Pulp International

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

A PECK ON THE CHEEK

The real Dors and a facimile Peck enjoy the sands at Cannes.

This photo and zoom, made today in 1956, show British actress Diana Dors reclining with a cardboard version of U.S. actor Gregory Peck during the Cannes Film Festival, the 2025 version of which begins in a few days. The photo op occurred because Dors had commented to the press that Peck was her favorite actor. He was there to promote his film The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit, while Dors was pushing Yield to the Night. Did the two ever meet in the flesh—assuming they hadn’t already? With all the parties, pressers, and mixers at film festivals, you’d have to think so. At which point Dors probably said, “I had you flat on your back and totally stiff. It was fun!”

France, Cannes, Cannes Film Festival, L'homme au complet gris, The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit, Diana Dors, Gergory Peck

UNBEARABLE PEINE

If she's lucky it'll hurt for only a moment.

Above is a dark poster for a dark movie—the drama Peine capitale. That translates from French into English as “capital punishment,” which kind of gives away the plot, no? It’s better known as Yield to the Night, as well as Blonde Sinner, and starred Diana Dors as—we suppose this means it counts as a women-in-prison flick—a killer who has a date with the hangman. It premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in May 1956, but we didn’t want to wait until May to post this great piece, so we’re sharing it today, when the movie went into general release in France. The art is by someone who signed as J. Mayo, but that’s all we have on this person for now, except a few other posters we’ve found. It’s nice work. We especially like the fact that, though Dors is a bit of an abstraction, her lips are exactly correct. Have a look at the bottom of this post.

France, Cannes Film Festival, Peine capitale, Yield to the Night, Blonde Sinner, Diana Dors, J. Mayo, poster art, cinema, women in prison, film noir

ROOM SERVICING

An order of fish and chips? No, sorry, that must be next door. I'm expecting some spotted dick.

This striking Japanese poster’s large red figures—売春仕業速—translate as something like, “work fast prostitution.” Japanese posters for movies made in Britain and the U.S. sometimes also bear the original titles, and in this case you see Room 43, cleverly present in the form of a key fob. But that was just one English title. The movie is also known—and probably best known—as Passport to Shame. It’s a sex work drama starring the inimitable Diana Dors. We discussed it here. Oh, and for any who don’t know, spotted dick is a type of British dessert that to the rest of the world would be considered a cake. Dors, being British, would have found the dick mouthwatering. Passport to Shame premiered in 1958 and reached Japan today in 1962.

Japan, England, Passport to Shame, Room 43, Diana Dors, Odile Versois, Herbert Lom, Eddie Constantine, poster art, cinema, prostitution

GOING GOING GONDOLA

Public transportation gets Dors efficiently to her destination.

The 16th annual Venice Film Festival ended today in 1955, and one of its highlights occurred when British star Diana Dors was paddled out into the Canalazzo, or Grand Canal, in one of the city’s gondolas. Dors didn’t have a film in competition, which was probably all the more reason to try and steal the show. To that end she wore a fur bikini and posed for eager photographers. The swimsuit was a bit diapery in terms of fit, but Dors, as you see, still looked fine. Next stop: free publicity.

Italy, Venice, Venice Film Festival, Diana Dors

YIELD SIGN

Actually she doesn't even know the meaning of the word slow.

This nice promo image was made for the 1956 drama Yield to the Night starring Diana Dors. She plays a murderess—or murderer, we suppose—on death row. We like the genderized grammar of the past because it seems more elegant, but change happens. Anyway, Dors was an interesting star who, like her trailblazing analog Marilyn Monroe, had sharper filmcraft than she was usually credited with. For our money, by the acting standard of the era Dors was good. But then again, we have terrible grammar, so what do we know?

Yield to the Night, Diana Dors

3D PRINTING

Diana Dors displayed to the fullest.

Today we’re finally showing you the racy Diana Dors photo book we mentioned a while back, titled Diana Dors in 3-D, published in 1950. You may remember that Dors, who had a wild sex life anyway, was convinced by her boyfriend Dennis Hamilton to cash in on her fame with a set of racy images. They collaborated with photographer Horace Roye, who with a partner had developed a stereoscopic process called Roye-Vala. Which is why the book courteously includes 3D glasses, so buyers could get a realistic topographical sensation while perving over Dors. The shots aren’t revealing by today’s standards of course, but since she was a major star the book was a shocking—if enterprising—move. Hamilton’s involvement gives it a whiff of Svengali-like exploitation, but that’s just makes it pulp. There are about ten Dors images below, and a few ad pages for other Roye-Vala photo books. Enjoy.

Diana Dors, Dennis Hamilton, Horace Roye

FURY ROAD

Mature and Dors pair up for a bloc buster thriller.


The 1957 Victor Mature/Diana Dors vehicle The Long Haul premiered in Italy today in 1958 as La strada è bloccata, which means “the road is blocked.” The art here is by Italian illustrator Anselmo Ballester. This is one of his better efforts, we think, with his Dors figure reflecting light from some off-canvas source, while a fire lights the background. You can see more from him here and here. As for the movie, we talked about it a while ago. You can read our thoughts here. And you can see a cool Japanese poster for the film here.

