Vintage Pulp

February 15 2025

FLAXY TO THE MAX

When Mayo goes bad keep well clear.

What will a guy do for a girl when he’s in love? Plenty, according to Hollywood. The crime drama Flaxy Martin stars Virginia Mayo as the title character, with Zachary Scott, Douglas Kennedy, and Dorothy Malone in support. Scott plays a mobbed up lawyer who decides he wants out of the rackets, setting into motion a chain of unfortunate events in which he takes a murder rap for Mayo. It’s done out of love, but his feelings may be one-sided. Mayo has been recruited by the mob boss to use her wiles to keep Scott in line. When Scott confesses, he’s confident he’ll beat the charge defending himself in court. But the boss springs a phony witness on him and instead it looks like his goose might be cooked extra crispy.

Mayo is one of those period actresses we’ll watch in anything. Flaxy Martin is a departure from her usual fare. She’s a femme fatale of the most fatal type, playing two men to advantage, slapping around another woman, and generally smirking and sneering her way nastily through life. The question, in such a case of atypical casting, is whether she produces a believable performance. We’d say yes, but she’s the only part we believed. Little else makes sense. Absent anything resembling sexual heat between Scott and Mayo, his confession feels unlikely. Later, Dorothy Malone, as a trusting soul who picks up stray criminals, comes across as vapidly reckless rather than sweet.

Even so, there are worse ways to spend an evening than watching Mayo walk on the wild side. We imagine most actresses wanted to try on the femme fatale role back then at least once, but film noir being a relatively small slice of the cinematic pie, and studios being so controlling of actresses’ public images, most never got the chance. Mayo, a comic actress with a Vaudeville background, must have reveled in the opportunity. Obviously crime can’t pay in vintage cinema, so don’t get your hopes up that she might slide on her evil deeds. Just enjoy watching her break hearts. Also, as a side note, the movie might be worth a watch just to see mob thug Elisha Wood, Jr. pull the old gag of running out of bullets then throwing his gun. Frickin’ hilarious. Flaxy Martin premiered in the U.S. today in 1949.

Flaxy Martin, Virginia Mayo, Zachary Scott, Douglas Kennedy, Dorothy Malone, Elisha Cook Jr., poster art, cinema, movie review

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HISTORY REWIND

The headlines that mattered yesteryear.

March 25

1957—Ginsberg Poem Seized by Customs

On the basis of alleged obscenity, United States Customs officials seize 520 copies of Allen Ginsberg’s poem “Howl” that had been shipped from a London printer. The poem contained mention of illegal drugs and explicitly referred to sexual practices. A subsequent obscenity trial was brought against Lawrence Ferlinghetti, who ran City Lights Bookstore, the poem’s domestic publisher. Nine literary experts testified on the poem’s behalf, and Ferlinghetti won the case when a judge decided that the poem was of redeeming social importance.

March 25

1975—King Faisal Is Assassinated

King Faisal of Saudi Arabia dies after his nephew Prince Faisal Ibu Musaed shoots him during a royal audience. As King Faisal bent forward to kiss his nephew the Prince pulled out a pistol and shot him under the chin and through the ear. King Faisal died in the hospital after surgery. The prince is later beheaded in the public square in Riyadh.

March 24

1981—Ronnie Biggs Rescued After Kidnapping

Fugitive thief Ronnie Biggs, a British citizen who was a member of the gang that pulled off the Great Train Robbery, is rescued by police in Barbados after being kidnapped. Biggs had been abducted a week earlier from a bar in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil by members of a British security firm. Upon release he was returned to Brazil and continued to be a fugitive from British justice.

March 23

2011—Elizabeth Taylor Dies

American actress Elizabeth Taylor, whose career began at age 12 when she starred in National Velvet, and who would eventually be nominated for five Academy Awards as best actress and win for Butterfield 8 and Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, dies of congestive heart failure in Los Angeles. During her life she had been hospitalized more than 70 times.

March 22

1963—Profumo Denies Affair

In England, the Secretary of State for War, John Profumo, denies any impropriety with showgirl Christine Keeler and threatens to sue anyone repeating the allegations. The accusations involve not just infidelity, but the possibility acquaintances of Keeler might be trying to ply Profumo for nuclear secrets. In June, Profumo finally resigns from the government after confessing his sexual involvement with Keeler and admitting he lied to parliament.

March 22

1978—Karl Wallenda Falls to His Death

World famous German daredevil and high-wire walker Karl Wallenda, founder of the acrobatic troupe The Flying Wallendas, falls to his death attempting to walk on a cable strung between the two towers of the Condado Plaza Hotel in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Wallenda is seventy-three years old at the time, but it is a 30 mph wind, rather than age, that is generally blamed for sending him from the wire.

March 22

2006—Swedish Spy Stig Wennerstrom Dies

Swedish air force colonel Stig Wennerström, who had been convicted in the 1970s of passing Swedish, U.S. and NATO secrets to the Soviet Union over the course of fifteen years, dies in an old age home at the age of ninety-nine. The Wennerström affair, as some called it, was at the time one of the biggest scandals of the Cold War.