Intl. Notebook

March 6 2021

REDSTONE CASTLE

She's an architectural marvel.

This long tall pin-up stars famed 1950s model Madeline Castle and was printed by an outfit based in Redstone, New Hampshire that called itself Life-Size. They were just Life-Size—no Inc. or Co., as far as we can tell. It’s the same operation that printed a rare life-sized Marilyn Monroe pin-up we showed you a while back. We didn’t mention then that we had located more, but we had, and we’ll show you those later, including a life-sized Anita Ekberg we know you’ll enjoy. In the meantime you can see more from Miss Castle here, here, and here.

New Hampshire, Redstone, Madeline Castle

Vintage Pulp

January 1 2021

NEW YEAR, OLD CALENDAR

Don't just turn over a new leaf. Turn over twelve of them.

Let’s start the year right. Everyone is hoping for a better 2021 than 2020. That’s assuming you adhere to constrained, non-scientific ideas about time—for cynics and realists it’s just another day. But in any case, above you see the cover of a 1959 nudie calendar that came inside an issue of the U.S. magazine Cocktail, a creation of Beacon Publications. The interior is below, and those with sharp eyes will spot a few notables—burlesque dancer Candy Barr in June, Madeline Castle in July (her pose is the same as from the famed promo poster for the sci-fi film The Astounding She-Monster, though Shirley Kilpatrick played the monster), Shirley Kilpatrick in August (what a coincidence), and Jean Nieto, aka Ramona Rogers, in November. The other models may be well known too, but not by us, at least not today. When the cava hangover wears off, maybe our brains will work better. Then again, maybe the damage is permanent. Only time will tell. Happy New Year.

Beacon Signal, The Astounding She-Monster, Cocktail Magazine, Madeline Castle, Shirley Kilpatrick, Candy Barr, Jean Nieto, Ramona Rogers, nudity, burlesque

Vintage Pulp

December 12 2018

CELESTIAL BODY

Greetings, humans—take me to your leading erotic dancing establishment.

This poster for The Astounding She-Monster is beyond a doubt one of the best mid-century sci-fi promos ever. The illustrator Albert Kallis was responsible for numerous top notch works like The Brain Eaters and Terror from the Year 5000, but we think this one is his masterpiece. He used famed nude model Madeline Castle as his inspiration for the monster, though she wasn’t in the film. We’ll get back to Kallis a bit later.

As far as the movie goes, the plot is simple: an alien that looks a lot like nude model Shirley Kilpatrick in a zipback jumpsuit lands on Earth and crosses paths with a group of kidnappers, who with their hostage have invaded a geologist’s house. Though Kilpatrick is wardrobed like a stripper or go-go dancer, the filmmakers have a serious goal, which is to show how a celestial emissary immediately sees humans at their most basic—in pointless conflict. When the She-Monster is forced to defend herself she does so, like all strippers do, with her lethal radioactive touch.

This effort from American International Pictures is ’50s sci-fi at its worst yet most earnest. The underlying anti-nuclear, anti-violence messages are laudable, but undermined by an $18,000 budget and a four-day shoot rife with terrible execution and unintentional comedy. The stock bear footage alone will have you rolling your eyes. And Marilyn Harvey screaming in panic…

…as she bolts out of the geologist’s house is such a funny sight we had to watch it over and over. We’re talking fall-on-the-floor hilarious. Even so, when is the last time you saw an anti nuclear movie? All these cheesy peacenik flicks from the ’50s and ’60s cared, which makes them—in that way at least—far superior to most of the cynical films being produced today. The Astounding She-Monster premiered this month in 1957.

I call this the dreaded claw.

Oh yeah? I call this the dreaded fist!

Does anyone want a lap dance?

Oh my freaking God! Let’s get the fuck out of here!

Kilpatrick, during calmer times, catches some rays and practices making creepy space hands.

American International Pictures, The Astounding She-Monster, Robert Clarke, Shirley Kilpatrick, Albert Kallis, Madeline Castle, Marilyn Harvey, poster art, cinema, sci-fi, movie review

Femmes Fatales

July 10 2014

ENCHANTED CASTLE

Something wicker this way comes.

Back in March we shared a Technicolor lithograph of an unknown model we later found out was Playboy centerfold Madeline Castle. A few days ago we stumbled upon this photo from the same shoot (which we’ve dubbed the Wicker Sessions). We knew nothing about Castle just three months ago, and now we’re seeing her everywhere. Have to say, after nearly six years of doing this we have learned so much about mid-century celebs it’s astonishing. Anyone need a pub quiz teammate? We would absolutely kill this category.

Update: as with any worthwhile castle there’s always more to discover.

Playboy, Madeline Castle, nudity

Vintage Pulp

March 16 2014

BAMBOO SHOOT

Take... picture quick. Can’t hold this pose… much longer.

