| Vintage Pulp | May 29 2022 |
Up the river and into trouble.
Vintage Belgian movie posters are generally very nice. This one was made for Congo Crossing, which was titled Carrefour des proscrits in French and Het Kruispunt der Bannelingen in Dutch. The movie isn't actually set in the Belgian Congo. Instead it takes place in a fictional west African territory called Kongotanga, where George Nader and Virginia Mayo find themselves snared in an adventure that's part Casablanca and part African Queen. Sounds good, right? You can read what we wrote about the film here. There's no premiere date for Belgium but it probably played there in the spring of 1957.
BelgiumHet Kruispunt der BannelingenCarrefour des proscritsCongo CrossingGeorge NaderVirginia MayoPeter Lorreposter artcinema
| Intl. Notebook | Nov 17 2021 |
A dozen movie stars share the Crown.
Not long ago we showed you a few Royal Crown Cola print ads featuring Hollywood superstar Lauren Bacall, and mentioned that other celebs had also pitched the brand. That was an understatement. In its efforts to claw away part of Coca Cola's dominant market share, RC signed up an entire stable of top stars, including a-list personalities such as Barbara Stanwyck, Joan Crawford, and Gene Tierney. Above you see a dozen celebrity ads produced by RC. There were others we left out of the group, for example with Sonja Henie, Irene Dunne, Diana Lynn, and even Bing Crosby. But how much cola can you really stand? Twelve is enough for one day.
Barbara StanwyckPaulette GoddardRita HayworthLizabeth ScottVirginia MayoLinda DarnellGene TierneyHedy LamarrLoretta YoungJoan CrawfordGinger RogersBetty GrableSonja HenieIrene DunneDiana LynnBing Crosbymagazine art
| Hollywoodland | Sep 18 2021 |
Royal Crown helps consumers to stay awake at the movies.
Lauren Bacall brings her special brand of smoky sex appeal to this magazine advertisement for Royal Crown Cola, made as a tie-in with her 1946 film noir The Big Sleep. RC was launched in 1905 by Union Bottling Works—a grandiose corporate name for some guys in the back of a Georgia grocery store. The story is that the drink came into being after grocer Claud A. Hatcher got into a feud with his Coca Cola supplier over the cost of Coke syrup, and essentially launched RC out of equal parts entrepreneurialism and spite. Union Bottling Works quickly had a line of drinks, including ginger ale, strawberry soda, and root beer.
However humbly RC Cola began, the upstart had truly arrived by 1946, because The Big Sleep, co-starring Humphrey Bogart, was an important movie, and Bacall was a huge star. She was only one jewel in the crown of RC's endorsement efforts. Also appearing in ads were Rita Hayworth, Veronica Lake, Joan Crawford, Virginia Mayo, Paulette Goddard, Gene Tierney, Ann Rutherford, Ginger Rogers, and others. Bacall flogged RC for at least a few years, including starring in tie-in ads for Dark Passage, another screen pairing of her and Bogart that hit cinemas in 1947. You see one of those at bottom. We can only assume these ads were wildly successful. After all, it was Bacall.
The Big SleepDark PassageLauren BacallHumphrey BogartVeronica LakeAnn RutherfordVirginia MayoJoan CrawfordPaulette GoddardGene TierneyRita HayworthGinger Rogersmagazine art
| Vintage Pulp | Jul 13 2021 |
Bogart shows the way for the makers of Congo Crossing.
This poster for Congo Crossing has all the elements—firearms, some romantic nuzzling, and a huge crocodile. The trifecta. So we watched it, and what you get here is a Technicolor adventure set in the fictive West African land of Kongotanga, which sits geographically on the border of Belgian Congo, and is a stand-in thematically for Casablanca. Which is to say Congo Crossing uses the basic set-up of Casablanca—transitory expats and shady types in an ass-end outpost riven by local political tensions and power struggles. Virginia Mayo plays a wanted woman fleeing a murder charge she picked up on the French Riviera, George Nader plays the rakish stud who you aren't sure whether to like at first, and in the supporting cast are corrupt local kingpin Tonio Selwart, killer for hire Michael Pate, and Peter Lorre as the local chief of police. Here are some Casablanca similarities:
Expats desperate to catch the next day's plane to anywhere.
A climactic airport shootout.
A woman greatly desired by two men.
Lots of gun toting guys in tropical suits.
A comedic police official whose loyalties shift where the wind blows.
A moment when one man tells a rival it looks like the beginning of a friendship.
Peter Lorre.
Peter Lorre.
