Pulp International

vintage and modern pulp fiction; noir, schlock and exploitation films; scandals, swindles and news

NUDIST WOULD HAPPEN

If you get nervous just pretend the people around you are clothed.

Ah, yes—1960s nudist camps, where everyone was in excellent shape and the male to female ratio was 1:1, or so say the movies of that period. Gentlemen Prefer Nature Girls, which premiered today in 1963, is about professional couple Lou Alexion and Joan Bamford, who happen to be nudists in their spare time. When their healthy, happy lifestyle is discovered by their boss, Alexion is fired. This leads to a much needed nude vacation at a resort, where Alexion discovers that a potential client he’s been trying to woo is a nudist too. He plots with the client to put everything right by sealing a deal, getting his job back, and teaching his uptight boss that nudism is fine and dandy. In a movie seventy or so minutes long you can’t fit in acres of bare skin and a complex plot.

These nudist films are total fantasia. The nudists here in Spain, with their leathery tans and low hanging nutsacks (the male to female ratio is like 10:1) don’t look anything like the dewy twenty-somethings in the old films. While there are numerous stunning bodies on the non-nudist beaches here, and they even get naked at times, the dedicated nudists who go to marked nudist beaches are generally older and aren’t healthy looking at all. While it’s true that a nude beach open to the public isn’t the same as a members only—heh—nudist resort, we still have a hard time believing they ever looked like they do in Gentlemen Prefer Nature Girls. But that’s okay—it’s just entertainment. And on that front, it’s weightless, guileless, and harmless. We’ll take that anytime.

Gentlemen Prefer Nature Girls, Lou Alexion, Joan Bamford, William Mayer, Dolores K. Norris, Sandra Sinclair, Sandy Sinclair, Mary Jo Walls, poster art, cinema, nudity, nudism, movie review

WITCHES REALLY SUCK

Hsiu-Chen Chen gives the worst head of all time.

In Chinese ghost myths, as well as those of other Asian countries, there’s a folkloric creature that takes the form of a cursed woman’s floating head trailing gory, dripping internal organs. It bites people with its long fangs and drinks their blood to sustain itself. As curses go, your head flying off is a pretty rough one. It’s amazing that this concept goes back to antiquity, because it’s pretty damn gruesome to even contemplate. Because of that, Fei tou mo nu, made in Taiwan and known in English as The Witch with Flying Head, doesn’t have to do much more for success than make the flying head realistic enough for suspension of disbelief.

That happens, alright, though barely, and everything else follows as smoothly as entrails. The woman in question, high born lady Hsiu-Chen Chen, is tricked by sorcerer Shang-Chien Liu in the early moments of the film, given a magical poison. Why does Shang-Chien curse Hsiu-Chen? He wants to marry her. Clearly, trust, honor, and respect would not feature in such a union—could she ever really forget being coerced into marriage? And as for him—could he ever set aside the fact that his wife had sucked the bodily fluids of numerous men? They’d both have to enter the relationship in a spirit of forgiving past transgressions.

A powerful magician is brought in to protect Hsiu-Chen, but he discovers that the head does more than fly. It breathes fire too. He’s defeated in due course, learning too late never to turn his back on a flying head. Seems like that would be in the sorcerer’s manual on page one, but whatever. Hsiu-Chen and her two faithful servant ladies next move to the wilderness so the head has nobody to suck on. Think that’ll work? Of course not—even in the countryside people wander haplessly by to be drained. Luckily beneficent old mages with useful talismans are not as thin on the ground in the middle of nowhere as you’d presume.

Fei tou mo nu is entertaining despite itself. Its main flaw is that its last twenty minutes veer into grating, intergenerational melodrama. Still, we bet the cultural relevance of its premise helped it to earn well in Asia at the time. Its other traits—it’s cheap, garish, ludicrous, and overacted—make it a perfect U.S. style grindhouse feature. If it ever reached American cinemas those must have been uproarious showings. Seems like it could be adapted into a modern, gory, body horror masterpiece. We’ll patiently await that, Hollywood. Or Bollywood. Or Y’allywood. Anywood—just get on it. Fei tou mo nu premiered in Taiwan today in 1982, but we’ve shared its Thai poster because that’s the best one available.

China, Taiwan, Thailand, Fei tou mo nu, The Witch with Flying Head, Hsiu-Chen Chen, Shang-Chien Liu, Chang Ma, poster art, cinema, horror, movie review

ONE MISSTEP BEYOND

Too far gone, too late to turn back.

