Pulp International

vintage and modern pulp fiction; noir, schlock and exploitation films; scandals, swindles and news

FATHER TIMELESS

Robert McGinnis dies at age ninety-nine.

We don’t know exactly when we became aware that Robert McGinnis had died, but it was sometime during our long trip to Mexico. Someone e-mailed us about it. We’ve mentioned numerous times that we don’t like Pulp Intl. to be a death roll, and we never interrupt our intermissions, but some deaths are more significant than others. Yet we couldn’t make time to write about McGinnis because we were away from our primary computers and art files, and because immediately after Mexico PSGP had two subdural hematomas drained from his brain. Wait! What? Did we hold back details about the trip? Perhaps, but it doesn’t matter because he’s fine now.

In any case, we’re backposting about McGinnis. We’ve placed a small collection here—though we actually did it around a month after the event—so that the many thousands of visitors who come here will find a tribute near the actual day he died. Most vintage cover art aficionados will say McGinnis was the very best. That’s a matter of taste. But there’s no dispute he was indispensable, and his work will always be a reminder of what is lost when art is sidelined in favor of capital. Modern paperback publishers cannot make the anonymous cover designs they produce ever have the impact of a McGinnis, or rationally view them as significant by comparison.

McGinnis is credited with more than twelve hundred book covers and forty or so movie posters. You’ve seen much of his best work on Pulp Intl: his posters for Live and Let Die and Cotton Comes to Harlem, a spectrum of art for Casino Royale, awesome paperback covers for The Girl Who Cried Wolf, If the Shoe Fits, and Death Deep Down, mock-up covers for modern movies, and rare sketches sold at auction. He was even the subject of a documentary. Today we’re looking at his original paintings, clean, with no graphics. Born in Cincinnati, Ohio in 1926, dead in Old Greenwich, Connecticut, today. The man will be missed.

Ohio, Connecticut, Cincinnati, Old Greenwich, Live and Let Die, Casino Royale, Cotton Comes to Harlem, Robert McGinnis, Sean Connery, James Bond, deaths

NATURE GIRL

This frolic has been sponsored by Off! bug repellent and Nasonex hay fever tablets.

In this centerfold image from the Belgian magazine Ciné-Revue published in September 1972, Barbara Bouchet finds herself in a field of wildflowers and high grasses, and does what comes naturally—sneezes like a maniac until the medication kicks in. Then she frolics, and what a lovely frolic it is. We’ve featured Bouchet before, which means you already know she’s a famously beautiful model-turned-actress who appeared in films like Non si sevizia un paperino, aka Don’t Torture a Duckling, Gangs of New York, Casino Royale, and television’s Star Trek. Also—and we didn’t mention this the other times we wrote about her—she’s another celeb who benefitted from a name change. She was born in 1943 in Sudentenland, a part of Czechoslovakia that was occupied by Germany at the time, and grew up as Bärbel Gutscher. That name simply doesn’t roll off the tongue, so when she went to Hollywood she chose something that sounded French and the rest is history. These days she lives in Rome, where she still occasionally acts, though probably does a bit less frolicking. See a couple more shots of her here and here.

Belgium, Germany, Czech Republic, Italy, Rome, Ciné-Revue, Non si sevizia un paperino, Don't Torture a Duckling, Casino Royale, Star Trek, Barbara Bouchet, television

YOU BET YOUR LIFE

The deeper you go into this casino the wilder it gets.


Today we’re circling back to James Bond—as we do every so often—to highlight these movie tie-in editions of Ian Fleming’s Casino Royale. The movie these are tied into is not the 1963 original with Sean Connery, but the 1967 screwball version with David Niven as Bond and Woody Allen as Bond’s nephew Jimmy Bond. If you haven’t seen it, just know that it was terribly reviewed, with Time magazine calling it an “an incoherent and vulgar vaudeville.” These covers are derived from the Robert McGinnis Casino Royale movie poster, which is an all-time classic. McGinnis created two versions of the poster—one with text and one without, with the painted patterns on the female figure varying slightly. You see both of those below.

The paperback was published by both Great Pan and Signet, and the cover art was different for the two versions. The Great Pan version at top is McGinnis’s unaltered work, but the Signet version just above was painted by an imitator, we’re almost certain. We’d hoped to answer this for sure by visiting one of the numerous Bond blogs out there, but none of them have really discussed the difference between the 1967 paperback covers. That leaves it up to us, so we’re going to say definitively that the Great Pan version was not painted by McGinnis. Whoever the artist was, they did a nice job channeling the original piece, even if the execution is at a much simpler level.

