Modern Pulp

October 26 2017

INTO THE FIRE

Worse comes to worst in a dusty western town.

We told you the film was on the slate. When we noticed its premiere date was right around the corner we watched it immediately after finishing Hell Hath No Fury. First order of business—the poster and tagline are terrible. It shows how easy it can be for a studio to screw up both. The text tells you The Hot Spot is a film noir, but the triptych style art provides no compelling imagery. Worse, you don’t see Don Johnson clearly, though as a huge television star thanks to Miami Vice he was the movie’s greatest asset. And you don’t see Jennifer Connelly at all, who even back then was one of Hollywood’s most beautiful women. Posters are seen before they’re read, and the visuals here give no reason to examine further. We grade it a major fail.

But what of the film? Well, it got generally good reviews, but the public never turned up to see it. Johnson is nicely cast as the drifter/grifter Harry Madox, so he isn’t to blame. Jennifer Connelly and Virginia Madsen were less known, but as supporting characters they more than did their part. Other modern noirs had performed well in cinemas, so it’s not the style of The Hot Spot that hurt it. The direction from Dennis Hopper sticks reasonably close to the novel, and he gets the overheated small town atmosphere right, so we’ll give him a pass too. Most likely the studio simply didn’t make an effective push behind the movie—a theory backed up by the bad poster.

But The Hot Spot holds up well these years later. Some might find Madsen’s honeydripping femme fatale improbable, but she’s channelling both the source material and classic noirs. Other viewers probably doubted a nineteen-year-old Connelly could develop feelings for a Johnson on the far side of forty, but it happens. People who doubt that just haven’t spent enough time in the real world. In the film the age difference does not go unaddressed. Johnson’s feelings for his inappropriate crush prompt him to act against his best interests. Whether he pays a price hangs less on his cunning than on chance. Or perhaps it hangs on someone else’s cunning—that’s where the best femmes fatales always come in. The Hot Spot premiered in the U.S. today in 1990.

The Hot Spot, Charles Williams, Dennis Hopper, Don Johnson, Virginia Madsen, Jennifer Connelly, poster art, cinema, film noir, movie review

Vintage Pulp

October 26 2017

CLEAR AND PRESENT ANGER

I am happy. You wanna see mad? Keep telling me to cheer up.

Charles Williams wrote more than twenty novels, and though the ones we’ve read have been good to serviceable, we were expecting eventually to come across an absolute winner. Hell Hath No Fury is that book. It was Williams’ fourth novel, written in 1953, and features a tough drifter who becomes a used car salesman in a brokedick country town where he happens to notice bank security is lax. But robbing the bank is the mere entry point to all the problems he encounters. There’s also a one-woman nightmare of a femme fatale, a shockingly adept sheriff, a filthy blackmailer, an irascible boss, and a sweet local beauty ripe for love. Williams uses the best line in the book on her:

I took her face in my hands and kissed her. And then they dynamited the dam.

There’s no dam. That’s just what the kiss does to him. And it’s a brilliant pulp moment. A book like this screams for film adaptation, and it was eventually put onscreen in the form of 1990’s The Hot Spot, with Don Johnson, Virginia Madsen, and a radiant Jennifer Connelly. We haven’t watched the film, but it’s on the slate. The only flaw to the book, besides the usual stuff general to 1950s crime fiction, is the title. The main character Harry Madox thinks he’s rid himself of the femme fatale Dorothy Harshaw, but hell hath no fury. Those four words tell us she’ll be back plenty mad and will have a say in how matters conclude. It takes a little of the suspense away. Otherwise, top notch.

Fawcett Publications, Dell Books, The Hot Spot, Charles Williams, Don Johnson, Virginia Madsen, Jennifer Connelly, Barye Phillips, cover art, literature, cinema

Vintage Pulp

November 14 2016

SHAGGY DOG STORY

After the apocalypse man's best friend is more important than ever.

This is a pretty unassuming poster considering A Boy and His Dog is one of the top cult films of the 1970s. It was painted by Robert Tanenbaum, a major talent in the realm of American cinema illustration. Based on a novella by Harlan Ellison, and starring a young Don Johnson as well as early Pulp Intl. femme fatale Susanne Benton (who you can see in all her glory here), A Boy and His Dog is a post-apocalyptic tale of desperate survivors wandering radioactive wastelands scratching out a hard fought existence. Mutations have done a number on living creatures, which is why Johnson’s co-star is a shaggy telepathic dog named Blood. Man and dog have a symbiosis, with Johnson offering protection, the dog sniffing out food and women, and both profiting companionship.

