Vintage Pulp

September 12 2023

MOB MENTALITY

Think your boss is bad? Then you've never dealt with a mob boss.

Falling into the category of pleasant surprises, The Mob, for which you see an evocative promo poster above, stars Broderick Crawford as a cop sent to infiltrate an organized crime syndicate. You’ve seen the idea before. He works his way up the ladder and brings the bad guys down, but this iteration comes with brisk pacing, a set of unpredictable twists, and a supporting cast that includes Ernest Borgine, Richard Kiley, and Lynn Baggett. If you keep your eyes open you might even spot Charles Bronson.

Crawford had already won an Academy Award and a Golden Globe for 1949’s All the King’s Men, so he unsurprisingly does a bang-up job in this film, instilling his deep cover cop with believable toughness and a gruff but relatable humanity. Crawford would later appear in such excellent films as Scandal Sheet, New York Confidential, Born Yesterday, and Human Desire, but The Mob may be his underrated classic.

The only flaw with this film, in our opinion, is a goofball denouement. We suppose, after ninety minutes of almost nonstop high tension, the filmmakers wanted audiences to leave smiling, and we’re sure they did, because the scene, while dumb, is pretty funny. But in any case, we recommend giving The Mob a whirl. You’ll enjoy it. It opened nationally in the U.S. in late September, but had its actual debut at special premiere today in Dayton, Ohio (why, we don’t know) in 1951.

New Orleans, Academy Award, Golden Globe Award, The Mob, All the King's Men, New York Confidential, Scandal Sheet, Human Desire, Born Yesterday, Broderick Crawford, Betty Buehler, Ernest Borgnine, Lynn Baggett, Charles Bronson, poster art, cinema, movie review

Femmes Fatales

November 23 2022

CLOAKED IN MYSTERY

She's always been considered a very capable woman.

What’s the difference between a cloak and a cape? Is it that capes are short and cloaks are long? Is it that cloaks always have hoods? Those distinctions don’t stand in the way of companies looking to sell the things. We found many capes with hoods in online stores that were called “hooded capes,” and we found many long garments we thought would be called cloaks but which were categorized as “long capes.” Well, whatever you call it, Rosalind Russell makes good use of it in this shot made for her 1936 drama Trouble for Two.

Russell was one of the great actresses, winning, amazingly, every Golden Globe Award for which she was nominated—five. Conversely, she was nominated for four Academy Awards and got shut out. Such is life. But she received a special Oscar in 1978 for her humanitarian work. She specialized in comedies such as the 1940 smash hit His Girl Friday, but she also starred in several notable dramas. The most interesting for our purposes is probably the 1948 murder tale The Velvet Touch. We plan to check that out and report back.

His Girl Friday, The Velvet Touch, Academy Awards, Golden Globe Award, Trouble for Two, Rosalind Russell

Femmes Fatales

May 24 2020

REMAIN PERFECTLY STELLA

Don't change a thing for anybody.

You know we’re Stella Stevens fans here. Though we prefer the thirty-plus version of her, she first turned heads as a model in her early twenties, posing for a Playboy centerfold published in 1960, sessions from which the above shot originates. Stevens had begun acting before then, appearing in three films released in 1959. The next year she won a Golden Globe for New Star of the Year, and eventually appeared in dozens of films and television shows. She was always a good actress, but never scored prestige roles. She did, however, grace some low budget classics, foremost among them the blaxploitation flicks Slaughter and Cleopatra Jones and the Casino of Gold. Mixed in were cheeseball hits like The Poseidon Adventure and The Silencers, and an occasional good movie, such as The Ballad of Cable Hogue. All in all she’s had an amazing career, on pause since 2010. But she’ll never be on pause on this website. More Stella here and here.

Edit: We received an e-mail from Herman, a man who knows a thing or two about mid-century celebs and has helped us with corrections, and he wanted to remind us:

I certainly appreciate that image of Stella. Although I have been a fan of PB since the mid 50s as a boy, I don’t believe I have seen this particular photo. Of course, I have to say I believe you left some important points out of your commentary about her. I believe you said once you are not a particular fan of Elvis Presley (that may have been someone else) but without the 1962 Girls, Girls, Girls appearance I don’t think she would have caught on so quick. Don’t forget that the reason PB recognized her in the first place was because of her appearance in Li’l Abner in 1959. I know you didn’t set out to do a biography on her, but these were points I think are important in her chronology.

Agreed, H, Stevens has a long and interesting story. We didn’t set out to write a biography, as you said, but we may need to spend a little more time on her to give her proper due. She’s not a subject we’ll tire of easily.

Playboy, Slaughter, Cleopatra Jones and the Casino of Gold, The Poseidon Adventure, The Silencers, The Ballad of Cable Hogue, Golden Globe Award, Stella Stevens, blaxploitation, nudity

Femmes Fatales

March 10 2020

JAN SESSION

Unknown photo retoucher increases the value of Sterling.

We’ve seen this photo of U.S. actress Jan Sterling numerous times, but never in color, which leads us to believe it’s a colorization. If so, it’s a nice, subtle job, as well as a clever choice of model, since Sterling was the subject of one of the iconic black and white photos of the mid-century period. Know the one we mean? Look here. Despite the fame of that particular shot, Sterling was never what you’d call a top tier star. But she appeared in many films, earned a Golden Globe Award as a supporting actress, and was nominated for a supporting actress Oscar. We’ll be getting back to her film work a bit later.

