| Vintage Pulp | Nov 17 2023 |
They're going to salvage a lost cargo come hell or Haie water.
We had a foreign double feature last night, following up La tentación desnuda with Haie am Todesriff, which was originally Italian made as Bermude: la fossa maledetta. Known in English as Cave of Sharks, it premiered in Italy in June 1978 and opened in West Germany today the same year. It is, to be succinct, a Jaws knock-off made with less imagination and less budget.
Set on and around the fictive island of San Domingo, which is somewhere near Bermuda, the movie stars Andrés Garcia as a member of an oceanographic expedition who turns up with amnesia six months after his boat goes missing and his colleagues are lost. During those six months that Garcia was presumed dead, his brother tried to move in on his girl Janet Agren—for which he cannot in any be blamed—but with his bro's reappearance there's now a budding love triangle.
Later a plane crashes near San Domingo under strange circumstances with an illegal cargo, sending organized crime figures into to action to recover their loot. Under false pretenses, they hire Garcia, sending him right back into the dread sector of ocean from he'd been fished. He discovers strange, mystical sharks, and thinks they might be the key to getting his memory back. He loses all interest in the crooks' treasure, but they think he's found it and is withholding it. Trouble looms.
Does all this sound dumb? You aren't wrong. And the bad plot isn't helped by bad acting, bad action, and incredibly bad miniature work. This one isn't worth your time, even with Janet Agren in the co-starring role. But to make reading this worthwhile, we've added a nice Agren shot to the promos below.
ItalyWest GermanyGermanyBermudaHaie am TodesriffBermude: la fossa maledettaCave of the SharksAndrés GarcíaJanet AgrenArthur Kennedyposter artcinemamovie review
| Vintage Pulp | Nov 11 2023 |
She's always there when you need her, but who's there for her?
For years we've been eyeing this awesome promotional poster for the Anne Francis prostitution drama Girl of the Night and always meant to get around to watching the movie. Mission accomplished, finally. The film premiered today in 1960 and was based on The Call Girl, a bestselling book by psychologist Harold Greenwald that began as a doctoral dissertation about prostitutes. We gather it focused on the rationalizations women used to distance themselves from or compartmentalize the work. We wonder if it's outdated by now, but at the time the book was a sensation.
Francis plays Bobbie Williams, a call girl whose bad night causes her to begin talking with a therapist in her building. The movie takes the form of a couch confessional with flashbacks, as we learn about Francis's circumstances, and particularly about the two people—basically a pimp and madame—who conned her into the racket. As the therapy progresses we learn more about her past, including the delivery man who—this part is obviously vague considering the time period—either molested or raped her when she was a child.
With help maybe Francis can break loose from her cage, but it won't be easy. She's emotionally dependent on her pimp, and because she has no job skills freedom looks like another form of imprisonment. We thought all of this was pretty well done. Make no mistake—this movie is a melodrama, but it kept us interested, and that's entirely to the credit of Francis. She's best known these days for her virginal turn in 1956's Forbidden Planet, but she had range, and shows it as the burned out prostitute at the center of the film. For her performance alone, we recommend Girl of the Night.
New York CityGirl of the NightAnne FrancisLloyd NolanKay MedfordJohn KerrEileen FultonHarold Greenwaldposter artcinemaprostitutionmovie review
| Vintage Pulp | Oct 27 2023 |
1001 nights is not nearly enough time with Ayako Meki, Erina Miyai, and Izumi Shima.
A few years ago we shared an ultra rare tateken promo for the 1001 Nights inspired roman porno flick Tokyo eros senya ichiya. That poster was a follow-up to a standard poster we'd shared back in 2017. In both cases the movie was unavailable for us to watch. Well, above you see a magazine page featuring the movie's co-star Ayako Meki. This isn't directly a promo for the film, but she's dressed in character. The text says “because you look 21,” which is weird, and goes on to describe her as “an exciting new power.” We're showing this to you because the movie premiered today in 1979, and this time we did have a copy to watch.
