vintage and modern pulp fiction; noir, schlock and exploitation films; scandals, swindles and news
Above is an MGM promo handout for the film noir Tension, which starred Audrey Totter and hit cinemas today in 1949. It was painted in ink by the same person who did the poster, one of the greatest artists in cinema poster history—the inimitable uncredited. It’s a great piece by a true master. We’ve shown you a lot of Tension‘s U.S. promo art, and today’s doesn’t even empty the well of what’s out there, but it’s the last time we’ll dip into it. So many vintage films, so little time…
Above: a cool 1928 MGM promo image of top tier U.S. actress Anita Page, who featured in such films as West of Zanzibar and The Broadway Melody. Her career straddled the silent and talkie eras, and she was a star in both. This is a great and sexy shot, a bit eyebrow raising at the time, we’d guess, thanks to that wandering left hand that could be up to anything. You can see more of her here, and we’ll show you more of her soon.
Online you see this photo captioned something like, “Grace Kelly has a nap in Africa on the set of the 1953 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer movie Mogambo.” It’s clear, though, that the shot is staged. See all those footprints around Kelly’s mattress? Grips, best boys, production assistants, and other species of cinematic wildlife have been constantly trekking through there lugging heavy gear. If she were really in need of a catnap we feel she’d be off to the side, somewhere under shelter from the brutal African sun, for example in a tent reserved for her, so we suspect she and the good folks at MGM chose this spot for a quick photo op. But it’s a fun shot. In Africa or out of it, Kelly was hella hot.
Above: a couple of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer promos for Raquel Welch’s 1970 drama Flareup. That’s a strange looking word, we know. The movie actually should be called, “Flare Up” or “Flare-Up.” If you think MGM was confused about how hyphenates work, you should see the movie. Non-stop confusion there. But we do like the Welch graphics that feature on these posters. You can read more here.
A wild hairdo, a bit of animal hide, and not much else usually comprises an actress’s costume for the typical lost world flick. Raquel Welch is considered by many to be the pinnacle of visual achievement in that area (though opinions vary), but U.S. actress Edwina Booth beat Raquel to it by more than three decades. She’s clad in monkey fur and a few animal teeth in this striking promo image made for her adventure Trader Horn. We won’t talk about the movie extensively today because we may delve into it later, but let’s just say that as a pre-Code film set in Africa there’s a lot to unpack. In addition, though it made Booth a star it ruined her career because she contracted malaria or schistosomiasis, prompting her to sue MGM Studios for negligence, her illness being—according to her lawsuit—a direct result of being made to run around the jungle half naked. She was probably right. As a reward she was blacklisted in Hollywood. Nevertheless, she looks very beautiful here. Trader Horn came out in early 1931, so this shot would be from sometime in 1930.
Jean Harlow actually smiled plenty, and was photographed that way numerous times. But for intensity she couldn’t be topped, as this smoldering Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer promo image from 1930 shows. It was made when she was filming The Secret Six. Want to see Harlow smile? There’s a good photo in this post.
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?
LSD, which was originally synthesized by a Swiss doctor and was later secretly used by the CIA on military personnel, prostitutes, the mentally ill, and members of the general public in a project code named MKULTRA, is designated a controlled substance in the United States.
A six month strike by Hollywood set decorators becomes a riot at the gates of Warner Brothers Studios when strikers and replacement workers clash. The event helps bring about the passage of the Taft-Hartley Act, which, among other things, prohibits unions from contributing to political campaigns and requires union leaders to affirm they are not supporters of the Communist Party.
The Soviet Union launches the satellite Sputnik I, which becomes the first artificial object to orbit the Earth. It orbits for two months and provides valuable information about the density of the upper atmosphere. It also panics the United States into a space race that eventually culminates in the U.S. moon landing.
American blues singer Janis Joplin is found dead on the floor of her motel room in Los Angeles. The cause of death is determined to be an overdose of heroin, possibly combined with the effects of alcohol.
The newspaper Pravda is founded by Leon Trotsky, Adolph Joffe, Matvey Skobelev and other Russian exiles living in Vienna. The name means “truth” and the paper serves as an official organ of the Central Committee of the Communist Party between 1912 and 1991.
An obscenity trial brought against Lawrence Ferlinghetti, owner of the counterculture City Lights Bookstore in San Francisco, reaches its conclusion when Judge Clayton Horn rules that Allen Ginsberg’s poetry collection Howl is not obscene.
After a long trial watched by millions of people worldwide, former football star O.J. Simpson is acquitted of the murders of ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ronald Goldman. Simpson subsequently loses a civil suit and is ordered to pay millions in damages.