Golden Globe Award, Academy Award, Jan Sterling

Femmes Fatales

September 22 2019

FOREVER YOUNG

Her time in the sun lasted for decades.

Loretta Young had a tremendous film career. Between 1917 and 1963 she appeared in more than one hundred movies, hosted her long-running television show The Loretta Young Show, won the 1948 Academy Award for Best Actress for The Farmer’s Daughter, garnered another nomination for Come to the Stable, won two Golden Globes, and took home three Emmys. Considering her extensive credits it’s amazing she could spare the time to go to the beach at all. Several sources say this photo was shot in 1931. That looks about right. She would have been eighteen then, yet amazingly already had nearly thirty screen appearances behind her. She was in a class of her own.

Academy Award, Emmy Award, Golden Globe Award, The Farmer's Daughter, Come to the Stable, The Loretta Young Show, Loretta Young

Femmes Fatales

August 2 2017

NOVAK IN TIME

She had every reason to smile.

This photo shows U.S. star Kim Novak and it appeared in the men’s magazine Escapade in April 1957 in a feature titled “Love Goddess: 1957.” The idea was simply that Novak was the biggest new sex symbol of the year, and the spread featured a half dozen shots. The one above is the best of the bunch, in our opinion. Since Novak had become spectacularly famous in 1956, had won a Golden Globe in 1955, and had begun scoring important co-starring roles in 1954, and because we can assume her studio Columbia Pictures wouldn’t have wanted her to be associated with a cheesecake magazine, we can safely guess the Escapade photos predate her 1954 Columbia contract. They probably came from some obscure photographer who suddenly realized he had valuable commodities in his archives. Escapade doesn’t give a date, but we’d say Novak looks about twenty. In Hollywood, stardom means old photos will always come out unless preemptively purchased by the star themself. The same thing happened to Marilyn Monroe when she got famous, except her photos were early nudes. Novak’s were early smiles.

Columbia Pictures, Golden Globe Award, Escapade Magazine, Kim Novak

Femmes Fatales

May 28 2017

WEST SIDE GIRL

Best ever reason to brave crosstown traffic.

Sultry Puerto Rico born actress Rita Moreno, who many remember from her role as Anita in the 1961 Hollywood adaptation of the 1957 Broadway musical West Side Story, is one of the few performers to have won all four major annual American entertainment awards—i.e. the Oscar, the Emmy, the Grammy, and the Tony.

She’s also won a Golden Globe, been awarded a Presidential Medal of Freedom and a National Medal of the Arts, received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, and been bestowed the Screen Actors Guild Life Achievement Award.

There are even more honors she’s collected, too numerous to list, and on top of all of them, she was also awarded some awesome genes, because not only is she very beautiful in the top photo from around 1960, but she still looks excellent today at age eighty-five. We should all be so lucky.

Puerto Rico, Hollywood Walk of Fame, Screen Actors Guild, West Side Story, Academy Award, Grammy, Emmy Award, Golden Globe Award, Rita Moreno, cinema

Femmes Fatales

November 29 2014

BATHTUB TIME MACHINE

What happened? How did I get here? Just seconds ago I was in the year 1958.

This image shows Finnish-born Taina Elg, dancer, actress, and multiple Golden Globe winner, who has been a significant presence on telelvsion for many years and whose most noted movie role probably was in the thriller The 39 Steps. This shot was made in 1958.

Finland, Golden Globe Award, The 39 Steps, Tania Elg, cinema

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HISTORY REWIND

The headlines that mattered yesteryear.

September 18

1919—Pollard Breaks the Color Barrier

Fritz Pollard becomes the first African-American to play professional football for a major team, the Akron Pros. Though Pollard is forgotten today, famed sportswriter Walter Camp ranked him as “one of the greatest runners these eyes have ever seen.” In another barrier-breaking historical achievement, Pollard later became the co-head coach of the Pros, while still maintaining his roster position as running back.

September 18

1932—Entwistle Leaps from Hollywood Sign

Actress Peg Entwistle commits suicide by jumping from the letter “H” in the Hollywood sign. Her body lay in the ravine below for two days, until it was found by a detective and two radio car officers. She remained unidentified until her uncle connected the description and the initials “P.E.” on the suicide note in the newspapers with his niece’s two-day absence.

September 17

1908—First Airplane Fatality Occurs

The plane built by Wilbur and Orville Wright, The Wright Flyer, crashes with Lieutenant Thomas Selfridge aboard as a passenger. The accident kills Selfridge, and he becomes the first airplane fatality in history.

September 17

1983—First Black Miss America Crowned

Vanessa Williams becomes the first African American Miss America. She later loses her crown when lesbian-themed nude photographs of her are published by Penthouse magazine.

September 16

1920—Terrorists Bomb Wall Street

At 12:01 p.m. a bomb loaded into a horse-drawn wagon explodes in front of the J.P.Morgan building in New York City. 38 people are killed and 400 injured. Italian anarchists are thought to be the perpetrators, but after years of investigation no one is ever brought to justice.

September 15

1959—Khrushchev Visits U.S.

Nikita Khrushchev becomes the first Soviet leader to visit the United States. The two week stay includes talks with U.S. President Dwight Eisenhower, as well as a visit to a farm and a Hollywood movie set, and a tour of a “typical” American neighborhood, upper middle class Granada Hills, California.