Known in English as Eros Nights in Tokyo, the story here involves lonely young Kiyoyasu Adachi and three women in his life—Izumi Shima, Ayako Meki, and Erina Miyai. We can't fault the guy's taste, but we do take exception to his methods. He succumbs to creepy urges such as spying on Shima (who's his stepmother), attempting to force a kiss upon Meki (which devolves into a full-scale perv attack), and looking up the skirt of Miyai (who's mentally disabled). Later he grows a bit more subtle in his attempts to indulge his urges, such as when he convinces Shima to accept a personalized wash, full body massage, and more. After that nipply nuru session, his stepmom is fully on board with further advances.
By now it's clear to the viewer that fantasy has overtaken reality for Adachi. We've seen this line crossed in numerous films, and it's usually a subtle trip across the border. When did it happen here? It's hard to be sure, but probably sometime after Adachi was chased by a policeman that somehow multiplied into an entire Keystone Kops style squad, and sometime before he was showered with a fortune in gold coins from a fountain.
All this stuff is mostly played for laughs, and indeed there are some legitimately funny moments, though not nearly as many as the filmmakers intended. We're talking about a Nikkatsu Studios roman porno production, which means that even as comedy it has the usual trappings of that genre, and those trappings just aren't humorous. For example, there's an attempted gang rape, which Adachi foils in full gangster mode, as the entire situation morphs into a set piece right out of American grindhouse cinema. Funny? No. Creative. For sure.
As we've mentioned before, by 1979 Nikkatsu was trying new ideas for its roman porno line, and Tokyo eros senya ichiya certainly qualifies. It's hard to judge such an outrageous flick objectively, so we won't try except to say that it's well made, as these films always are. We will mention, though, that we were disappointed none of the stars wore a harem costume. It turns out that 1001 Nights was a more oblique inspiration than we assumed. Have a look at the other posters here and here and you'll see what we expected. Do we recommend the film? Yes, of course. It has Izumi Shima. Full stop.
JapanNikkatsuTokyo eros senya ichiyaEros Nights in TokyoIzumi ShimaMegi AyakoAyako MekiIrina Miyaipinkuposter artcinemaroman pornomovie review
| Vintage Pulp | Oct 23 2023 |
For her taking risks is just feline nature.
This poster was made for Toba no mesu neko: Suhada no tsubo furi, known in English as Cat Girls Gamblers: Naked Flesh Paid into the Pot, the second of three Cat Girls films. We shared a poster for the first back in 2014 before we could access the movies, but now we have them, so we screened part two last night. The lead in this and the other installments is Yumiko Nogawa, who plays a wandering gambler whose murdered father was a famous maker of rigged dice. After Nogawa's lover is killed in a dice game she swears never to play again, takes a job working at a Turkish bath, and seems to be dedicated to living a quiet existence.
But her idyll is turned upside down when she shelters a recently paroled criminal who wants to gain control of a yakuza territory he'd been promised before going to prison. The crime boss currently running the territory has no intention of giving it up, and Nogawa seems likely to be dragged into the middle of the conflict. As it turns out, she's working in the Turkish bath only as a means to find her father's killer. Since her interests and those of her new friend are aligned, they hatch a plot that just might give them both what they want.
This is a solid effort from Nikkatsu Studios, before the front office bigwigs had their roman porno revelation and leaned hard into sexploitation for the entire 1970s and beyond. Shot in black and white, the feel is arthouse, with a police subplot giving it shadings of an American detective drama. Nogawa, a movie veteran who began her career with 1964's famed Nikutai no mon, is self-assured as the headliner, and the entire supporting cast is good. A climactic fight perhaps won't seem convincingly choreographed to modern viewers, but we recommend taking a chance on this gambling drama anyway. Toba no mesu neko: Suhada no tsubo furi premiered in Japan today in 1965.
