Vintage Pulp

November 27 2024

MANCHE TRAP

You can't spell “demon” without Demongeot.

French filmmakers often gravitated toward English language crime novels for inspiration. Une manche et la belle, another thriller set in the fertile South of France, was based on British author James Hadley Chase’s 1954 thriller The Sucker Punch. Henri Vidal plays an ambitious young exec at Pacific Bank, for whom trouble starts when he aces his colleague out of a rich client. The client, played by Isa Miranda, takes a personal liking to Vidal. Isa’s secretary is Mylène Demongeot, and she takes a liking to Vidal too, in that flirtatious but elusive way she was good at bringing to the screen. Vidal marries Miranda and the two head off on a Venetian honeymoon, but rich people need staff, so the cherubically beautiful Demongeot is brought along for the ride. But three’s a crowd. Under the circumstances, wedded bliss develops a quick end date. A murderous one, if Demongeot has her way.

Can she entice Vidal into a reckless decision? Well, sure, who wouldn’t get reckless for her? Imagine if there were a murder trial. The judge: “Can’t show you any leniency without suffering professional ridicule and the loss of my cushy gig up here on the bench, but bro—I get it.” The entire world got it, which is why Demongeot became a popular cinematic sex symbol. You’ll frequently see the movie cited as one in which she was topless, but the bare frontage on display was that of a body double, which we determined thanks to the wonders of the pause button. Too bad—even playing purest evil Demongeot is special. She might be the original inspiration for the ubiquitous “Distracted Boyfriend” meme. Une manche et la belle, a pretty fun flick all things considered, premiered in France today in 1957.

France, Italy, Nice, Venice, Une manche et la belle, A Kiss for a Killer, Henri Vidal, Mylène Demongeot, Isa Miranda, James Hadley Chase, poster art, cinema, movie review

Intl. Notebook

September 10 2024

GOING GOING GONDOLA

Public transportation gets Dors efficiently to her destination.

The 16th annual Venice Film Festival ended today in 1955, and one of its highlights occurred when British star Diana Dors was paddled out into the Canalazzo, or Grand Canal, in one of the city’s gondolas. Dors didn’t have a film in competition, which was probably all the more reason to try and steal the show. To that end she wore a fur bikini and posed for eager photographers. The swimsuit was a bit diapery in terms of fit, but Dors, as you see, still looked fine. Next stop: free publicity.

Italy, Venice, Venice Film Festival, Diana Dors

Vintage Pulp

May 12 2024

SUFFER LITTLE CHILDREN

Who'd want to kill a child? On occasion, virtually any parent on the planet, but in this case it's a violent psychopath.

This poster was painted by the great Enzo Nistri (the brush behind classic promos such as this and this) for the giallo flick Chi l’ha vista morire?, known in English as Who Saw Her Die? It stars former James Bond lead George Lazenby (looking unhealthily thin here because for reasons inexplicable he lost thirty-five pounds for the role) as an American artist in Venice whose young daughter goes missing. He first appeals to the (pro forma ineffectual) police, but the girl turns up floating dead in the Grand Canal.

This brings Lazenby’s estranged wife Anita Strindberg to town for the funeral, and soon they’re asking questions about a child murder from the previous year, which we the viewers have seen in the opening reel being committed by a woman clad and veiled in black. Lazenby and Strindberg go full sleuth in order to identify and locate this suspected killer, who meanwhile graduates to knocking off adults who might have clues. You may assume co-star and former Bond villain Adolfo Celi has something to do with all this, and he might, but this is a giallo. There’s no way to know who’s the killer until the final reveal.

The movie’s real star may be Venice, where residents once sauntered easily through lanes uncluttered by tour groups and AirBnB renters. You’ll see many hidden nooks of the city, beautifully shot by director Aldo Lado and cinematographer Franco Di Giacomo. This type of scenery will come courtesy of AI image generators in the approaching years. After all, why close down St. Mark’s Square when you can render it in a computer? Take heart, though—even a computer will never be able to generate Anita Strindberg. Chi l’ha vista morire? premiered in Italy today in 1972.

Italy, Venice, Chi l'ha vista morire?, Who Saw Her Die?, George Lazenby, Anita Strindberg, Adolfo Celi, Dominique Boschero, Enzo Nistri, poster art, cinema, giallo, movie review

Vintage Pulp

November 24 2023

VENICE CARNIVAL

Cold War spies make waves in the City of Canals.