Moving back to the posters, if you scroll down you’ll see that we decided to focus on the details of the textless version to give you a close look at McGinnis’s detailed work. The deeper you go the more you see—dice, poker chips, glittery earrings, actor portraits, and more. If you had a huge lithograph of this on your wall and a tab of acid on your tongue, an entire weekend would slip past before you moved again. This is possibly the best work from a paperback and movie artist considered to be a grandmaster, one the greatest ever to put brush to canvas. If anyone out there can tell us for sure who painted the Signet paperback—or whether it is indeed McGinnis—feel free to contact us.

Casino Royale, Signet Books, Pan Books, Time Magazine, Ian Fleming, Sean Connery, Robert McGinnis, Woody Allen, David Niven, James Bond, cover art, poster art, literature, cinema

THE BLACK DALIAH

When she tells someone to sleep well she means forever.


Above: a colorized shot of Israeli actress Daliah Lavi in character as Princess Natasha Romanova in 1966’s The Spy with a Cold Nose, which as you can probably guess is about a dog turned into a spy. Silly of course, but this was during the heyday of spy spoofs. In fact, Lavi was in several others—Some Girls Do, Casino Royale, Schüsse im 3/4 Takt, aka Operation Solo, and The Silencers. All were ridiculous. There’s nothing ridiculous about Lavi, though. She looks ready to kill in her black lingerie.
Israel, The Spy with a Cold Nose, Some Girls Do, Casino Royale, The Silencers, Schüsse im 3/4 Takt, Operation Solo, Daliah Lavi

A MATA OF NATIONAL SECURITY

James Bond's daughter leaves the Soviets shaken and stirred.


The 1967 James Bond spoof Casino Royale was a box office disaster, but it had its moments. London born actress Joanna Pettet, playing Mata Bond, estranged daughter of Mata Hari and Sir James Bond (David Niven), performed an eye-catching, Buddhist-themed dance number in a faux temple that must have cost a huge chunk of the movie’s budget. We don’t know how actual Buddhists feel about the bit, but it looks like Pettet had a laugh or two. In the film she’s sent to take on SMERSH, the Soviet spy agency that appeared in fictionalized form in Ian Fleming’s Bond novels. Pettet appeared in a handful of other films, but her career mostly comprised television roles on shows such as The Fugitive and Night Gallery. Her Mata Bond dance is short but probably worth a look. You can see it while the link lasts here.
London, Casino Royale, The Fugitive, Night Gallery, Joanna Pettet, David Niven, James Bond, Ian Fleming

SUITS HERSELF

Bisset holds all the cards.

English actress Jacqueline Bisset peeks out from behind the suits of a card deck in this striking promo image made sometime during the late 1960s. A different photo from the session was used for the cover of Italian publisher Garzanti’s 1970 release of 007 Casinò royal, which you see here as well. Bisset was born as Winifred (ouch!) Bisset in 1944 and made a name for herself in such impactful films as Bullitt, Murder on the Orient Express, The Deep, and Casino Royale. You could include efforts like Under the Volcano, The Man from Acapulco, The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean, and Two for the Road in the aforementioned list. All told, Bisset seems a bit under-appreciated considering her filmography, but not by us.

England, Italy, Garzanti, The Deep, Bullitt, Casino Royale, Murder on the Orient Express, Jacqueline Bisset, cover art

WELL SUITED FOR THE ROLE

Garzanti cover for Bond collection is absolutely favoloso.


Here’s a little something to add to the Ian Fleming bin. This is Il favoloso 007 di Fleming, published in Italy in 1973 by the Milan based company Garzanti. It’s a compendium of the four James Bond novels CasinoÌ€ Royal, Vivi e lascia morire, Il grande slam della morte, and Una cascata di diamanti, better known as Casino Royale, Live and Let Die, Moonraker, and Diamonds Are Forever. The cover for this is great, we think, and as a bonus the interior also contains some black and white photos.
 
But really, we were drawn to this because of the model and her fishnet bodysuit. Or is that lace? Doesn’t matter. She’s none other than Claudine Auger, aka Domino from 1965’s Thunderball. Sean Connery gets a corner of the cover as well, and the rear is interesting too, with its shark and cards from To Live and Let Die. Technically, those cards should be tarots, but whatever, nice art anyway. And speaking of nice, we also located the photo used to make the cover, and you see that below too. Really cool collector’s item, which we’d buy if we read Italian. But alas, that isn’t one of our languages, so this one still languishes at auction. 

Italy, Milan, Garzanti, Thunderball, Casino Royale, Live and Let Die, Moonraker, Diamonds Are Forever, Ian Fleming, Claudine Auger, Sean Connery, James Bond, cover art, literature

SWINGING INTO ACTION

Screw it. My insurance is paid up. I'm going for a loop!