JapanNikkatsuToba no mesu neko: Suhada no tsubo furiCat Girls Gamblers: Naked Flesh Paid into the PotYumiko NogawaHideaki NitaniTatsuya Fujiposter artcinemamovie review
| Vintage Pulp | Oct 19 2023 |
Gemser adds a few degrees to the equatorial heat.
Yup, Laura Gemser again. It's just one of those things. La donna della calda terra premiered in Italy two days after Emanuelle e gli ultimi cannibali, so you get to enjoy her twice this week. Above are two posters for the former film, which was originally made in Spanish and released as La mujer de la tierra caliente, then retitled in English as Emanuelle - A Woman from a Hot Country, and, more succinctly, Fury. By this point Gemser's Emanuelle series had pitted her against everything from slavers to cannibals, but here she headlines something close to a straight drama, as she meets Stuart Whitman while both are hitchhiking the hot backroads of Venezuela. As they sit together in a horse trailer being towed across the country, they tell each other their tragic histories.
We've made fun of the bizarre plots of Gemser's movies, but this attempt at unsensationalistic drama is conceptually flat and the screenplay is terrible. Our favorite line: “Don't pay too much attention to women. We have days in which we see everything distorted.” We'd retort that men have entire lifetimes in which they see everything distorted, which is why the world is fucked. *checking credits* Yeah, the screenplay was written by men. Well, they dropped the ball here, not just because of bad writing, but because—and we never thought we'd say this—Gemser's movies need rampant weirdness to be watchable. So give up being normal and enbrace the bizarre. Bring on the slavers and cannibals. They were sorely missed. After premiering in Spain in July 1978, La donna della calda terra opened in Italy today the same year.
SpainItalyVenezuelaLa donna della calda terraEmanuelle - A Woman from a Hot CountryFuryLaura GemserStuart WhitmanGabriele TintiPaola SenatorePilar VelazquezAmel Amorposter artcinemasexploitationnuditymovie review
| Vintage Pulp | Oct 17 2023 |
There are no limits to what Diana Dors can convince men to do.
After all these years working on this website it remains a surprise when promotional posters of extremely high quality are uncredited, but such is the case with these two Italian beauties made for Nel tuo corpo l'inferno, a movie originally produced in England as Tread Softly, Stranger. The Italian title translates as “hell in the body,” which we rather like. It fits the plot, which revolves around George Baker avoiding a gambling debt by fleeing London to the small town where he was raised, only to find that his brother who lives there is also in debt, having stolen money from his employer. He's spent it on femme fatale Diana Dors, who's way out of his league, money-hungry, and willing to pit the brothers against each other if it improves her station in life.
Baker, being of sound mind and body, wants Dors badly. With just a little nudge, he and his brother are convinced by Dors to stage a heist. The phrase “corpus delecti” in legal terms means that a crime has to be proved to have actually occurred before anyone can be convicted of it, but in vintage cinema nobody has to prove anything because the scales of justice tend to be cosmic. As viewers, then, you know the brothers could be convicted by karma for just attempting the crime. They get the loot, but they certainly won't get to keep it—though how they lose it will come as a surprise. And if one of the brothers gets Dors, they probably won't get to keep her either. In mid-century crime movies thems the breaks. Tread Softly, Stranger premiered in Britain in 1958, and in Italy today in 1960.
ItalyEnglandNel tuo corpo l'infernoTread Softly StrangerDiana DorsTerence MorganGeorge BakerPatrick Allenposter artcinemamovie review
| Vintage Pulp | Oct 11 2023 |
With Bogart and Bacall in the starring roles an unusual fugitive movie takes flight.
This beautiful poster for La fuga was painted by Italian artist Luigi Martinati, and you doubtless recognize Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall. They starred in four movies together and had a dual cameo in a fifth. This promo was made for their fourth outing Dark Passage, retitled to “the escape” in Italy. And therein lies the plot. Bogart breaks prison and undergoes a backalley cosmetic surgery procedure on his face in order to evade the cops and have a chance to solve the crime for which he was unjustly sent up the river.
