Vintage Pulp

March 21 2022

KILLER NIGHT

No one's gonna save you from the beast about to strike.

Burt Lancaster as a doomed boxer named Ole Anderson, shot dead one night by a couple of hit men, is a seminal character in film noir. He epitomizes the major characteristic of the genre, that of a person caught in dangerous circumstances beyond their control. He’s so caught he never tries to run or defend himself. He lets the killers shoot him. We didn’t spoil anything by telling you that—Anderson is dead ten minutes after the movie opens. Using Ernest Hemingway’s short story of the same name as a starting place, The Killers takes a typical endpoint for a film noir and flips the timeline around so that the drama becomes finding out why Anderson suffered such a hopeless demise. Sunset Boulevard would pull the same trick later in visionary fashion by having the dead character actually narrate the movie. We’ve shown you several posters for The Killers, but this one made for the Australian market is, well, killer. Compare it to the U.S. promo here. The movie premiered in Australia today in 1947.

Australia, The Killers, Sunset Boulevard, Burt Lancaster, Ava Gardner, Ernest Hemingway, poster art, cinema, film noir

Vintage Pulp

January 25 2022

WHISTLE IN THE DARK

George Raft and Ava Gardner are lost in tepid 1946 drama.

A whistle stop, for any who don’t know, is a term for a small town, a place where a train pulls in for a few minutes before moving on. 1946’s Whistle Stop is based on Maritta M. Wolff’s acclaimed novel, published when she was just twenty-two. It was not only acclaimed, but controversial, as its frank language scandalized bluenoses of the era.

In the film, Ava Gardner returns from Chicago to her whistle stop home town and gets tangled up up with her ex, George Raft, who’s a gambler and all around shady guy. Tom Conway has feelings for Gardner and hates Raft, and the rivalry leads to big trouble as both try to win Ava’s affections. She doesn’t help the situation with her fickleness. Each time Raft makes her mad she turns to Conway. Nothing good can result when hearts are used as toys.

This is another one of those old films that, because it has some night scenes and a partial crime focus, is labeled on some sites as a film noir. That’s way off and you’ll be disappointed if you watch it expecting noir. It’s actually a melodrama, with star-crossed lovers, sweet violins, and a dance sequence set to the 1848 folk classic “Oh, Susanna.” Even Variety at the time called it “heavy melodrama.” There’s a heist in the film, but heists happened in the movies before, after, and outside film noir. Raft is supposed to take part in the robbery, which as a bonus would result in the death of his rival Conway. Think things work out as planned? Not quite. We wanted to like Whistle Stop, because Gardner is ravishing, but it’s not up to the standard of most old films. It premiered today in 1946.

Whistle Stop, Variety Magazine, George Raft, Ava Gardner, Tom Conway, Maritta M. Wolff, George Rozen, poster art, cinema, movie review

Hollywoodland

November 29 2021

TENDING THE GARDNER

She was one of the most watched people in the world—onscreen and off.

Whisper magazine, in this issue published this month in 1961, offers readers an interesting story about an unnamed millionaire’s obsession with Ava Gardner. Apparently the millionaire hired people to follow Gardner around 24/7, all over the world, and report back to him, with this surveillance going on for years. The purpose? If he couldn’t have her, he at least wanted to know what she was doing. Whisper focuses on a particular spy named Bill, the fourth of four spies employed by the millionaire, who Gardner came to be friends with and let live on her property, rather than have to sleep in his car night after night. Is this tale true? Maybe. Money buys a lot—including tolerance for bad behavior.

And speaking money, there’s also a story on gangster Mickey Cohen, who counted among his consorts Liz Renay and Candy Barr, both of whom we’ve discussed, Renay here, and Barr here and here. Barr has also shown up in five magazines we’ve posted. The easiest way to see those is click her keywords and scroll. Cohen proves that no matter what people try to tell you, money is an aphrodisiac, because there’s no way trolls like him could score beautiful dancers and models if it weren’t for wealth. Take a look at the worst man in the world, and if he has money, he has a wife far more beautiful than makes sense.

Whisper goes on to talk about Burt Lancaster’s and Charlie Chaplin’s lovers, teen-age drunks, Soviet honeytraps, U.S. prisons, Jane Fonda’s professional and family lives, and more. It was a Robert Harrison publication that morphed from a cheesecake magazine with painted pin-up covers into a gossip rag. That happened around 1954, when the original Whisper, launched in 1946, began going broke thanks to an inability to compete with girly magazine numero uno—Playboy. But there was plenty of room in the tabloid market and Harrison made Whisper a staple monthly on par with Confidential, his flagship publication. We’ll have more from Whisper later, as always.

Vintage Pulp

May 4 2021

SINGAPORE FLING

Gardner and MacMurray juggle love and danger in wartime Malaysia.

