearance. Looking at the entire collection, we tend to wonder if there were three or four bears that ended up in all the photos. You know, like bears owned by certain photography studios or prop departments. Just saying, a couple of them look suspiciously similar. But on the other hand, how different from each other do bears really look? You'll notice that the poor creatures were generally posed to look fierce. But by contrast Inger Stevens' bear, just below, strikes us as a bit reflective and melancholy, which is understandable. Elizabeth Montgomery, meanwhile, gets extra points for wearing her bear. We have twenty-plus images below, including another shot of Mansfield, sans Hargitay.
Sex Files | Dec 6 2018 |

Users of popular internet platform sent for a nasty Tumbl.
The news broke Monday, and you may already know, that the image aggregation platform Tumblr has decided to ban nudity beginning December 17. After child porn was discovered among the tens of thousands of Tumblr pages, all users must now adhere to restrictions banning photos, videos, and GIFs “that show real-life human genitals or female-presenting nipples” along with any visual content “that depicts sex acts.” Exceptions include breastfeeding images, images related to childbirth, nudity in sculptures, and other fine art. But what is fine art? This is a question we ask here all the time. Are Japanese film posters fine art? Sleaze paperback covers? Screen grabs from popular motion pictures?
Unmoderated sites will always draw problematic users, so conflict around this issue was inevitable. Needless to say, the ban will decimate thousands of users' work, as well as Pulp Intl.'s sidebar. Tumblr says it wants to create an online space that is open and safe, which is a worthy goal. Child porn is a scourge. But any blanket ban on nudity is going to result in the loss of important material. Should this be eradicated? This? This? This? If Pulp Intl. were a Tumblr page it all would be toast, and all our original scans from tabloids and movie magazines would
be collateral damage. Though our discussions of nudity and sex are rooted in artistic merit, and are designed to make visitors think about changes in artistic media over the decades, Tumblr would see no nuances.

It's really a shame. Great Tumblr pages like Humungus and Bulles de Japon are now endangered, if not targeted. Burleskateer, the best Tumblr page that had been collating photos of mid-century burlesque dancers, has already preemptively decamped from the digital field. Sites that feature a little nudity but a lot of valuable content will have only two weeks to clean up their feeds, which may do no good anyway because they've possibly already been slated for annihilation. Ultimately, we think Tumblr should have simply moderated the site, but failing that a 90 day period for users to process this issue and, if possible, make arrangements to save the material for possible future usage would have been nice.
The lesson here is never, if at all possible, store content you consider important in other people's computers. That includes the cloud—which is just a fancy name for other people's computers. Which, by the way, happen to be open to cyberattacks, insider theft, and legal liability that you don't have to worry about using an encrypted external hard drive sitting on your desk. Not to mention that the same way Tumblr made a sudden change and left thousands in the lurch, a government could decide to intrude on your activities due to a sudden change in law. While it's true that nearly all internet content is trafficked through third party servers, those are—at the moment anyway—not under threat, and it's easy to move from server to server, country to country. We do it all the time. Well, dark days for Tumblr users, but the internet is a funny place. Where there's a demand there's often soon an answer.