The filmmakers decided to use the gimmick of having the first section of the film in Bogart-vision—i.e. first person pov until he gets his new face. It makes sense. Otherwise they'd have needed to have another actor play pre-surgery Bogart, or have resorted to clunky make-up and prosthetics. Bacall co-stars as unlikely shelter and succor, plus the prospect of love—if Bogie can survive. It's a good movie.
But we're going to tack upwind at this point and suggest that Dark Passage, while good, isn't as scintillating as its reputation. Certainly it isn't in the class of To Have and Have Not, Key Largo, or The Big Sleep. But hey—it stars B&B, and that's all audiences of the era really cared about. Three years into her film career Bacall had grown into superstardom—or stardom as it was called back then—and dished out a performance here that did plenty with a thin script and a belief defying scenario.
The other star here is San Francisco, where most of the movie was shot. The city appeared in many period productions, but we can't think of it ever being used to such an extent as in Dark Passage. Since we lived across the Bay in Berkeley for a couple of years, we got to know San Fran well and it's fun to see it as it once was. Dark Passage—slightly overrated and all—is fun too. It premiered in the U.S. in 1947 and reached Italy today in 1948.
ItalySan FranciscoLa fugaDark PassageHumphrey BogartLauren BacallLuigi Martinatiposter artcinemamovie reviewfilm noir
| Vintage Pulp | Oct 2 2023 |
Russ Meyer and Co. do it in the desert.
Above is a Japanese poster made for Cherry, Harry & Raquel, on which the local distributors splash that magical English word “Sex.” Twice we've discussed this practice and shared examples, here and here. The movie is one of numerous exploitation efforts from Russ Meyer, who graced American grindhouse cinemas with such dubious classics as Wild Gals of the Naked West, Motorpsycho!, Mondo Topless, Beyond the Valley of the Dolls, and Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!
Cherry, Harry & Raquel deals with a bordertown sheriff and his sidekick who smuggle marijuana, and are instructed by their drug boss to kill a former partner who's gone into business on his own. The hunt-and-kill operation goes wrong, as the prey quickly becomes the predator. In Meyer's hands the film is something of a desertified hallucinogenic short, intercut with random scenes of nudity and seduction to stretch it to feature length. The sexual content is mostly played for laughs, and none of it is erotic. At least as far as we were concerned.
It was the poster and Meyer's name that drew us, and we were also a bit curious to check out b-movie legend Charles Napier in one of his earliest roles, but none of what we saw impressed us. When Meyer was on his game his movies could be entertaining. Faster Pussycat and Valley of the Dolls are both worth a watch just for their self-conscious silliness. But unless you're a Meyer completist, we recommend skipping Cherry, Harry & Raquel. It opened in the U.S. in 1969, and eventually reached Japan today in 1976.
JapanCherry Harry & RaquelWild Gals of the Naked WestMotorpsycho!Mondo ToplessFaster Pussycat! Kill! Kill!Linda AshtonCharles NapierLarissa ElyUschi DigardRuss Meyerposter artcinemadrugsnuditymovie review
| Modern Pulp | Oct 1 2023 |
Erin Moran and co-stars have some unhappy days in outer space.
Galaxy of Terror, which premiered in the U.S. today in 1981, was produced by New World Pictures and Roger Corman, and you know what that means—no budget. Corman must have really licked his chops when he heard this pitch. In his genius, he probably realized immediately that he could avoid millions of dollars in costs by making his sets extra cheap and simply bathing them in darkness in order to save on production design. He also went cheap on script, direction, sound, music, special effects, and costuming. The result was one of many terrible outer space movies to hit multiplexes in the wake of Star Wars and Alien. This one is distinct in being influenced by both of those classics while sharing none of their advantages.
