THREE OF A KIND

You two can call yourselves what you want, but to me, prostitute is an ugly word. I consider myself a social worker.

We’ve seen a fair amount of poster art from John Solie. This effort looks a little different for him, a bit less polished maybe. It’s a striking piece anyway, set at the intersection of Love Street and John Street, made for the urban drama Street Girls, which premiered today in 1976 and starred Carol Case. The first thing to note about this film is that it was co-scripted by eventual multiple Oscar winner Barry Levinson. He was influenced by Martin Scorsese’s Mean Streets, clearly, but Street Girls‘ closest cinematic relative actually came three years later in Paul Schrader’s 1979 thriller Hardcore. The vibe is identical, and the plot, about a smalltown father trying to save his sexually exploited daughter, is similar. What isn’t similar are important elements such as budget, technical values, and acting.

Street Girls is about the aformentioned forlorn father, but most of the plot early on focuses on the daughter, played by Case, who’s dancing at a strip dive called the Step Down a Go-Go, is sexually involved with one of the other women, and has been been targeted by bad guy Paul Pompian for conversion to drug addiction and prostitution. Dad mostly blunders oaflike around the city—in this case Eugene, Oregon—but eventually runs into the right people to help him find his litle girl, if only he can convince them. If that happens it’s possible Case won’t be turned out, but it’s a fraught race against a determined pimp.

Street Girls is an example of what it means to be a novice in Hollywood. No matter the nature of a production you must commit to doing your best, or your career will be short. Case gives about as committed a performance as you’ll see. It doesn’t work completely, though we suspect more time could have drawn out a better result. But that’s always the rub—time derives from budget, as does the ability to make quality hires across the board before the cameras even roll. It’s nice that Levinson rose to be a superstar director, but it isn’t neccessarily that he was the only one here with talent. He would have benefitted from other factors, including pure luck. Watching this, we thought it would have been nice if mainstream success had found Case too. Instead, Street Girls was her only film.

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HISTORY REWIND

The headlines that mattered yesteryear.

1954—First Church of Scientology Established

The first Scientology church, based on the writings of science fiction author L. Ron Hubbard, is established in Los Angeles, California. Since then, the city has become home to the largest concentration of Scientologists in the world, and its ranks include high-profile adherents such as Tom Cruise and John Travolta.

1933—Blaine Act Passes

The Blaine Act, a congressional bill sponsored by Wisconsin senator John J. Blaine, is passed by the U.S. Senate and officially repeals the 18th Amendment to the United States Constitution, aka the Volstead Act, aka Prohibition. The repeal is formally adopted as the 21st Amendment to the Constitution on December 5, 1933.

1947—Voice of America Begins Broadcasting into U.S.S.R.

The state radio channel known as Voice of America and controlled by the U.S. State Department, begins broadcasting into the Soviet Union in Russian with the intent of countering Soviet radio programming directed against American leaders and policies. The Soviet Union responds by initiating electronic jamming of VOA broadcasts.

1937—Carothers Patents Nylon

Wallace H. Carothers, an American chemist, inventor and the leader of organic chemistry at DuPont Corporation, receives a patent for a silk substitute fabric called nylon. Carothers was a depressive who for years carried a cyanide capsule on a watch chain in case he wanted to commit suicide, but his genius helped produce other polymers such as neoprene and polyester. He eventually did take cyanide—not in pill form, but dissolved in lemon juice—resulting in his death in late 1937.

1933—Franklin Roosevelt Survives Assassination Attempt

In Miami, Florida, Giuseppe Zangara attempts to shoot President-elect Franklin D. Roosevelt, but is restrained by a crowd and, in the course of firing five wild shots, hits five people, including Chicago, Illinois Mayor Anton J. Cermak, who dies of his wounds three weeks later. Zangara is quickly tried and sentenced to eighty years in jail for attempted murder, but is later convicted of murder when Cermak dies. Zangara is sentenced to death and executed in Florida’s electric chair.

Unknown artist produces lurid cover for Indian true crime magazine Nutan Kahaniyan.
Cover art by Roswell Keller for the 1948 Pocket Books edition of Ramona Stewart's Desert Town.

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