Pulp International

vintage and modern pulp fiction; noir, schlock and exploitation films; scandals, swindles and news

HI AND BYE

Knocked for a loop in Los Angeles.

Were the police being whimsical? We don’t know. This evidentiary photo taken at Pacific Ocean Park shows the curious path that 19-year-old John Lee O’Brien took when he fatally plunged from a roller coaster into the sea, today in 1927. The image comes from the Los Angeles Public Library’s archive of twentieth century police photos. There are two accounts of what happened here. One says O’Brien fell 50 feet, but that doesn’t explain the strange loop in the photo.

The more plausible story is version two. In that one, O’Brien was showing off by standing up during the ride. When the car went around a curve, he lost his balance and plunged 125 feet into the ocean. A fall from that height would have his descent beginning from the higher track in the photo, whereupon—boing!—he struck the lower track, rebounded and fell a further 50 feet into the water, unconscious or possibly already dead. Maybe that’s what the loop signifies—bounciness. The coaster, by the way, was called the High Boy. See below.

Los Angeles, Ocean Park, Pacific Ocean Park, Los Angeles Public Library, John Lee O’Brien, deaths

WATER WATER EVERYWHERE

The fault was theirs and theirs alone.
Fifty years ago in the Los Angeles neighborhood of Baldwin Hills a tiny crack in the wall of the Baldwin Hills Reservoir became a 75-foot-wide breach that allowed more than 250 million gallons of water to burst free in a killer wave. The reservoir had been built on an active geologic fault, a fact that was known by engineers but deemed unimportant. The images above and below, part of the Los Angeles Public Library’s collection of vintage L.A. photos, show the beginning and aftermath of the event. The first shot was taken as workers were examining the growing crack. At some point, a shouted warning sent them scattering and the dam broke. The time elapsed between the discovery of the crack and the failure of the dam was about three hours. No workers were hurt, but within the path of the wave, an area roughly bounded by La Brea Avenue, Jefferson Boulevard, and La Cienega Boulevard, five people were killed, sixty-five houses were completely destroyed, and 210 other residences were damaged. That was today in 1963.

Los Angeles, Baldwin Hills, Los Angeles Public Library

PHONE HOME

Brother can you spare some pulp?

This photo of a drunk trapped in an L.A. phone booth in 1951 comes from the Los Angeles Public Library´s extensive online collection, and it also happens to represent exactly how we feel today. Not because we found ourselves unexpectedly invited to a party last night where we had perhaps too much champagne and whiskey, and not because our furniture hasn´t arrived at the new house yet and we´re sleeping on air matresses. No, we feel trapped like this poor sap because we are sans internet. And our local telecommunications gangsters won’t have us online for another three weeks. Ain’t that a bitch? We’re operating entirely from internet cafes and whatever beams we can pull from the sky. We´ll try to manage without interruption, but no promises. Wish us luck. Or better yet, help us shoulder the load by writing us some posts. Use the pulp uploader in the righthand sidebar to send us text and art. It really works. We swear.

Los Angeles, Los Angeles Public Library

OGDEN SELLS OUT

Hitting rock bottom in Los Angeles.

Here’s another shot from the Los Angeles Public Library online photo archive, sort of an addendum to our October post on crime scene photo diagrams. This time what we have is a diagram of a suicide, which took place today in 1958 when a man with the unlikely name of Ogden Sells threw himself from a top floor window of the Park La Brea Towers in Los Angeles. The arrow makes it seem as if Sells hooked like a Sandy Koufax curveball, but we can assume he fell hard and straight. More from the USC archive to come. 

Los Angeles, Los Angeles Public Library, suicide
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HISTORY REWIND

The headlines that mattered yesteryear.

1945—Franklin Roosevelt Dies

U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt dies of a cerebral hemorrhage while sitting for a portrait in the White House. After a White House funeral on April 14, Roosevelt’s body is transported by train to his hometown of Hyde Park, New York, and on April 15 he is buried in the rose garden of the Roosevelt family home.

1916—Richard Harding Davis Dies

American journalist, playwright, and author Richard Harding Davis dies of a heart attack at home in Philadelphia. Not widely known now, Davis was one of the most important and influential war correspondents ever, establishing his reputation by reporting on the Spanish-American War, the Second Boer War, and World War I, as well as his general travels to exotic lands.

1919—Zapata Is Killed

In Mexico, revolutionary leader Emiliano Zapata is shot dead by government forces in the state of Morelos, after a carefully planned ambush. Following the killing, Zapata’s revolutionary movement and his Liberation Army of the South slowly fall apart, but his political influence lasts in Mexico to the present day.

1925—Great Gatsby Is Published

F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel The Great Gatsby is published in New York City by Charles Scribner’s Sons. Though Gatsby is Fitzgerald’s best known book today, it was not a success upon publication, and at the time of his death in 1940, Fitzgerald was mostly forgotten as a writer and considered himself to be a failure.

1968—Martin Luther King Buried

American clergyman and civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr., is buried five days after being shot dead on a Memphis, Tennessee motel balcony. April 7th had been declared a national day of mourning by President Lyndon B. Johnson, and King’s funeral on the 9th is attended by thousands of supporters, and Vice President Hubert Humphrey.

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BRAZIL UNDERGROUND

Edições de Ouro and Editora Tecnoprint published U.S. crime novels for the Brazilian market, with excellent reworked cover art to appeal to local sensibilities. We have a small collection worth seeing.

FLUENT IN VIOLENCE

Walter Popp cover art for Richard Powell's 1954 crime novel Say It with Bullets.

IN HOT WATER

There have been some serious injuries on pulp covers. This one is probably the most severe—at least in our imagination. It was painted for Stanley Morton's 1952 novel Yankee Trader.

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