vintage and modern pulp fiction; noir, schlock and exploitation films; scandals, swindles and news
This French promo for The Revolt of Mamie Stover, which opened in Paris today in 1956 after being retitled Bungalow pour femmes, is yet another fantastic effort from the brush of Russian illustrator Boris Grinsson. Jane Russell starred in the film, and we especially like the poster’s emphasis on her red hair. We talked about Mamie Stover as well as its complicated source novel last year. Check here for the movie and here for the book. We’ll put together a larger collection on Grinsson later.
Here you see three beautiful posters for Jane Russell’s 1955 marine salvage adventure Underwater! We shared an ultrarare Japanese promo and discussed the film briefly more than a decade back, and shared some production stills. See all that here.
We already talked about the Robert Mitchum/Jane Russell film noir His Kind of Woman, which premiered in the U.S. today in 1951. We recently stumbled across the above curiosity. You may remember our exploration of overlays in mid-century pin-up art (fascinating examples here, here, here, here, and here) and as it turns out, Russell received similar treatment. The cover-up on the second poster isn’t an overlay. It’s printed onto the paper. But the result is the same. Cleavage be gone! If we had to guess, the modest poster probably was issued everywhere in the U.S. except large cities. But the thing is, such a clumsy reworking—as opposed to just using a different image of Russell entirely—clearly serves to tell viewers they’ve been denied something, which we suspect was almost as effective at drawing traffic into cinemas as revealing what was covered. But only almost. Which is why at Pulp Intl. we always reveal everything.
This shot of U.S. actress Jane Russell features her in an unusual get-up you’ve seen before, if you visit Pulp Intl. often. She wore it on the cover of the very first issue of the 1950s tabloid Exposed, which we bought, scanned, and uploaded a while back. The shot was made during her performance in the 1953 musical comedy The French Line, in which she starred as a rich woman who finds romance while aboard a cruise ship of the Compagnie Générale Transatlantique—the French Line. The fact that this is a still from the movie explains why Russell is presenting her curvy body hips forward—she’s in mid-musical number, swinging to the music. It was a heck of a performance, too, but just imagine—she was originally supposed to do it in a bathing suit but chickened out.
Do you have someplace I can store this suitcase filled with my excess masculine heat?
Sure, you can sit next to me. But first you have to sign a liability waiver in case you get scorched.
You’ll love this next trick. I put my finger in this cognac and it catches fire.
Hot as this guy is, I don’t know whether to keep beating on him or start beating on me.
And once I take your face off I’ll be the hot one. I’ll have it all! Respect, envy, women, excellent service wherever I go! The world will be mine! Mwahh hah hah! Haaaaaaaah haha hahah!
U.S. President Woodrow Wilson suffers a massive stroke, leaving him partially paralyzed. He is confined to bed for weeks, but eventually resumes his duties, though his participation is little more than perfunctory. Wilson remains disabled throughout the remainder of his term in office, and the rest of his life.
Ten days before the opening of the 1968 Summer Olympics in Mexico City, a peaceful student demonstration ends in the Tlatelolco Massacre. 200 to 300 students are gunned down, and to this day there is no consensus about how or why the shooting began.
A massive dynamite bomb destroys the Los Angeles Times building in downtown Los Angeles, California, killing 21 people. Police arrest James B. McNamara and his brother John J. McNamara. Though the brothers are represented by the era’s most famous lawyer, Clarence Darrow, of Scopes Monkey Trial fame, they eventually plead guilty. James is convicted and sentenced to fifteen years in prison. His brother John is convicted of a separate bombing of the Llewellyn Iron Works and also sent to prison.
In the Philippines, an epic heavyweight boxing match known as the Thrilla in Manila takes place between Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier. It is the third, final and most brutal match between the two, and Ali wins by TKO in the fourteenth round.
American actor James Dean, who appeared in the films Giant, East of Eden, and the iconic Rebel without a Cause, dies in an auto accident at age 24 when his Porsche 550 Spyder is hit head-on by a larger Ford coupe. The driver of the Ford had been trying to make a left turn across the rural highway U.S. Route 466 and never saw Dean’s small sports car approaching.
Mexican-American farm worker César Chávez founds the United Farm Workers in California. His strikes, marches and boycotts eventually result in improved working conditions for manual farm laborers, and today his birthday is celebrated as a holiday in eight U.S. states.
American industrialist John D. Rockefeller becomes America’s first billionaire. His Standard Oil Company had gained near total control of the U.S. petroleum market until being broken up by anti-trust legislators in 1911. Afterward, Rockefeller used his fortune mainly for philanthropy, and had a major effect on medicine, education, and scientific research.