William Powell, in old Hollywood parlance, could carry a movie. He’s asked to do just that in Take One False Step, which premiered today in 1949, and is a find-the-real-killer flick in which the police slowly close in on him as he tries to save his own skin. It all starts on a San Francisco business trip when he runs into wartime flame Shelley Winters, hangs out with her one evening, then she turns up murdered the next morning. The two have generated a trail of inconvenient witnesses from the previous night, and Powell left behind a scarf that police consider a crucial piece of evidence.

As required by the form, Powell amateurs his way from scrape to scrape, somehow managing to gather clues, avoid the cops, receive assistance from two girls Friday played by Marsha Hunt and Dorothy Hart, and handle an interesting twist involving a dog, which we won’t give away. On the whole, Take One False Step is solid entertainment, well carried by the stalwart Powell. There wasn’t much he couldn’t do on a movie screen, and this, particularly, is right in his wheelhouse. “How did I ever get into this, anyway?” he muses. “I was just minding my own business.” That, Mr. Powell, is the entire point.

Take One False Step, William Powell, Shelley Winters, Marsha Hunt, Dorothy Hart, James Gleason, poster art, cinema, movie review

MATERIAL GIRL

Diamonds are a jewel thief's best friends.

We weren’t particularly drawn by this photo-illustrated poster for the cheapie crime mystery Girl in 313, but when we learned that it had a fifty-five minute running time we figured, “Yeah, we can squeeze that in.” It opens with a jewelry model fainting at a showing and, in the confusion, someone snatching a $50,000 brooch from around her neck. Insurance investigator Kent Taylor thinks it was Florence Rice, and sets out to retreieve the item. The two are drawn to each other, and during their flirtatious cat and mouse encounters become closer, even as Taylor keeps trying to secure the brooch. But does Rice really have it? She’s strangely untroubled for a jewel thief who has an investigator on her trail.

We liked this movie, but at less than an hour you should go into it with modest expectations. There isn’t time for major subplots or deep character development. You do get a bit of misdirection, which every mystery needs, no matter how short. Both Taylor and Rice are fine in their roles, which is no surprise—Taylor, though only thirty-four, had already appeared in more than sixty films, including the fascinating White Woman, and Rice, no amateur either, had featured in more than thirty. When you add to their shared experience a workable script and solid direction, a decent result is almost pre-ordained, even if it’s just a b-production.

What’s never pre-ordained in vintage cinema are the surprising and illuminating sights to which you’re occasionally treated—oftentimes things you could never have imagined. In this case, the leader of a rumba orchestra plays the jawbone of a horse with a stick. Or maybe it’s a donkey. Hard to tell the difference when it comes to jaws. We learned that the instrument is a quijada, it’s a donkey jaw, and it’s traditional in Mexico and Peru, though it originated in Africa, where zebras were the unlucky providers. We’d never seen an instrument like it, but next time we go to Mexico we’ll keep an eye out. Girl in 313, bones and all, premiered today in 1940.

Twentieth Century Fox, Girl in 313, Florence Rice, Kent Taylor, Lionel Atwill, Katharine Aldridge, Elyse Knox, poster art, cinema, movie review

A MILLION STRONG

Men are being watched and women aren't impressed. So—par for the course.

This promo poster from American International Pictures for The Million Eyes of Sumuru had us at palace of pleasure. No, actually, it had us back when we read the source material, which was Sax Rohmer’s Sumuru novels, about a cabal of women plotting to take over the world because men have royally screwed it. But where Rohmer goes for thrills and chills, The Million Eyes of Sumuru goes largely for laughs. In order to pull that off, cornball heartthrob Frankie Avalon was given the co-lead opposite impressive haircut George Nader, and both are assigned a quip a minute. Other performers are also saddled with laugh lines, or alternatively, dumb eccentricities. And poor Klaus Kinski is made up green. Was this really needed?

He burns hole in Nader’s crotch too. Notice that? Anyway, we’d have preferred a more serious treatment of Rohmer’s creation, but judging objectively, the movie is okay for what it is. It takes a few elements from book one but largely charts its own course, as viewers meet Sumuru (Shirley Eaton), get to know her henchwomen (especially Ursula Rank), and learn of their ruthlessness. Nader is brought inside Sumuru’s current plot involving a political assassination in Hong Kong, but of course he’s just playing along. We have to say, as such a poor judge of character Sumuru simply isn’t destined to rule the world, but it’s occasional fun watching her and her lethal minions try. The Million Eyes of Sumuru premiered today in 1967.

