vintage and modern pulp fiction; noir, schlock and exploitation films; scandals, swindles and news
Above: a cover for Orgy Office by Bill Lauren for Greenleaf Classics’ imprint Pillar Books, 1964, with unattributed art. Lauren also wrote such books as Blonde Danger, Burn Blonde Burn!, Fun Girl, Perverted Lover, and On the Prowl. They all sound lovely. We have a lot of these therapy covers in the site and you can see them all by starting here.
The hitchhiker has been a central element of many a mid-century thriller, with the results of these rides ranging from hot sex to bloody murder, and several outcomes between. Above you see a cover for Jean Holbrook’s Girl on the Run, and below is a collection of more paperback covers depicting various characters casting their fates to the road. Wish them luck—they’ll need it. And thanks to all the original uploaders on these.
Elvis Presley appears on The Ed Sullivan Show for the first time, performing his hit song “Don’t Be Cruel.” Ironically, a car accident prevented Sullivan from being present that night, and the show was guest-hosted by British actor Charles Laughton.
Star Trek, an American television series set in the twenty-third century and promoting socialist utopian ideals, premieres on NBC. The series is cancelled after three seasons without much fanfare, but in syndication becomes one of the most beloved television shows of all time.
U.S. President Gerald Ford pardons former President Richard Nixon for any crimes Nixon may have committed while in office, which coincidentally happen to include all those associated with the Watergate scandal.
Bulgarian dissident Giorgi Markov is assassinated in a scene right out of a spy novel. As he’s waiting at a bus stop near Waterloo Bridge in London, he’s jabbed in the calf with an umbrella. The man holding the umbrella apologizes and walks away, but he is in reality a Bulgarian hired killer who has just injected a ricin pellet into Markov, who develops a high fever and dies three days later.
Polish-born anarchist Leon Czolgosz shoots and fatally wounds U.S. President William McKinley at the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York. McKinley dies September 12, and Czolgosz is later executed.