The Venetian Affair, which premiered today in 1966, has a rather interesting promo poster. It was painted by U.S. artist Frank McCarthy, who was big in paperback covers early in his career, moved into high-budget movie promos such as James Bond posters, and finally made a mark in realist fine art. We love this piece from him. There’s a lot going on. If you check out his effort for You Only Live Twice here you’ll see how dense and chaotic his work could be, same as above, where he has people falling off the bridge, off the gondola, and guns being brandished everywhere. In addition, his likenesses of the movie’s stars are good. He was a major talent.

The first observation you might make while watching The Venetian Affair is that it would be impossible to make a similar movie in that city today. Nearly four million tourists visited Venice in 2022, making nearly every street—and certainly every site of special historical note—like the mass exodus from a just-completed football game. With that level of humanity about, closing parts of the city or main squares—while maybe possible—would not be practical or economical.

But The Venetian Affair was made back when quiet streets and dark corners existed. Old world architecture always makes for a good spy movie backdrop. That’s exactly what you get in this adventure about a mind control drug being used to foment conflict between the U.S. and U.S.S.R. Robert Vaughn stars as a former CIA agent who was fired after he married Elke Sommer, who was suspected of being a double agent. Vaughn never found out whether that was true because he and Sommer were torn apart by turbulent events. But when a bomb blows up a Venice political conference and Sommer is thought to be involved, the CIA drags Vaughn back into its clutches to find Sommer, as well as the crucial clue that might explain the bombing.

Vaughn is a cool and composed actor, any movie with Sommer is one we’ll watch, and co-stars Felicia Farr, Luciana Paluzzi, Ed Asner, and the venerable Boris Karloff are all enticements, but we can’t say The Venetian Affair is a scintillating example of a Cold War spy flick. It’s such a fertile sub-genre, one that produced some of the best movies of 1950s through 1970s. Even against the beautiful Venice backdrop it mostly falls flat due to a screenplay that never hits any highs. But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t watch it. Though it lacks highs, it also lack any serious lows. You can spend your time worse ways. Plus—Sommer. What more do you need?

Italy, U.S.S.R., Soviet Union, Venice, Cold War, The Venetian Affair, Robert Vaughn, Elke Sommer, Felicia Farr, Karlheinz Böhmm, Karl Bohm, Luciana Paluzzi, Boris Karloff, Edward Asner, Frank McCarthy, poster art, cinema, movie review, communism

Hollywoodland

March 16 2023

ROCK COLLECTOR

I don't care if his schedule is packed today. I found him and I'm keeping him.

This nice image shows U.S. actor Woody Strode and Italian actress Vittoria Solinas posing together at the Lido in Venice, Italy, in 1967, probably during the Venice Film Festival. Solinas acted in only five films, but was a popular magazine model, and later became a singer and author. Strode is somewhat forgotten today, but was a prolific actor who appeared in more than sixty films, most in small roles, though many were noticeable, such as when he played the gladiator Draba who fought Kirk Douglas in Spartacus. Strode’s calling card—as if you couldn’t guess—was a body he’d honed as a college athlete and professional wrestler. Think of him as the original Rock, with the main difference being that his neck was smaller than his head. Other movies of his include Genghis Khan, Black Jesus, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, and Colpo en canna, aka Loaded Guns. We hope he and Solinas had a lovely afternoon.

Italy, Venice, Spartacus, Genghis Khan, Black Jesus, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, Colpo en canna, Loaded Guns, Woody Strode, Woodrow Strode, Vittoria Solinas, Kirk Douglas

Intl. Notebook, Musiquarium

November 26 2022

ABBE’S DAY OUT

Okay, my dear. Let's get you back indoors. You've provided Italy more than enough spank bank material for one day.

We recently showed you Abbe Lane on one of her album covers, but we’ve brought her back today because of this fun photo and the ones below. Lane was once deemed by Italian television authorities to be too sexy for broadcast. That’s right—in Italy. So you can imagine the excitement when she donned this striped bikini for a photo shoot on the Lido in Venice, Italy during the summer of 1956. The proprietary arm belongs to her husband, Spanish bandleader Xavier Gugat. We think of the couple as the Beyoncé and Jay Z of their era, which is to say, Lane is waaaay too pretty for Cugat. She was also thirty-one years younger than him, which just goes to show what talent can do for a man:

Xavier: You have inspired me, baby. I will write a song about you.

Abbe: You’ve already written me dozens, Xavier. All that cha-cha stuff is getting a little old.