Italy, La strada è bloccata, The Long Haul, Victor Mature, Diana Dors, Anselmo Ballester, poster art, cinema

BAITER OR WORSE

When she gets them on the hook they never get off.


The beautiful photo-illustrated poster you see above was made for the British drama Man Bait, featuring George Brent, Marguerite Chapman, and Diana Dors. We gave it a watch, and for some reason the opening credits say, “introducing Diana Dors,” though this was actually her thirteenth credited role. We won’t try to puzzle out that mystery. Plotwise, Dors and her irresistible lips are the bait, as she’s convinced by a lowlife male acquaintance to blackmail her boss out of three-hundred pounds by threatening to lie about him making an unwanted advance toward her. Unfortunately, Dors is a reluctant scam artist, which puts her at odds with her manipulative accomplice. To say that everything goes wrong for her because of this relationship is an understatement.

Overall, Man Bait is a good film. While Dors is adequate in her role (she was still only twenty-one, despite her previous experience), Brent and Chapman, who both had dozens of films on their résumés at this point, are flawless as the blackmail victim and his loyal employee. An undercurrent of unrequited love prompts Chapman to side with Brent even though things look pretty bad for him as the plot progresses. But there’s no need to be too terribly worried—the movie was made during the Hays Code censorship era, so you know crime can’t pay. Sure, the Code was American, but even British productions adhered to it if they hoped to earn a U.S. release. Man Bait did when it premiered in Los Angeles today in 1952.
In order to qualify as a temptation there has to be a chance you can resist. These are not a temptation—they’re a certainty.
Britain, Man Bait, George Brent, Marguerite Chapman, Diana Dors, poster art, cinema, movie review

REVOLVING DORS

Diana takes a turn behind the trigger.

Above: Diana Dors stars in three promo images made for her 1956 drama Yield to the Night, also known as Blonde Sinner, one of her better flicks, we think. We have plenty of Dors in the website, covering both her career and personal life. You can read about Yield to the Night here and here.

Yield to the Night, Blonde Sinner, Diana Dors

CORPO DELECTABLE

There are no limits to what Diana Dors can convince men to do.


After all these years working on this website it remains a surprise when promotional posters of extremely high quality are uncredited, but such is the case with these two Italian beauties made for Nel tuo corpo l’inferno, a movie originally produced in England as Tread Softly, Stranger. The Italian title translates as “hell in the body,” which we rather like. It fits the plot, which revolves around George Baker avoiding a gambling debt by fleeing London to the small town where he was raised, only to find that his brother who lives there is also in debt, having stolen money from his employer. He’s spent it on femme fatale Diana Dors, who’s way out of his league, money-hungry, and willing to pit the brothers against each other if it improves her station in life.

Baker, being of sound mind and body, wants Dors badly. With just a little nudge, he and his brother are convinced by Dors to stage a heist. The phrase “corpus delecti” in legal terms means that a crime has to be proved to have actually occurred before anyone can be convicted of it, but in vintage cinema nobody has to prove anything because the scales of justice tend to be cosmic. As viewers, then, you know the brothers could be convicted by karma for just attempting the crime. They get the loot, but they certainly won’t get to keep it—though how they lose it will come as a surprise. And if one of the brothers gets Dors, they probably won’t get to keep her either. In mid-century crime movies thems the breaks. Tread Softly, Stranger premiered in Britain in 1958, and in Italy today in 1960.
Italy, England, Nel tuo corpo l'inferno, Tread Softly Stranger, Diana Dors, Terence Morgan, George Baker, Patrick Allen, poster art, cinema, movie review
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HISTORY REWIND

The headlines that mattered yesteryear.

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.

1965—Biggs Escapes the Big House

Ronald Biggs, a member of the gang that carried out the Great Train Robbery in 1963, escapes from Wandsworth Prison by scaling a 30-foot wall with three other prisoners, using a ladder thrown in from the outside. Biggs remains at large for nearly forty years.

1949—Dragnet Premiers

NBC radio broadcasts the cop drama Dragnet for the first time. It was created by, produced by, and starred Jack Webb as Joe Friday. The show would later go on to become a successful television program, also starring Webb.

1973—Lake Dies Destitute

Veronica Lake, beautiful blonde icon of 1940s Hollywood and one of film noir’s most beloved fatales, dies in Burlington, Vermont of hepatitis and renal failure due to long term alcoholism. After Hollywood, she had drifted between cheap hotels in Brooklyn and New York City and was arrested several times for public drunkenness and disorderly conduct. A New York Post article briefly revived interest in her, but at the time of her death she was broke and forgotten.

1962—William Faulkner Dies

American author William Faulkner, who wrote acclaimed novels such as Intruder in the Dust and The Sound and the Fury, dies of a heart attack in Wright’s Sanitorium in Byhalia, Mississippi.

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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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