vintage and modern pulp fiction; noir, schlock and exploitation films; scandals, swindles and news
Above, two beautiful posters for Taiyo wa mita, aka I Saw the Sun, with Mari Atsumi. We couldn’t track this one down but we know it’s a drama set in a seaside town and know it premiered in Japan today in 1970. We already shared a really nice promo image for the film here, and if we learn more we’ll report back.
Above is another poster for Zoku Imokinchaku, aka Sea Anemone Girl Continued, starring Mari Atsumi. We shared the tateken sized promo earlier this year, and this is the hansai promo, which we tend to call merely standard sized. The movie premiered in Japan today in 1970, and you can see the other poster here.
We’ve already shared two posters for Mari Atsumi’s 1970 pinku flick Denki kurage, aka Play It Cool, aka Electric Medusa. Today we have a promo for her film Denki kurage: kawaii akuma, aka The Good Little Bad Girl, with Atsumi looking good, bad, and a few other things, all of them fun. The movie premiered today in 1970. Atsumi was a big star in her day. She appeared in twenty-eight films, guested on a number of television shows, and released a couple of popular albums. Like many pinku actresses, though, her current whereabouts are basically a mystery. One Japanese webpage literally says nobody knows where she is. But that’s okay—she gave us plenty to remember her by.
Zoku Imokinchaku*, for which you see the poster above and which premiered in Japan today in 1970, was the sequel to the previous year’s Imokinchaku, but shot in color. Atsumi plays a high school girl named Hamako who tries to save enough money to buy her family’s ancestral land. Her plan to obtain it through work seems sound enough, but trouble in finances and love, including the theft of her money and a doomed infatuation with a dreamboat who happens to be gay, present serious obstacles. Of course, if the previous film taught Mari anything it was to persevere, and she makes forays into nude modeling and singing in efforts to cobble together a sufficiently large nest egg to buy the land. Do any of these schemes actually work? You’ll have to add this one to your queue if you want to find out.
On a related note, we learned that Daiei Co. released an Atsumi record in conjunction with this film, and that it also engineered the publication of a photo book. Cross promotion of pinku films was a common tactic back then. In fact, many stars performed live in cinemas between double features, either singing, dancing, or reenacting bits from the films. Japanese law was strict about nudity onscreen, but we’ve been told these live performances sometimes featured full nudity, which is interesting to contemplate. Atsumi made a lot of public appearances. Below, for example, she’s in Shimizu Park in Chiba, where a gaggle of photographers shot pictures of her in her undies. We have images from another Atsumi public appearance we’ll share later.
*We can’t find a romanized title for this film anywhere, but Zoku Imokinchaku is probably right. It’s at least close. If anyone wants to correct us feel free. The official title is 続・いそぎんちゃく.
Only a little time today, but we love sharing this Japanese material, so above you see an alternate poster in panel length for Yoshio Inoue’s pinku film Kawaii Akuma: Iimono ageru, aka Just for You, which premiered today in 1970 starring Mari Atsumi. It’s completely different from the standard sized version, which we showed you here, and better too, we think. Now we are off—our holiday involves lobster, crab, and other oceanic yummies eaten picnic style in a hilltop park. Hope your day is excellent.
Above and below are two posters for Iwataro Ishii’s Mona Riza okyo, which was based on the graphic novel of the same name by Teruo Tanashita, and stars Mari Atsumi as a pickpocket trying to get her hands on a valuable but elusive diamond pin called the Star of the Sea. Strangely, the word “Kyoto” clearly appears in the poster titles—it’s the last symbol on both—but all the sources we checked said the film is called Mona Riza okyo. It’s a mystery too deep for us to solve, but if any of you can shed some light on it please drop us a line. Mona Riza okyo premiered in Japan today in 1971.
Update: David W. writes in and tells us: “Indeed the last word on each poster is Okyo, not Kyoto.“
Mystery solved. Thanks, David, for your help.
Update 2: NelC offers a more detailed explanation of the title. Here’s what he wrote: The transliteration of the subject line is indeed Mona Lisa O-Kyō. The proper name for Kyōto is 京都市, “Kyōto-shi” or “Kyoto City” in English. 京都 is “Kyōto.” 京 is “Kyō.” 京 by itself means “capital” as in “capital city,” and お is an honorific, so お京 might be read as “the capital.” (モナリサ is, of course, “Mona Lisa.”)
So the title might be read as “The Capital Mona Lisa.” The significance of this is beyond my meagre abilities in Japanese, though. A colloquialism for “the great,” maybe, as in Wodehouse-era British English? I don’t know.
Thank you NelC. Your excellent explanation is more than we could have reasonably hoped for. Mystery solved, again.
After being sold, dismantled and moved to the United States, London Bridge reopens in the resort town of Lake Havasu City, Arizona.
British actor Richard Burton and American screen star Elizabeth Taylor secretly remarry sixteen months after their divorce, then jet away to a second honeymoon in Chobe Game Park in Botswana.
A day after being captured, Marxist revolutionary Ernesto “Che” Guevara is executed in Bolivia. In an attempt to make it appear as though he had been killed resisting Bolivian troops, the executioner shoots Guevara with a machine gun, wounding him nine times in the legs, arm, shoulder, throat, and chest.
During World War I, in the Argonne Forest in France, America Corporal Alvin C. York leads an attack on a German machine gun nest that kills 25 and captures 132. He is a corporal during the event, but is promoted to sergeant as a result. He also earns Medal of Honor from the U.S., the Croix de Guerre from the French Republic, and the Croce di Guerra from Italy and Montenegro. Stateside, he is celebrated as a hero, and Hollywood even makes a movie entitled Sergeant York, starring Gary Cooper.
The New York Yankees’ Don Larsen pitches a perfect game in the World Series against hated rivals the Brooklyn Dodgers. It is the only perfect game in World Series history, as well as the only no-hitter.
The Soviet space probe Luna 3 transmits the first photographs of the far side of the moon. The photos generate great interest, and scientists are surprised to see mountainous terrain, very different from the near side, and only two seas, which the Soviets name Mare Moscovrae (Sea of Moscow) and Mare Desiderii (Sea of Desire).