Xavier: Music is just one of my abilities, cariño. Did I ever make you my authentic paella Valenciana with garrofó and rabbit? I almost became a chef, you know, but music beckoned.

Abbe: Men have cooked for me before. Yves Montand once made me a chocolate and pear soufflé. It was an exquisite grace note in a magnificently composed dinner, and that wasn’t even really the dessert.

Xavier: Yes, that Yves. How urbane of him. How about I give you a purifying seaweed mask and a pedicure? I am a bit of an amateur aesthetician, and I love your feet.

Abbe: My skin—in case you haven’t noticed—is perfect. Several men told me that today, and a cabana boy named Guido gave me a foot rub. You were snorkeling at the time.

Xavier: Grrr… I see. Well, I could paint your portrait. I am quite a good artist. I spent some time studying egg tempera at the Reial Acadèmia Catalana.

Abbe: I could never sit still that long again. Marcello Mastroianni painting me nude last year was quite enough. Day after day, hour after hour in that… well, frankly provocative pose he wanted. You were on tour, but I knew you wouldn’t mind.

Xavier: Is that so? Well, fine, but I was at his house just a month ago. Why did he not show me this painting?

Abbe: I don’t know. It’s hanging right in his bedroom. So he tells me.

Xavier: *sigh* No meal, no skin care, no song. I guess I am just an old man unable to impress you any longer. When we get back to the villa I will simply take out the garbage, then finish reading that book I was—

Abbe: Take out the garbage? Oh, sweetheart. Tell you what—you do that and I’ll put on the g-string and thigh-high boots you like and meet you in the bedroom.

The lesson from that day in Venice is that, for a wife, the ultimate turn-on is a husband who’s willing to do chores. Cugat spent eleven years with Lane before they finally divorced in June 1964. She was married again before the year was over, which was a pretty fast rebound and remarriage even for Hollywood. Meanwhile, a few years later Cugat married Spanish singer and dancer Charo, who was his junior by fifty-one or forty-one years, depending on who you believe. Either way, music, cooking, and even chores are all fine, but maybe Cugat’s real talent was for bedazzling younger women.

Italy, Spain, Venice, Abbe Lane, Xavier Cugat, Charo

Vintage Pulp

May 19 2022

ROUTE CANAL

So just out of curiosity, why aren't you paddling an Uber? Seems like everyone else is.

This spectacular cover for Thomas Sterling’s Murder in Venice was painted by James Hill, an artist of obvious skill but one we rarely encounter. The book was originally published in 1955 as The Evil of the Day, with this beautiful Dell edition coming in 1959. Sterling tells the tale of a man named Cecil Fox who invites three guests from abroad to his Venetian mansion in order to pretend he’s near death and tease them with the promise of inheriting his wealth. These three guests are people he’s not had much contact with in recent years, which makes the game even more delicious for him, the way the trio feel plucked from their lives of obscurity to possibly be gifted wealth and status. Factions form and subterfuges abound, but everything is thrown into disarray when one of the guests is murdered. Was it to eliminate a possible inheritor? To add intrigue to the game? Or for other, unguessable reasons?

Go with option three. The whole point of murder mysteries is to be unguessable. Murder in Venice is a pretty good puzzler, with a small set of curious characters and a few forays into the Venetian night. Sterling gets inside the head of his protagonist Celia Johns quite effectively. She’s the personal assistant to one of the invitees, and thus has no skin in the game. She just wants a fair wage for a fair day’s work. At least that what she says. Her host Mr. Fox, on the other hand, seems to think everyone is corruptible, and everyone is money hungry—it’s just a matter of baiting the hook in the right way. He thinks he knows most people better than they know themselves, and he doesn’t see Celia as any sort of exception.

While Murder in Venice is a mystery, it’s also a minor sociological examination of what it means to some people to be rich but face losing their money, and what it means to others to not value money at all. Sterling scored a success, but interestingly, he borrowed the idea from Ben Johnson’s play Volpone, which premiered way back in 1606. Sterling was up front about his inspiration, and within his novel the play even makes an appearance on a drawing room shelf. Frederick Knott, who wrote the famed plays Wait Until Dark and Dial M for Murder, later adapted Sterling’s novel into a 1959 play called Mr. Fox of Venice. The next year the book was published in France as Le Tricheur de Venise and won Sterling the Grand Prix de Littérature Policière for foreign authors. And finally, Joseph Mankiewicz combined the original play, Sterling’s novel, and Knott’s play into a 1967 movie called The Honey Pot.

