Vintage Pulp

February 4 2026

THE LAST WEAK

Incarceration really takes it out of a girl.

This promo poster in insert dimensions was made for the British women-in-prison drama The Weak and the Wicked, retitled in the U.S. to Young and Willing. We love this piece. It’s much better than the movie, which is headlined by Glynis Johns as a woman framed into prison after she loses a bundle in a casino but fails to pay the debt. She starts the film jailed, so her casino backstory occurs in flashback, as do the grim tales of other women, including Diana Dors. This film, The Unholy Wife, and Yield to the Night, aka Blonde Sinner, make three movies featuring Dors in prison within a span of three years, which strikes us as the weirdest case of typecasting we’ve run across in a while. But she does her usual solid job. Actually, she outshines Johns. She really had talent. We can’t say we loved The Weak and the Wicked, but it’s well made, and for Dors fans, women-in-prison completists, and those who appreciate films that pass the Bechdel Test, it definitely won’t be a waste of time. It premiered in the UK today in 1954.

Britain, The Weak and the Wicked, Young and Willing, Glynis Johns, Diana Dors, John Gregson, Rachel, Roberts, Olive Sloane, Jane Hylton, poster art, cinema, movie review, women in prison

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HISTORY REWIND

The headlines that mattered yesteryear.

February 18

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.

February 17

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.

February 17

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.

February 16

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 cyanideâ€”not in pill form, but dissolved in lemon juiceâ€”resulting in his death in late 1937.

February 15

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.