The plot deals with an intrepid crew of nine who embark on a military style rescue mission, seeking a ship lost in a distant star system on a planet called Organthus. After various travails, they land on the accursed world, find the lost ship, and make the mistake of entering it. Giant leeches, deadly shuriken, and other horrors bloodily whittle the crew down to an unfortunate few, at which point comes the infamous moment—which may be the only reason Galaxy of Terror is remembered—when poor Taaffe O'Connell is raped and killed by a giant maggot. The mission only goes farther downhill from there as Corman digs deep into the New World prop department for a couple of mothballed monsters to terrorize the survivors.
The thing about science fiction movies back then is that it was impossible to have an inkling of what the end result might be. Basically, the producers said, “Trust us, it'll look good.” The cast of Stars Wars took a leap of faith and were rewarded. The casts of imitator movies hoped to capture the same magic and failed over and over. Galaxy of Terror's budget of five million dollars probably sounded okay, considering Stars Wars cost eleven. The heady desire to roll the dice and hope for the best is probably what enticed co-star Erin Moran into taking a little moonlight ride from her hit television show Happy Days to appear in this turkey. Afterward, she may have considered a lobotomy to help her forget the entire ordeal.
There are, however, a few plusses to Galaxy of Terror. First, young production designer James Cameron probably learned that in sci-fi there's a budgetary floor beneath which disaster is assured, and would later make three of the best and most successful science fiction movies of all time (no, we're not counting Avatar). Second, co-star Zalman King probably realized sci-fi was for suckers, went softcore as a producer and director, and churned out such memorable (and now anachronistic) erotica as Red Shoe Diaries, Two Moon Junction, and Wild Orchid. And third, the poster art by Charo (not the singer) is nice. Also, the movie brought our special consulting critic Angela the Sunbear out of her cave. Watching Galaxy of Terror with her was really fun.
I think the crew should have stayed in hibernation.
New World PicturesGalaxy of TerrorHappy DaysEdward AlbertErin MoranRobert EnglundZalman KingSid HaigGrace ZabriskieTaaffe O'ConnellBernard BehrensRay WalstonRoger CormanJames CameronCharoposter artcinema movie reviewsci-fihorror
| Vintage Pulp | Sep 28 2023 |
Love her and leave her coming after you for revenge.
We didn't know La ragazza con la pistola, aka The Girl with a Pistol, was a comedy. Based on this beautiful poster painted by Giorgio Olivetti we never considered the possibility that it was anything other than a crime thriller. But mere seconds into our screening we realized it was a sort of screwball adventure. Sometimes you get fooled. Basically, Monica Vitti plays a Sicilian woman who is devirginized and abandoned by Carlo Giuffrè, is therefore labeled “dishonored” by her family and everyone in her village, and thus feels compelled to chase Giuffrè all the way to Edinburgh to kill him. Giuffrè manages to evade her, forcing her to follow him to Sheffield, Bath, and beyond (as she's tormented by a Sicilian chorus of wailing villagers during interstitial segments). So what you get here is a sort of wacky fish-out-of-water comedy.
The movie is also a satire of traditional Italian social values. Though Vitti's character was a virgin, because she gave in to Giuffrè he automatically considers her a whore—that old paradox. Other explorations of outdated gender roles occur, including the idea of aggression versus resistance in romance. And it's eyebrow raising how men in this era—or at least in this movie—don't consider women to have possession of their own bodies. Vitti is pawed, harassed, and kidnapped—for comedic purposes, but still. The idea of using violence to retain honor pops up more than once too. All in all, La ragazza con la pistola is fascinating cultural exploration, legitimately funny in parts, headlined by one of Europe's great vintage stars. It's worth a look—even though it isn't a crime thriller. It premiered in Italy today in 1968.
ItalyEnglandScotlandSicilyEdinburghSheffieldLa ragazza con la pistolaThe Girl with a PistolMonica VittiStanley BakerCorin RedgraveAnthony BoothGiorgio Olivettiposter artcinema movie review
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