Above, a familiar looking but as yet unidentified model posing for one of Corp. A. Fox’s Technicolor pin-ups. This makes the eleventh one of these we’ve shared and you can see the others by clicking its keywords below.

Update: It’s Madeline Castle, who was a Playboy Playmate of the month back in October 1954 and a popular pin-up model for many more years. The shot above isn’t the most flattering of her, so we’ve uploaded another one below, from Folies de Paris et de Hollywood #288, 1964. Yes, we know the two look like different women entirely, but they aren’t, we promise. She just looks better below, and as a bonus she’s smiling instead of grimacing.

Update on our update: Turns out she was under our noses the entire time. We shared a Man’s Life featuring Castle back in January 2013. You know when you have so much stuff you can’t keep track of it? Yeah, exactly.

Corp. A. Fox, Playboy, Folies de Paris et de Hollywood, Technicolor pin-up, Madeline Castle, nudity

Vintage Pulp

January 16 2013

UP THE YIN YANGTZE

Big trouble in not-so-little China.

When it comes to vintage magazines, the range of prices is incredible. We’ve been seeing issues of Man’s Life online for $168.00. We will go out on a limb and say that nobody will ever pay that price. At the opposite end of the spectrum, we got this issue published January of 1959 for $4.00. The front is a bit mangled but the interior is fine, and includes some nice art, excellent fiction, and four pages on October 1954 Playboy centerfold Madeline Castle. The cover art for Thomas Halloran’s 1930s-era tale “Attacked by the Girl Pirates of the Yangtze” is by Wil Hulsey, and the other spreads are by Geoffrey Biggs, Lou Marchetti, Bruce Minney, and Bruce Minnie (he does two and gets his name spelled two different ways). The Madeline Castle photo feature is uncredited. We’ll have more from Man’s Life a bit later.

Man’s Life, Playboy, Madeline Castle, Wil Hulsey, Bruce Minney, Thomas Halloran, Lou Marchetti, Geoffrey Biggs, magazine art, literature

ABOUT

EMAIL

LEGAL

SEARCH PULP INTERNATIONAL

PULP INTL.
HISTORY REWIND

The headlines that mattered yesteryear.

April 25

1939—Batman Debuts

In Detective Comics #27, DC Comics publishes its second major superhero, Batman, who becomes one of the most popular comic book characters of all time, and then a popular camp television series starring Adam West, and lastly a multi-million dollar movie franchise starring Michael Keaton, then George Clooney, and finally Christian Bale.

April 25

1953—Crick and Watson Publish DNA Results

British scientists James D Watson and Francis Crick publish an article detailing their discovery of the existence and structure of deoxyribonucleic acid, or DNA, in Nature magazine. Their findings answer one of the oldest and most fundamental questions of biology, that of how living things reproduce themselves.

April 24

1967—First Space Program Casualty Occurs

Soviet cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov dies in Soyuz 1 when, during re-entry into Earth’s atmosphere after more than ten successful orbits, the capsule’s main parachute fails to deploy properly, and the backup chute becomes entangled in the first. The capsule’s descent is slowed, but it still hits the ground at about 90 mph, at which point it bursts into flames. Komarov is the first human to die during a space mission.

April 23

1986—Otto Preminger Dies

Austro-Hungarian film director Otto Preminger, who directed such eternal classics as Laura, Anatomy of a Murder, Carmen Jones, The Man with the Golden Arm, and Stalag 17, and for his efforts earned a star on Hollywood’s Walk of Fame, dies in New York City, aged 80, from cancer and Alzheimer’s disease.

April 23

1998—James Earl Ray Dies

The convicted assassin of American civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr., petty criminal James Earl Ray, dies in prison of hepatitis aged 70, protesting his innocence as he had for decades. Members of the King family who supported Ray’s fight to clear his name believed the U.S. Government had been involved in Dr. King’s killing, but with Ray’s death such questions became moot.

April 22

1912—Pravda Is Founded

The newspaper Pravda, or “Truth”, known as the voice of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, begins publication in Saint Petersburg. It is one of the country’s leading newspapers until 1991, when it is closed down by decree of then-President Boris Yeltsin. A number of other Pravdas appear afterward, including an internet site and a tabloid.

April 22

1983—Hitler's Diaries Found

The German magazine Der Stern claims that Adolf Hitler’s diaries had been found in wreckage in East Germany. The magazine had paid 10 million German marks for the sixty small books, plus a volume about Rudolf Hess’s flight to the United Kingdom, covering the period from 1932 to 1945. But the diaries are subsequently revealed to be fakes written by Konrad Kujau, a notorious Stuttgart forger. Both he and Stern journalist Gerd Heidemann go to trial in 1985 and are each sentenced to 42 months in prison.