When material gets recycled to that extent, it’s usually good, and Sterling does his part. He was a diplomat before becoming an author and lived in Italy for years, so we would have liked more color from someone who obviously knew Venice well, but he’s an interesting writer even without the aid of scenery, as in this moment of musing from Celia: She said, “my sleep,” as though it were, “my dress,” or, “my ring.” It belonged to her. Every night had a certain amount, and if she lost it she was frantic. She had forgotten that sleep was not a thing, it was a country. You couldn’t get it, you had to go there. And it was never lost. Sometimes you missed a train, but there was always another coming after. In the meantime, neither the green hills nor the nightmare forests ever changed. They stayed where they were and you went to them. And sooner or later you would go and not come back.

Italy, France, Venice, Grand prix de littérature policière, The Honey Pot, Wait Until Dark, Dial M for Murder, Thomas Sterling, James Hill, Joseph Mankiewicz, cover art, literature

Vintage Pulp

January 5 2022

THE AMERICAN WAY

Gemser exercises her right to bare arms—and everything else too.

We try to document the top erotic stars of yesteryear—Lindberg, Forså, Annie Belle, Izumi Shima. Today it’s Laura Gemser’s turn again, this time starring in Emanuelle in America, which premiered in Italy today in 1977. This entry is third, fourth, or seventh in her Emanuelle series, depending on how you count them, and sees her investigating a multi-national sex trafficking ring that kidnaps women and kills them for the production of underground snuff films. That synopsis and the fact that the movie is helmed by Joe D’Amato are all you need to hear to suspect this is going all sorts of disturbing places, and indeed, your worst fears will be realized, as scenes of documentary-style transgressive violence occur, and there’s a scene of a woman stroking off a horse. Fortunately, the snuff sequences are fake. They were staged by Italian special effects experts Giannetto de Rossi and Maurizio Trani. The horse thing? That’s real.

*heavy sigh*

Okay, so let’s forget those problems for now. What’s the thrust of the movie? It’s a scathing indictment of the decadent wealthy, people who money has deadened inside and who must buy increasingly depraved thrills to bring stimulation to their lives. During the course of Gemser’s investigation she goes undercover as a high priced call girl, jets from the U.S. to Venice to the Caribbean and back to the States, gets naked or topless numerous times, and has her skinny body handled and squeezed by man and woman alike, including her real-life husband Gabriele Tinti. As usual her sexual powers are transformative. For instance a carjacker wants to kill her but has never experienced sex and has his lid flipped by his first blowjob. Later a call girl with no self worth comes to see the world in a brighter light after a slippery steam room session with Gemser. She’s like a superhero—with a superpower you really have to marvel at.

We won’t tell you how the whole snuff plotline resolves. You’ll just have to watch—all the way to the baffling postscript. Should you decide to partake, you’ll probably end up with a version of the movie that has hardcore sequences featuring porn actresses Paola Senatore and Marina Lotar inserted, so to speak. Usually such scenes shred continuity, and they do here too, as well as failing to add much to the overall erotic value of the film. We’ll admit though, that the bit where a woman sticks daisies in a man’s nest of pubes then says, “Your bush is in flower,” was funny. The other high point is Gemser, hitting her stride here as the Emanuelle character, looking her best, making stick-thin more alluring than she has any right to. She does the same in many additional entries. A few of those efforts are better, but many are far worse, so we’ll have to call Emanuelle in America above average.

Italy, Venice, Emanuelle in America, Laura Gemser, Gabriele Tinti, Paola Senatore, Marina Lotar, Joe D'Amato, Aristide Massaccesi, poster art, cinema, sexploitation, nudity, movie review, xxx

Vintage Pulp

February 6 2021

A LACK OF WOLVES

Usually they're pretty bold but these are impossible to find.

It’s rare for us to be unable to find a U.S. or European movie, but it happens. We didn’t let it stop us from sharing this amazing poster, though, which was made for the French thriller La loups chassent la nuits, known in English as Wolves Hunt at Night. It’s a spy flick set in Trieste and Venice, and stars Jean-Pierre Aumont and Italian actress Carla del Poggio. The poster was designed by Léo Houper using a photo of del Poggio as its central element. We’ll keep looking for this film and maybe one day we’ll get lucky. It premiered in France today in 1952.