Above: a fun image of British actress Alexandra Bastedo, who was a television stalwart but did appear in such films as the 1967 James Bond spoof Casino Royale. We don’t have a date on this photo, but it was probably made around 1965.

Britain, Casino Royale, Alexandra Bastedo

ROYALE TREATMENT

Bond is born in Ian Fleming's 1953 Cold War thriller.

We’ve read a few Bond novels, but not his debut in 1953’s Casino Royale. When it comes to secondhand bookstores and yard sales you read what you find. But we decided to finally make a deliberate effort to go back to the beginning with an edition from Signet, which appeared in 1960 with Barye Phillips cover art. The debuts of franchise characters leave room for continuing adventures by design but we’ve never read a book that was so deliberately a prequel as Casino Royale. It’s the essential novel for understanding Bond. You know the basics already: Cold War intrigue, opposing teams taking the field for a long struggle, a Soviet spy named La Chiffre who’s dipped into funds not his and who hatches a desperate plan to restore them via the baccarat tables of a famous French casino, Bond dispatched to outplay him, break him, and ensure his downfall for stealing the money.

The book is fantastic from its opening, through its tremendously tense middle sections, and on to its brutal punchline of an ending. Bond is imperfect as both a spy and a man. He’s sometimes kind, prone to sentiment, and philosophical about his work; he’s also sexist, racist, and generally regressive. CasinoRoyale is designed to explain how the first three qualities were destroyed, making him a perfect spy. The latter three qualities remain. While in serious fiction many authors of the period were writing about racial equality and the essential sameness of people, Ian Fleming was declaring that Asians are terrible gamblers because as a race they lack resolve. None of this is a surprise because much is known about Fleming’s personal views. Bond is an icon, but of a less enlightened era. We’re readers, of ours. Yet we can meet on the page, and—with a tolerance Fleming never showed others—still manage to have a little fun.

France, Signet Books, Casino Royale, Ian Fleming, Barye Phillips, James Bond, cover art, literature

KINKY BOOTS

She's ready to go anywhere her legs take her.

British actress Veronica Carlson’s first screen role was an uncredited bit in Casino Royale, and her latest role is in 2018’s upcoming House of the Gorgon. In between she became well known as a regular player in various Hammer Studios horror films. The above promo image was made when she appeared on the British television series The Saint. She looks a bit sinful, though, don’t you think. Copyright 1969.

Britain, Hammer Studios, House of the Gorgon, The Saint, Casino Royale, Veronica Carlson, horror, television
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HISTORY REWIND

The headlines that mattered yesteryear.

1971—Corona Sent to Prison

Mexican-born serial killer Juan Vallejo Corona is convicted of the murders of 25 itinerant laborers. He had stabbed each of them, chopped a cross in the backs of their heads with a machete, and buried them in shallow graves in fruit orchards in Sutter County, California. At the time the crimes were the worst mass murders in U.S. history.

1960—To Kill a Mockingbird Appears

Harper Lee’s racially charged novel To Kill a Mockingbird is published by J.B. Lippincott & Co. The book is hailed as a classic, becomes an international bestseller, and spawns a movie starring Gregory Peck, but is the only novel Lee would ever publish.

1962—Nuke Test on Xmas Island

As part of the nuclear tests codenamed Operation Dominic, the United States detonates a one megaton bomb on Australian controlled Christmas Island, in the Indian Ocean. The island was a location for a series of American and British nuclear tests, and years later lawsuits claiming radiation damage to military personnel were filed, but none were settled in favor in the soldiers.

1940—The Battle of Britain Begins

The German Air Force, aka the Luftwaffe, attacks shipping convoys off the coast of England, touching off what Prime Minister Winston Churchill describes as The Battle of Britain.

1948—Paige Takes Mound in the Majors

Satchel Paige, considered at the time the greatest of Negro League pitchers, makes his Major League debut for the Cleveland Indians at the age of 42. His career in the majors is short because of his age, but even so, as time passes, he is recognized by baseball experts as one of the great pitchers of all time.

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DON’T RIDE THE WHITE HORSE

Rafael DeSoto painted this excellent cover for David Hulburd's 1954 drug scare novel H Is for Heroin. We also have the original art without text.

BARN GIRLS

Two Spanish language digest novels from Argentine publishers Malinca Debora and Malinca Nueva Pandora.
Argentine publishers Malinca Debora reprinted numerous English language crime thrillers in Spanish. This example uses George Gross art borrowed from U.S. imprint Rainbow Books.

LOVES OF A BLONDE

Uncredited cover art for Orrie Hitt's 1954 novel Tawny. Hitt was a master of sleazy literature and published more than one hundred fifty novels.

INSATIABLE APPETITE

George Gross art for Joan Sherman’s, aka Peggy Gaddis Dern’s 1950 novel Suzy Needs a Man.

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