We mention Casablanca as shorthand to give you an idea of the set-up, and now we'll mention The African Queen—another Humphrey Bogart classic—as shorthand to tell you what the middle of the movie becomes. Mayo, Nader, and a few others embark on a boat trip upriver to a jungle hospital. There Mayo realizes she's the target of a killer, and flees farther along the river with Nader, dealing with an ambush, a sexual predator, a swarm of terrible tse-tse flies, a sneaky croc, and a deadly illness. You've seen The African Queen, right? A couple of strong similarities there. The group faces these problems and, unlike their African helpers, come away more or less intact, then the movie disembarks from the river—and The African Queen—to shift back to Kongoblanca, er, we mean Kongotanga, where everything began.
So does a movie that starts and ends kind of like Casablanca and has something kind of like The African Queen stitched into the middle work? Not with this script and budget it doesn't. And though the cast is game and experienced, the material doesn't give them much of a chance to sparkle. We can't call the movie bad, but we certainly can't describe it as recommendable either. And going back to the jungle segment for a moment, why is it that in such films the people born and raised in Africa always get eaten while white folks like Mayo and Nader can snog in the bush and be just fine? That's a rhetorical question of course. Congo Crossing premiered today in 1956.
Belgian CongoUniversal PicturesCongo CrossingGeorge NaderVirginia MayoPeter LorreTonio SelwartMichael PateRex Ingramposter artcinemamovie review
| Femmes Fatales | Feb 20 2021 |
I call this next punch the goodnight kiss.
Virginia Mayo wasn't much of a boxer. In addition to being very light, she telegraphed her punches, like this haymaker roundhouse right she's about throw after winding it up from somewhere around Sausalito. Good thing she could act. She appeared in such classic films as The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, The Flame and the Arrow, South Sea Woman, and, interestingly, in 1946 starred in both White Heat and Red Light. That sounds like a must-watch double bill, and despite the hundreds of vintage crime flicks we've seen, amazingly we've never seen those. So our night is all mapped out.
South Sea WomanWhite HeatRed LightThe Secret Life of Walter MittyThe Flame and the ArrowVirginia Mayo
| Vintage Pulp | Mar 25 2020 |
Can you name the five stars in the constellation Ludlow the Genius?
Above you see five pin-up paintings that came from the brush of Mike Ludlow, an artist we featured the first time only recently. He rose from humble beginnings in Buffalo, New York, to become an acclaimed figure that at his zenith painted portraits of major actresses for Esquire magazine. That's where all these pieces were originally published, and if you haven't identified them all, they are, top to bottom, Anita Ekberg, Gina Lollobrigida, Virginia Mayo, Denise Darcel, and Betsy von Furstenberg. All these stars have been featured on Pulp Intl., and you can see interesting posts on them at the following links: Ekberg, Lollobrigida, Mayo, Darcel, von Furstenberg.
BuffaloEsquire MagazineMike LudlowAnita EkbergGina LollobrigidaVirginia MayoDenise DarcelBetsy von Furstenberg
| Vintage Pulp | Oct 19 2018 |
I may be a bum but that's Sergeant Bum to you.
Above, an Italian promo poster painted by Luigi Martinati for the U.S. adventure flick South Sea Woman, with Burt Lancaster and Virginia Mayo. In Italy it was called Il sergente Bum! There's no Italian release date known. We did a little write-up of the film you can see at this link, and you can check out more of Martinati's brilliant brushwork here.
| Vintage Pulp | Jun 3 2018 |
Virginia Mayo and company prove romance and politics don't mix.
We said back in May of last year we'd watch South Sea Woman to see how Virginia Mayo ended up in a crate. Because the movie premiered in the U.S. today in 1953, we've decided to answer the question now. She ended up in a crate because she stowed away in it to follow Burt Lancaster and Chuck Connors across the Pacific Ocean. Lancaster and Connors are two marines accidentally left in Shanghai when their ship sails into battle after the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor. Mayo wants out of Shanghai too, but she also wants to marry Connors. Naturally these three stumble upon the Japanese and are able to do their bit for the war effort even though they're stuck in the middle of nowhere. New York Times reviewer Bosley Crowther called the movie “a rip-snorting glorification of two United States marines.” The movie is indeed supposed to glorify the military. It's also supposed to be funny, so it's too bad it generates zero laughs. Its fatal flaws are that Lancaster plays a throughly reprehensible character, and that as war propaganda it needs perhaps a modicum more subtlety. Also a better adventure would help. And maybe it could use a more involving romance too. In sum, it's a forgettable effort. But at least now we know why Mayo was hidden in a crate. We'll hide South Sea Woman in one too.
ChinaShanghaiWorld War IINew York TimesSouth Sea WomanBurt LancasterVirginia MayoChuck ConnorsBosley Crowtherposter artcinemamovie review
| Femmes Fatales | May 20 2017 |
I suggest closing the lid if you don't want me to spoil.
Virginia Mayo lounges in a crate in this promo shot made in 1953 during the filming of South Sea Woman, in which she starred with Burt Lancaster. What's she doing in a crate? We'll find out when we watch the movie.