Sounds goofy, we know, but the telepathic dog bit really works. Blood is irascible, but funny, smart, and warm, while Johnson is a slave to his id and libido. Ultimately, circumstances offer a choice between a dangerous and unpredictable freedom on the wastelands, or a secure but tedious existence in an underground sanctuary. The final question becomes whether conventionality diminishes a man. Playing like a bizarro prequel to The Road Warrior, and ultimately revealing itself to be a barroom joke stretched out to feature length, this is a film we recommend, however be forewarned that Harlan Ellison’s post-apocalypse is a tough place for women. A Boy and His Dog premiered in the U.S. today in 1975.

A Boy and His Dog, Don Johnson, Susanne Benton, Harlan Ellison, L.Q. Jones, Robert Tanenbaum, poster art, cinema, sci-fi, movie review

Hollywoodland

November 18 2010

PLATO’S RETREAT

Sal Mineo was never able to escape his image.

Above is a National Enquirer from the week November 12—18, 1961, with cover star Sal Mineo. Mineo had been a major Hollywood presence who had scored two Academy Award nominations, one of which was for his bravura performance as Plato in Rebel without a Cause. But by 1961 the roles had dried up. The problem was his boyish appearance: he had made his reputation playing volatile youths, but now he was older and studios didn’t believe he could play other types of roles. At the time of the Enquirer cover, Mineo hadn’t worked for eighteen months. The article was simply another variation on the troubled youth theme, riffing on how Mineo had the world at his feet but had no real friends and nobody he could trust.

Soon it became clear Mineo did not have the world at his feet. He languished on the fringes of Hollywood, managing only eight roles—some of them mere bit parts—in the next ten years. However, by 1971 he had begun to make a mark on stage, starring in the gay-themed Fortune and Men’s Eyes with a young Don Johnson, and in 1976’s P.S. Your Cat Is Dead. Both plays were well-reviewed, for the most part, and Mineo seemed to have reached a point where he might vault back into the Hollywood mainstream. But his comeback was cut short when he was murdered behind his L.A. home in February 1976, stabbed in the heart. We looked for a better version of the above shot of Mineo on a Vespa, to no avail. But we’ll keep our eyes open—it’s out there somewhere.

National Enquirer, Rebel without a Cause, Academy Award, Sal Mineo, Don Johnson, tabloid, murder, gay

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HISTORY REWIND

The headlines that mattered yesteryear.

December 13

1944—Velez Commits Suicide

Mexican actress Lupe Velez, who was considered one of the great beauties of her day, commits suicide by taking an overdose of sleeping pills. In her note, Velez says she did it to avoid bringing shame on her unborn child by giving birth to him out of wedlock, but many Hollywood historians believe bipolar disorder was the actual cause. The event inspired a 1965 Andy Warhol film entitled Lupe.

December 13

1958—Gordo the Monkey Lost After Space Flight

After a fifteen minute flight into space on a Jupiter AM-13 rocket, a monkey named Gordo splashes down in the South Pacific but is lost after his capsule sinks. The incident sparks angry protests from the American Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, but NASA says animals are needed for such tests.

December 12

1968—Tallulah Bankhead Dies

American actress, talk show host, and party girl Tallulah Bankhead, who was fond of turning cartwheels in a dress without underwear and once made an entrance to a party without a stitch of clothing on, dies in St. Luke’s Hospital in New York City of double pneumonia complicated by emphysema.

December 11

1962—Canada Has Last Execution

The last executions in Canada occur when Arthur Lucas and Ronald Turpin, both of whom are Americans who had been extradited north after committing separate murders in Canada, are hanged at Don Jail in Toronto. When Turpin is told that he and Lucas will probably be the last people hanged in Canada, he replies, â€œSome consolation.â€

December 11

1964—Guevara Speaks at U.N.

Ernesto “Che” Guevara, representing the nation of Cuba, speaks at the 19th General Assembly of the United Nations in New York City. His speech calls for wholesale changes in policies between rich nations and poor ones, as well as five demands of the United States, none of which are met.

December 11

2008—Legendary Pin-Up Bettie Page Dies

After suffering a heart attack several days before, erotic model Bettie Page, who in the 1950s became known as the Queen of Pin-ups, dies when she is removed from life support machinery. Thanks to the unique style she displayed in thousands of photos and film loops, Page is considered one of the most influential beauties who ever lived.

December 10

1935—Downtown Athletic Club Awards First Trophy

The Downtown Athletic Club in New York City awards its first trophy for athletic achievement to University of Chicago halfback Jay Berwanger. The prize is later renamed the Heisman Trophy, and becomes the most prestigious award in college athletics.