Femmes Fatales | Sep 14 2017 |
Vintage Pulp | Mar 19 2016 |
Vintage Pulp | Jun 20 2012 |
We ran across some issues of a German language magazine called Das Schweizer, which means “The Swiss,” and indeed, the publication originates from Switzerland. We thought only the French, Germans and Dutch produced magazines during the 1940s and 1950s that combined celebrity, photography, fine art, and eroticism. We stand corrected. Above is the cover of Das Schweizer #139, circa 1954, with Yvonne De Carlo, and interior pages featuring Brigitte Bardot looking especially hot, plus Joan Collins, Romy Schneider and others. You also get the great art of Paul Peter, and just for good measure we pulled a couple of scans from another Das Schweizer that had the cover and most of the photo pages cut out, but two more Peter art pieces left behind. Apparently whoever mutilated that issue didn’t see the value in his work. Hah! Philistines. Anyway, since we can’t make a decent post of that one, we added its Peters below (that just sounds wrong, doesn't it?). We can’t tell you anything about Paul Peter because his name is pretty much ungoogleable, if that’s even a word, however we’ll keep digging for facts on him and eventually something will turn up. It always does.
Vintage Pulp | Jan 11 2012 |
European publishers, like Italy’s Tecnografica, often used celebrities on their book covers. Here’s a favorite example—Swiss actress Ursula Andress on the cover of the illustrated giallo Invito alla violenza, by Hugh Pentecost, aka Judson Pentecost Phillips, aka Phillip Owen. The shot is from a 1965 photo series, another frame of which appeared in Spain’s Triunfo magazine. We don’t know whether the series was shot for Triunfo and rented by Tecnografica, or vice-versa. Possibly neither. It could have been shot as a promo series and sold to both Triunfo and Tecnografica. Alternatively, maybe Tecnografica simply appropriated the image. We only suggest that because we can’t think of any reason Ursula Andress would have needed to gnaw grass on the cover of a cheapie giallo three years after she appeared in Dr. No. Maybe we’ll find out the answer to that one later. In the meantime, we’re working on an aggregate post of celeb covers, which we’ll get up soon.
Update: Rafael wrote in with this: I suggest that these are promotional photos for 4 for Texas (USA 1963), freely appropriated by magazines everywhere.
And indeed he is right. Once we knew the movie we found many more promo shots of Andress wearing the same outfit. 4 for Texas also starred Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin, as well as Anita Ekberg, which all sounds worthwhile to us. We will defnitely screen a copy of it. Thanks Rafael, for the help.
Vintage Pulp | Dec 20 2010 |
Above are two Japanese posters for the Hong Kong lost world flick Xing xing wang, aka Goliathon, aka The Mighty Peking Man. We watched it last week, and mainly what was peeking was Swiss actress Evelyne Kraft’s ladyparts out of her costume. Those are the highlights. The lowlights are innumerable, and include choppy editing, bad miniature work, unconvincing rear projection trickery, and a dubious moral to the whole exercise. But because the film is so unusually bad it may be worth a look. It certainly made us laugh out loud more than once. But if you don’t want to spend ninety minutes finding out what happens, the frame captures below tell all you need to know in only ten seconds. Anyway, at least the posters are good. Xing xing wang opened in Hong Kong today in 1978.
Intl. Notebook | Oct 24 2010 |
Around here we often debate whether to post something, but generally believe that as a sort of history site, it’s always a bad idea to hold back. Today we have an issue of Midnight, published October 24, 1966, that goes over the top with gore. It isn’t the woman whose face has been eaten off by rats that particularly worries us, nor the cop that supposedly had his eyeballs ripped out. We’ve posted those. No, it’s the autopsied infant that gave us pause. We sometimes prattle on about refusing to self-censor, but when we say that, what we’re referring to is sex and nudity, not vivisected one year-old babies. We want you to enjoy the site, not scroll down the page cringing at what gore will leap from the jack-in-the-box. So long story short: eaten face—okay; ripped out eyeballs—hunky dory; autopsied infant? Hellz no. We have our standards, though Midnight didn’t.
Intl. Notebook | Sep 23 2010 |
Here’s something we’ve never seen before. It’s Steve’s McQueen’s international motorcycle driver’s license, issued out of Geneva, Switzerland in 1964. We think it probably first appeared online here. Is it pulp? Perhaps not, but it is significant because McQueen made every guy in America want a motorcycle thanks to his bravura turn as the rough and tumble Captain Virgil Hilts, aka The Cooler King, in 1963’s The Great Escape. Haven’t seen it? Click the little linky here.
Modern Pulp | Nov 30 2009 |
Hollywoodland | Sep 28 2009 |
Is it the end times? No, just another weekend in the world of pulp. It was hard to keep track of all the events that occurred. Most took the form of arrests. Actress Tawny Kitaen, who has looked much better than she does above left, was arrested for drunk driving in Newport Beach, California. She had recently appeared on a reality show called Celeb Rehab, and we think it’s safe to say she’s earned her spot on season two.
Meanwhile, over in Switzerland, Roman Polanski was arrested on an international warrant stemming from a 32-year-old statutory rape charge. U.S. authorities filed the warrant recently, but it must have slipped Polanski’s mind, because he was on his way to Zurich to receive an award at a film festival when he was pinched. So much for Swiss neutrality.
And in a development we’re sure Polanski is well aware of, two days ago Charles Manson follower Susan Atkins died in prison. Atkins was not present during the massacre of Polanski’s then-wife Sharon Tate and four others, but aided and abetted the murders of Rosemary and Leno LaBianca the next night.
And lastly over in desolate West Texas, actor Randy Quaid managed to get himself arrested along with his wife for skipping out on a hotel bill. He claims it was all a publicity stunt, which seems possible when you see how cheerful he is in the mug shot above right.
But we bet he wasn’t smiling when the prison guards stripped him naked and crawled all up in his body cavities with pitons and spelunking helmets. That's the way they do it in Texas—er, so we hear. This is not by any means a complete rundown of what happened since Friday, but we’re only two people here and that’s far too few to keep up with all the real world pulp going on. We wish all the celebrity jailbirds good luck.
Vintage Pulp | Jun 8 2009 |
Three action-packed Japanese posters for Dr. No, with Sean Connery and Swiss beauty Ursula Andress. You can see Connery and Andress getting close in a rare promo photo here. Dr. No premiered in Japan today in 1963.