We talked about the 1947 war adventure Singapore in August. Here’s a beautiful Italian poster for the film, on which co-star Ava Gardner takes front and center, with Fred MacMurray lurking in the background. There are several Italian promos. This one is by Zadro, who painted a number of other brilliant pieces, but about whom little is known today. We’ll get back to him. And you can read more about the movie here.

Italy, Malaysia, Singapore, World War II, Ava Gardner, Fred MacMurray, Zadro, poster art, cinema, movie review

Vintage Pulp

August 13 2020

SINGA SAD REFRAIN

If at first you don't succeed, fly back to Malaysia and try again.

In the movies good girls always seem to fall for bad boys. In the World War II drama Singapore Ava Gardner is the former and Fred MacMurray is the latter, a smuggler of jewels. The two hook up in the titular locale, and when Gardner learns her new love is a crook, she accepts it with a rhetorical shrug. She asks merely if Fred is what the authorities suspect him to be, receives an affirmative answer, then asks if he can’t sell jewels legally, receives the answer, “Yes, but at a quarter the price,” and that’s it. She doesn’t trouble her mind beyond that point, which we consider a major failing of Seton I. Miller’s script.

It isn’t the only failing. When it comes to areas of love and desire, the dripping melodrama of the dialogue puts MacMurray and Gardner in tough spots, and neither comes out unscathed. The good news is that in other areas Singapore fares better. The film weaves the tale of how MacMurray’s plan to smuggle priceless pearls is cut short when the Japanese unexpectedly bomb the city. The love story, the smuggling plot, and the bombing are all told in reminiscence, bracketed front and rear by MacMurray’s return five years after the tragedies and errors of his previous stint there. Now, with the city recovering from conflict, MacMurray tries to put together the puzzle pieces of the past.

We love old Hollywood’s foreign fetish, its eagerness to set films in exotic locales. When it works well, as in Casablanca and its deft usage of Morocco, the result is magic; when it doesn’t, as in, say, Miss Sadie Thompson and its setting of Pago Pago, the bells and whistles are a glaring reminder of missed opportunities. Singapore falls somewhere in the middle. We get to see a bit of Singapore when it was still part of Malaysia, which is interesting, but the most exotic sight to be seen is still Ava Gardner. For us, she was reason enough to take the trip. But just barely. Singapore premiered in the U.S. today in 1947.

Malaysia, Singapore, World War II, Ava Gardner, Fred MacMurray, poster art, cinema, movie review

Hollywoodland

May 1 2020

A MAN IN FULL

Mickey Rooney proves that no hurdle is too high.

This photo of Ava Gardner enjoying a dance with Mickey Rooney was made in 1941 or 1942, and the first thing you notice is their difference in height. Rooney was a big star at the time, while Gardner was a Hollywood neophyte years away from her first lead role. Even so, rumors of her beauty had spread around town, so you can assume she had her pick of men. And her pick was Rooney. Who she could have used to pick her teeth. The marriage didn’t last long—a little more than a year. You might assume Gardner saw greener and taller pastures elsewhere, but it was actually Rooney who couldn’t keep his private parts from the public. He screwed around like a bonobo monkey, and even romped in his and Gardner’s bed while she was in the hospital recovering from an appendectomy. Gardner said about him, “He went through the ladies like a hot knife through fudge.” Indeed, he melted Gardner early along the road to eight marriages and eleven children. Gardner married a mere three times, and was only thirty-five when she divorced her third husband, Frank Sinatra, and never took the plunge again.

Ava Gardner, Mickey Rooney

Hollywoodland

April 16 2020

DIRECT FROM HOLLYWOOD

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.

Femmes Fatales

April 11 2020

GARDNER OF EARTHLY DELIGHTS

Only a mythological creature could look this good.

Above you see Ava Gardner in an MGM promo shot that puts to rest any question of whether she was one of the most beautiful stars of her era. This image should be hung in a museum. We can’t pinpoint a date on it, but we can make a reasonable guess. She looks every bit the ingénue, so it’s probably pre-superstardom, say from between 1942 and 1946.

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Ava Gardner

Femmes Fatales

July 1 2019

A GOOD NIGHT’S SLEEP

Nope, no change this morning either—I still look freaking amazing.

If ever there was a case of typecasting this was it. This promo photo of Ava Gardner was made when she was starring in the film One Touch of Venus, which is about a statue of Venus that comes to life. Roman mythology never looked so good. This is from 1948.

One Touch of Venus, Ava Gardner

Hollywoodland

June 20 2019

FROM MUSCLE BEACH TO MURDER

Pageant winner fulfilled show business and personal ambitions. Then things went wrong.

Beauty pageants are a bit silly, perhaps, but the participants are generally ambitious people who see them as stepping stones to show business or modeling. And in mid-century Los Angeles in particular, even minor pageants occasionally led to stardom. In the above photos high school student Barbara Thomason wins the crown of Miss Muscle Beach 1954. Listed at 5 foot 3 inches and 110 pounds, she was a body-building enthusiast, and in the shot just below she celebrates her hard fought win by pumping a bit of iron while photographers click away and a crowd watches.

