Vintage Pulp

September 3 2025

DEAD WRONG

He thought “L'orgia dei morti” meant “killer orgasm.” Boy was he disappointed.

Sometimes you get in the mood for ’70s euro-horror. The bug struck us last night, so we watched L’orgia dei morti, for which you see a poster here painted by Averado Ciriello, aka Aller. To get right to it, Stelvio Rossi (credited as Stan Cooper) is traveling through wintry mountains circa 1900 to claim an inheritance from his deceased uncle and comes across a woman hanged from a tree in a village cemetery. When he reports it to the police he becomes a murder suspect. He takes up residence in his uncle’s—you guessed it—creepy old manse, of which he’s now owner, along with all its problems. Among these are the staff, his uncle’s beautiful widow, the scientist who has a lab in the basement, and—we’re guessing here—immense heating bills.

People in the village are generally cowed by weird goings on and rumors. For example there’s a local belief that the dead have orgies in the cemetery. Maybe, but in terms of non-zombie activity we see early on that the gravedigger Igor—any movie with an Igor is going to be weird—collects the bodies of women and stores them in a crypt. Yuck. The cops soon find his stash of ladies undies and nude corpse photos and decide he’s probably the killer. A fair enough assumption, if circumstantial, so they try to arrest him. But Igor, who like other Igors seems to suffer from physical disablement of some sort, can actually scuttle along quite nimbly when the occasion requires, and gives the coppers the slip. He’ll be back.

He was a weak suspect all along, actually. Igors are never masterminds. You know who are? Scientists in basements. The hamlet’s problems may in reality be rooted in the doc’s research into “nebular electricity.” Read that as: reanimating the dead. In time-honored horror movie tradition Rossi is more determined than the cops to find answers, and they’re right in front of his face but he’s a rationalist. If there are creepy folk walking around he thinks it’s due to catalepsy or hypnosis or some other mundane cause. Hey, whatever gets you through the night. One of those nights the answers will come to him—and he won’t like them. No indeed. L’orgia dei morti premiered in Italy today in 1973.

Look at you in your silly vest. Capes, my man. It’s all about capes now.

The tremendous dent in my forehead? It’s from a pox I picked up last spring.

Ordinarily I’d say their deathly pallor marks them as the undead. But then we all have a deathly pallor around here, so…

I despise these crypts. Maybe I should rent a studio in town.

Spain, Italy, L'orgia dei morti, The Hanging Woman, Stelvio Rosi, Stan Cooper, Maria Pia Conte, Dyanik Zurakowska, Pasquale Basile, Paul Naschy, Aller, Averado Ciriello, poster art, cinema, horror, movie review

Modern Pulp

January 15 2022

THE DEFIANT ONES

Gladiatorial combat is all fun and games until the gladiators decide you're the one who needs killing.

We’ve featured master fantasy artist Frank Frazetta a few times, so it seems only fair that we feature the yang to his yin, Peruvian born legend Boris Vallejo. Here you see his art on an amazing bias-cut promo poster for Naked Warriors, which is better known as The Arena, released this month in 1974 starring another legend, Pam Grier, along with occasional co-star, the lovely Margaret Markov. We’ve talked about the movie twice, shared its Italian and U.S. promo art, and shared rare promo images of Grier once or twice, or maybe even three or four times, as well as a beautiful centerfold of Markov. All of that imagery is worth a look.

Vallejo’s art is a nice fit for a tale of enslaved gladiators pitted against each other eventually defying their sadistic masters to fight for freedom. He painted when Corcorde Pictures acquired the rights to the film from MGM/UA for a VHS release in 1988. Concorde/New World was formed and run by schlockmeister Roger Corman, and that explains the black wedges at the top and bottom of the promo. When you do things

on the cheap as a matter of course like Corman did, tilting the art in an inelegant way to make the two figures fit a door panel format seems logical. We can imagine him: “Just lean the fucker left. Who cares about the blank spots?” And indeed, who does, really?

In addition to a great piece of art, as a bonus we’ve also uploaded some Arena production photos we found scattered around the internet over the years. Most of them were shot by Italian lensman Angelo Frontoni, whose work we’ve admired often. As it is a lusty sort of movie, some of the shots are a bit lusty too. We had these sitting about and didn’t have a real good excuse to share them until today, so from the good old days of ’70s sexploitation behold: Grier, Markov, Lucretia Love, Maria Pia Conte, Rosalba Neri, and others in barely-there gladiatorial gear—and sometimes less. We can’t say the film is perfect, but it’s definitely worth a watch.

Peru, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, United Artists, Concorde Pictures, The Arena, Naked Warriors, Pam Grier, Margaret Markov, Maria Pia Conte, Rosalba Neri, Lucretia Love, Roger Corman, Angelo Frontoni, sexploitation, poster art, cinema, nudity

Intl. Notebook

September 30 2019

ENTER CONTINENTAL

For British movie lovers Continental Film Review was their ticket across the English Channel.

Continental Film Review was first published—as far as we can discern—in November 1952. We decided on that month because we saw a copy from February 1953 numbered Vol. 1 Issue 4, and the masthead said the magazine was published the first week of every month. CFR would go on to become one of Britain’s most popular film magazines, exposing English language readers to the wide variety of foreign movies being made across continental Europe. The above issue appeared this month in 1966 with cover star Maria Pia Conte, and numerous film personalities inside, including Vanessa Redgrave, Alan Bates, Rossana Podesta, Evi Marandi, and more. We have other issues we’ll get around to sharing at some point. In the meantime see more here, here, here, and here.

ABOUT

EMAIL

LEGAL

SEARCH PULP INTERNATIONAL

PULP INTL.
HISTORY REWIND

The headlines that mattered yesteryear.

February 11

1938—BBC Airs First Sci-Fi Program

BBC Television produces the first ever science fiction television program, an adaptation of a section of Czech writer Karel Capek’s dark play R.U.R., aka, Rossum’s Universal Robots. The robots in the play are not robots in the modern sense of machines, but rather are biological entities that can be mistaken for humans. Nevertheless, R.U.R. featured the first known usage of the term “robot”.

February 10

1962—Powers Is Traded for Abel

Captured American spy pilot Gary Powers, who had been shot down over the Soviet Union in May 1960 while flying a U-2 high-altitude jet, is exchanged for captured Soviet spy Rudolf Abel, who had been arrested in New York City in 1957.

February 9

1960—Woodward Gets First Star on Walk of Fame

Actress Joanne Woodward receives the first star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, the Los Angeles sidewalk at Hollywood Boulevard and Vine Street that serves as an outdoor entertainment museum. Woodward was one of 1,558 honorees chosen by the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce in 1958, when the proposal to build the sidewalk was approved. Today the sidewalk contains more than 2,800 stars.

February 9

1971—Paige Enters Baseball Hall of Fame

Satchel Paige becomes the first player from America’s Negro Baseball League to be voted into the Major League Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York. Paige, who was a pitcher, played for numerous Negro League teams, had brief stints in Cuba, Mexico, Puerto Rico, and the Major Leagues, before finally retiring in his mid-fifties.

February 8

1969—Allende Meteorite Falls in Mexico

The Allende Meteorite, the largest object of its type ever found, falls in the Mexican state of Chihuahua. The original stone, traveling at more than ten miles per second and leaving a brilliant streak across the sky, is believed to have been approximately the size of an automobile. But by the time it hit the Earth it had broken into hundreds of fragments.