France, Italy, Trieste, Venice, La loups chassent la nuits, Wolves Hunt at Night, Jean-Pierre Aumont, Carla del Poggio, Léo Houper, poster art, cinema

Vintage Pulp

August 28 2019

CACCIA ON THE FLIPSIDE

Big screen Thief gets the job done but isn't quite the perfect crime.

This is a spectacular Italian poster for Caccia al ladro, aka To Catch a Thief, with Cary Grant and Grace Kelly. The moviemakers opted for a photo-illustration rather than a painting, and it befits the star power of the movie. It was based on David Dodge’s best seller of the same name, and in truth it’s a pretty simple-minded adaptation of the book. You can just hear the studio execs saying: “We know it’s in the novel, but we can’t have the star in disguise half the movie, we can’t have the romance go unacknowledged until the final reel, and we for damn sure can’t have the secondary female lead be more beautiful than Grace Kelly.” Movies are a different medium than books, and changes always happen, but it’s just interesting to observe what those changes are. The main change is this: Dodge’s novel has suspense, while Hitchcock’s adaptation does not. That probably wasn’t intentional.

To Catch a Thief is a superstar vehicle, and with Grant and Kelly in the lead roles, and Hitchcock in the director’s chair, it’s pretty clear the studio considered the hard work done. Extensive French Riviera location shooting and VistaVision widescreen film processing are nice bonuses, but the honchos should have had screenwriter John Michael Hayes hammer the script out a little smoother. We’re not being iconoclasts here. The movie received mixed reviews upon release, with some important critics calling it a failure. That’s going too far—it isn’t a failure. We don’t think Grant, Kelly, and Hitchcock would have been capable of making anything but a good movie at this stage. But considering the source material it could have been a perfect movie. To Catch a Thief premiered in the U.S in early August 1955, and in Italy at the Venice Film Festival today the same year.

France, Venice, Venice Film Festival, Caccia al ladro, To Catch a Thief, Cary Grant, Grace Kelly, Alfred Hitchcock, John Michael Hayes, poster art, cinema, movie review

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HISTORY REWIND

The headlines that mattered yesteryear.

April 22

1912—Pravda Is Founded

The newspaper Pravda, or Truth, known as the voice of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, begins publication in Saint Petersburg. It is one of the country’s leading newspapers until 1991, when it is closed down by decree of then-President Boris Yeltsin. A number of other Pravdas appear afterward, including an internet site and a tabloid.

April 22

1983—Hitler's Diaries Found

The German magazine Der Stern claims that Adolf Hitler’s diaries had been found in wreckage in East Germany. The magazine had paid 10 million German marks for the sixty small books, plus a volume about Rudolf Hess’s flight to the United Kingdom, covering the period from 1932 to 1945. But the diaries are subsequently revealed to be fakes written by Konrad Kujau, a notorious Stuttgart forger. Both he and Stern journalist Gerd Heidemann go to trial in 1985 and are each sentenced to 42 months in prison.

April 21

1918—The Red Baron Is Shot Down

German WWI fighter ace Manfred von Richthofen, better known as The Red Baron, sustains a fatal wound while flying over Vaux sur Somme in France. Von Richthofen, shot through the heart, manages a hasty emergency landing before dying in the cockpit of his plane. His last word, according to one witness, is “Kaputt.” The Red Baron was the most successful flying ace during the war, having shot down at least 80 enemy airplanes.

April 21

1964—Satellite Spreads Radioactivity

An American-made Transit satellite, which had been designed to track submarines, fails to reach orbit after launch and disperses its highly radioactive two pound plutonium power source over a wide area as it breaks up re-entering the atmosphere.

April 20

1939—Holiday Records Strange Fruit

American blues and jazz singer Billie Holiday records “Strange Fruit”, which is considered to be the first civil rights song. It began as a poem written by Abel Meeropol, which he later set to music and performed live with his wife Laura Duncan. The song became a Holiday standard immediately after she recorded it, and it remains one of the most highly regarded pieces of music in American history.

April 19

1927—Mae West Sentenced to Jail

American actress and playwright Mae West is sentenced to ten days in jail for obscenity for the content of her play Sex. The trial occurred even though the play had run for a year and had been seen by 325,000 people. However West’s considerable popularity, already based on her risque image, only increased due to the controversy.

April 19

1971—Manson Sentenced to Death

In the U.S, cult leader Charles Manson is sentenced to death for inciting the murders of Sharon Tate and several other people. Three accomplices, who had actually done the killing, were also sentenced to death, but the state of California abolished capital punishment in 1972 and neither they nor Manson were ever actually executed.