Did Thomason’s victory lead to bigger things? Maybe not directly, but it probably helped. She was a habitual pageant participant who also won Miss Huntington Beach, Miss Van Ness, Miss Bay Beach, Miss Southwest Los Angeles, Miss Pacific Coast, Queen of Southern California,

and ten other titles. All that winning finally got her noticed by Hollywood movers and shakers. In 1955, performing under the name Carolyn Mitchell, she made her acting debut on the television show Crossroads, and in 1958 co-starred in two Roger Corman b-movies, The Crybaby Killer and Dragstrip Riot.

But she put her career on hold when she met and married a star—Mickey Rooney, who was nearly seventeen years her senior and nearly two inches her junior. Their union had problems from the beginning. The couple married secretly in Mexico because Rooney was still awaiting a divorce from actress Elaine Mahnken. They would have to wait almost two years before the law allowed them to wed in the U.S. Legalities, though doubtless bothersome, were the least of their problems. During the next six years, during which Thomason bore four children, Rooney indulged in numerous affairs.

It should probably be noted here that Thomason was Rooney’s fifth wife. Among the predecessors were goddesses like Ava Gardner and Martha Vickers. We don’t know what Thomason’s expectations of marriage were, but clearly Rooney didn’t know the meaning of the phrase “for better or worse.” The affairs continued, and eventually Thomason did the same with a temperamental Yugoslavian actor named Milos Milosevic, who performed under the name Milos Milos. But what was good for goose was not

good for the gander—Rooney found out about these international relations, moved out of the Brentwood house he shared with Thomason, and filed for divorce, charging mental cruelty. The nerve, right?

On the morning of January 31, 1966, while Rooney was in St. John’s Hospital recovering from an intestinal infection he’d picked up in the Philippines, Thomason and Milosevic were found together on the bathroom floor of the Brentwood house, dead. Milosevic had shot Thomason under the chin and killed himself with a temple shot using a chrome-plated .38 Rooney had bought in 1964. The consensus is Thomason had decided to dump Milosevic and he flipped out.

The photos below show Thomason on Muscle Beach during her halcyon years there, a mere teenager, frolicking in the sun, filled with youthful hopes for a good life. She won beauty titles, acted in films, married an icon, and had four children. Any of those accomplishments would have been good legacies. Instead her death at twenty-nine overshadowed all the rest, and she’s remembered as another celebrity murder victim, Hollywood style, which is always somehow both sensational and banal.

Yugoslavia, Philippines, Los Angeles, Crossroads, The Crybaby Killer, Dragstrip Riot, Barbara Thomason, Carolyn Mitchell, Mickey Rooney, Elaine Mahnken, Milos Milosevic, Milos Milos, Ava Gardner, Martha Vickers, murder, suicide

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HISTORY REWIND

The headlines that mattered yesteryear.

October 5

1945—Hollywood Black Friday

A six month strike by Hollywood set decorators becomes a riot at the gates of Warner Brothers Studios when strikers and replacement workers clash. The event helps bring about the passage of the Taft-Hartley Act, which, among other things, prohibits unions from contributing to political campaigns and requires union leaders to affirm they are not supporters of the Communist Party.

October 4

1957—Sputnik Circles Earth

The Soviet Union launches the satellite Sputnik I, which becomes the first artificial object to orbit the Earth. It orbits for two months and provides valuable information about the density of the upper atmosphere. It also panics the United States into a space race that eventually culminates in the U.S. moon landing.

October 4

1970—Janis Joplin Overdoses

American blues singer Janis Joplin is found dead on the floor of her motel room in Los Angeles. The cause of death is determined to be an overdose of heroin, possibly combined with the effects of alcohol.

October 3

1908—Pravda Founded

The newspaper Pravda is founded by Leon Trotsky, Adolph Joffe, Matvey Skobelev and other Russian exiles living in Vienna. The name means “truth” and the paper serves as an official organ of the Central Committee of the Communist Party between 1912 and 1991.

October 3

1957—Ferlinghetti Wins Obscenity Case

An obscenity trial brought against Lawrence Ferlinghetti, owner of the counterculture City Lights Bookstore in San Francisco, reaches its conclusion when Judge Clayton Horn rules that Allen Ginsberg’s poetry collection Howl is not obscene.

October 3

1995—Simpson Acquitted

After a long trial watched by millions of people worldwide, former football star O.J. Simpson is acquitted of the murders of ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ronald Goldman. Simpson subsequently loses a civil suit and is ordered to pay millions in damages.

October 2

1919—Wilson Suffers Stroke

U.S. President Woodrow Wilson suffers a massive stroke, leaving him partially paralyzed. He is confined to bed for weeks, but eventually resumes his duties, though his participation is little more than perfunctory. Wilson remains disabled throughout the remainder of his term in office, and the rest of his life.