Vintage Pulp

April 7 2025

A SLAVE TO THE GRINDING

The total lack of freedom sucks. But I get to wear nice lingerie. So I guess on the whole it's a break even deal.

In romance novels of the past, “no” often meant “maybe,” and men in such tales sometimes took what they wanted until women realized they wanted the same thing. Mary Clare’s White Man’s Slave, originally from 1949, with our Leisure Library digest paperback coming in 1953, is a particuarly unequivocal example, as a British traveler in Damascus named Maria Standish is abducted by the “great white chief” Paul de Ruez and spirited away to his Palace of Dreams deep in the desert. Forced embraces and forced kisses lead to forced everything else, but Maria comes to adore de Ruez just in time for outside forces to attempt to rip her away—not least of these being Maria’s anguished father, who’s been hot on de Ruez’s trail.

Here’s a typical passage:

One moment she was standing with her back towards the man quite oblivious of his presence, the next she was swung round and drawn into a tight, possessive embrace, and his kisses were being rained passionately on her mouth, her cheeks, and her bare white throat. For a few moments she was passive; imprisoned in a strong masterful hold, then fear and indignation replaced her surprise and she began to struggle wildly. But the man retained his hold of her with a vise-like overpowering strength that reduced her resistance to a writhing and squirming that availed her little.

Sexy, right?

Because behaviors like these were somewhat tolerated, you realize why some older men are baffled that women have preferences about how sex is to be conducted. Such men can’t be convinced that their beliefs are harmful. They believe society suddenly got too sensitive and everything. It doesn’t matter though—despite the occasional regressive eddy, on the long timeframe Westerners (in terms of the cultures that produced this type of material) make progress. Judged contemporaneously with its publication date, White Man’s Slave isn’t bad. It isn’t deftly written, but neither is it a travesty, and the cover art by Reginald Heade adds to its value as a very expensive collector’s piece. We just wonder whether the price is more for the art, or for the fantasy of women as chattel.

Syria, Damascus, Leisure Library, Mary Clare, Reginald Heade, cover art, literature

Vintage Pulp

September 19 2021

WINDS OF CHANGE

Casablanca drifts 2,500 miles east and loses a little something along the way.

Above you see a nice French poster for the Humphrey Bogart adventure Sirocco, which we touched upon briefly several months back. As we noted then, Columbia Pictures promoted the film as being, “beyond Casablanca…” but Sirocco comes up short in that department. How could it not? It’s like saying, “beyond chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream,” or “beyond a raspberry gin Ricky,” or “beyond the 2003 Hurricanes-Buckeyes NCAA Championship Game.” These things are not possible. But Sirocco is actually pretty good anyway, owing largely to its setting in 1925 Damascus, Syria (the film was actually shot in Yuma, Arizona, but the illusion worked adequately).

Plotwise, local independence fighters are trying to drive out French occupiers via any means deemed necessary, including what we call today terrorist bombings. Bogart plays Rick from Casablanca, except he’s named Harry Smith. But he’s the same cynical, opportunistic, womanizing lone wolf he was before, who instead of running a bar, runs guns. He has no ideology in his profession, except love of money, and will work for whoever can hire him, Syrian or French. As the situation in Damascus grows increasingly fraught he finds himself unwillingly stuck between the locals and the occupiers. He also finds himself in a love triangle with slinky Märta Torén and a French military officer played by Lee J. Cobb.

The movie quickly coalesces around what we like to think of as the big three Bogart plot devices: romantic feelings threaten to upset his hard-won cynicism, he must make a choice between desire and conscience, and he must beat the clock if he hopes to get out of Dodge with his skin intact. Beyond Casablanca? Columbia pretty much strip mined Casablanca, is what happened. Even so, Bogart had few serious misses in his career, and Sirocco isn’t one of them. Fans will get to see him doing exactly what made him an icon, and for that reason alone we think it’s worth a watch. After premiering in the U.S. in mid-1951, it opened in France today the same year.

France, Syria, Damascus, Arizona, Yuma, Columbia Pictures, Sirocco, Humphrey Bogart, Märta Torén, Lee J. Cobb, Zero Mostel, poster art, cinema, movie review

Vintage Pulp

July 25 2021

SYRIA’S CONDITION

Whatever the problem is Bogart will solve it.

Above are two Italian posters for the Humphrey Bogart film Damasco ’25, which is better known as Sirocco, and is yet another Casablanca clone. The U.S. poster even promises flat-out that the movie, an adventure about Syrian freedom fighters and French colonials in Damascus circa 1925, is “beyond Casablanca.” We’ll see about that a bit later. These pieces were painted by the great illustrator Anselmo Ballester, whose work we’ve highlighted here. We’ll get back to him later too. Sirocco opened in the U.S. in 1951, and premiered in Italy today in 1952.

Italy, Syria, Damascus, Anselmo Ballester, Sirocco, Damasco '25, Humprey Bogart, Märta Torén, poster art, cinema

Vintage Pulp

April 3 2015

CHOKE AND DAGGER

Please don’t! *gasp* I’ll tip more! I’ll rate you a 10 on the hotel evaluation form! *wheeze* Really! Let me get a pen!

Above: an unusually violent but very effective cover from Oliver Brabbins for Manning O’Brine’s Dagger Before Me, Corgi Books. If you look out the window you see that the novel is set somewhere in the East. At a glance we would have guessed Istanbul, but it turns out to be Cairo and Damascus, with spies, agents, murder, and mayhem, 1958.

Cairo, Damascus, Corgi Books, Oliver Brabbins, Manning O’Brine, cover art, literature

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HISTORY REWIND

The headlines that mattered yesteryear.

November 13

1940—Fantasia Premieres

Walt Disney’s animated film Fantasia, which features eight animated segments set to classical music, is first seen by the public in New York City at the Broadway Theatre. Though appreciated by critics, the movie fails to make a profit due to World War II cutting off European revenues. However it remains popular and is re-released several times, including in 1963 when, with the approval of Walt Disney himself, certain racially insulting scenes were removed. Today Fantasia is considered one of Disney’s greatest achievements and an essential experience for movie lovers.

November 12

1912—Missing Explorer Robert Scott Found

British explorer Robert Falcon Scott and his men are found frozen to death on the Ross Ice Shelf in Antarctica, where they had been pinned down and immobilized by bad weather, hunger and fatigue. Scott’s expedition, known as the Terra Nova expedition, had attempted to be the first to reach the South Pole only to be devastated upon finding that Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen had beaten them there by five weeks. Scott wrote in his diary: “The worst has happened. All the day dreams must go. Great God! This is an awful place.”

November 12

1933—Nessie Spotted for First Time

Hugh Gray takes the first known photos of the Loch Ness Monster while walking back from church along the shore of the Loch near the town of Foyers. Only one photo came out, but of all the images of the monster, this one is considered by believers to be the most authentic.

November 12

1969—My Lai Massacre Revealed

Investigative journalist Seymour Hersh breaks the story of the My Lai massacre, which had occurred in Vietnam more than a year-and-a-half earlier but been covered up by military officials. That day, U.S. soldiers killed between 350 and 500 unarmed civilians, including women, the elderly, and infants. The event devastated America’s image internationally and galvanized the U.S. anti-war movement. For Hersh’s efforts he received a Pulitzer Prize.

November 11

1918—The Great War Ends

Germany signs an armistice agreement with the Allies in a railroad car outside of Compiègne, France, ending The Great War, later to be called World War I. About ten million people died, and many millions more were wounded. The conflict officially stops at 11:00 a.m., and today the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month is annually honored in some European nations with two minutes of silence.