Hong Kong, American International Pictures, The Million Eyes of Su-Muru, The Million Eyes of Sumuru, Frankie Avalon, George Nader, Shirley Eaton, Wilfrid Hyde-White, Klaus Kinski, Salli Sachse, Ursula Rank, Krista Nell, Maria Rohm, Patti Chandler, Sax Rohmer, poster art, cinema, movie review

DOWNWARD DOG

It doesn't just bite—it kills and swallows whole.

Now we go from a million eyes to one eye. Black Eye, which premiered today in 1974, stars Fred Williamson in his eighth leading role, and though you may not have heard of the film, it’s one of those rare blaxploitation flicks in which you can see a bit of money on the screen. We’re talking in terms of lighting, framing, locations, night shooting, and more areas where cheaper movies were forced to cut corners. Despite the high production value and the gloss it produces, movies depend mainly on acting and that’s something that only talent can solve. Williamson does mostly okay, but he’s stretched to a few lengths that prove difficult for him to reach, with a predictable effect on the movie’s overall quality. He plays Shep Stone, an erstwhile police lieutenant drummed off the force for killing a drug dealer. He finds himself involved in the murder of his girlfriend’s upstairs neighbor, which had something to do with a silver-tipped cane stolen from a casket in the movie’s opening minutes. Naturally the case unfolds to reveal more than just theft and murder. Expect the expected.

However, Black Eye also has some unusual elements. Williamson is annoyed that his girlfriend Teresa Graves has indulged in a lesbian fling, but gets schooled by her in a very modern way on sexuality, male expectations, and labeling. Graves: “I’m not a lesbian. It just so happens that somebody I find very interesting and have a great deal in common with happens to be a woman.” And speaking of sexuality, some viewers may enjoy this flick a little extra thanks to an unihibited beachfront display by Williamson—we’re talking big-dick-in-a-Speedo action. In slow motion, too, so you can get a really good look. We imagine Williamson at the premiere, nudging people in the ribs: “You see that? That big old thing flopping around? That’s all me. It’s a grower too.” Graves, for her part, offers some lovely buttcrack in the same beach sequence. She’s really beautiful, so it’s a good thing. It’s the two of them, in their second screen pairing, that make Black Eye worth watching. You can’t help but be charmed, just a little.

Warner Brothers, Black Eye, Fred Williamson, Rosemary Forsyth, Teresa Graves, Richard Anderson, Floy Dean, Nancy Fisher, poster art, cinema, blaxploitation, movie review, lgbt

DANGEROUS KNOWLEDGE

Stewart gets schooled in the ways of murder and manipulation.

Alfred Hitchcock, by the time he made The Man Who Knew Too Much in 1956, was one of only a few directors that could—in Hollywood parlance—“open” a film. Which is to say his name automatically drew the full spectrum of ticket buyers. “There’s a new Hitchcock at the Odeon,” would be a normal comment at dinner tables. He was as big a star as the actors he cast. Bigger, sometimes. The Man Who Knew Too Much was his second pass at material he’d originally filmed in 1934, but for his second swipe he had Technicolor, a wide screen, and frequent collaborator James Stewart in the lead, alongside Doris Day.

It’s the tale of an American surgeon who takes a vacation in Marrakech and is passed a secret message by a dying man. That makes him, wife Doris, and their son, targets in a shadowy international intrigue designed to orchestrate the assassination of a foreign dignitary. The story migrates to London for its second half, where a series of set pieces hurtles viewers toward a climax at the Royal Albert Hall during a packed opera.

We don’t think it’s one of Hitchcock’s best efforts. There are numerous unlikely plot contrivances, and a bit where Dr. Stewart sedates Day before telling her bad news is so discordant today that we don’t know many women who wouldn’t rage at it. But okay, movies age, and sometimes specific aspects don’t age well. We sometimes judge them from our modern perspective, but mainly we focus on their contemporaneous merits—or try to. Hitchcock, a celebrity filmmaker helming his forty-third film and in need of new twists for audiences that had outsize expectations of his suspense mastery, stitches a few tortured sequences into his filmic tapestry.

But the movie has many attractions too. Stewart and Day are pretty solid working with a tricky script. The final sequence and its dependence upon an orchestral cymbal crash to drown out an assassin’s gunshot is unlikely but fun. Several moments of comedy hit the target. The Marrakech

sequences are entertaining to watch. At least they were for us—the medina hasn’t changed in basic character at all. We were easily able to pick out specific buildings we saw just last year. Conversely, London has done nothing but change. There’s historical value in seeing it before it became the skyscraperscape it is today.

We checked a few film websites for rankings of Hitchcock’s fifty-two films. This version of The Man Who Knew Too Much generally sat around fifteen to twenty. Fifteen feels high for us, especially because as a big event movie from the mid-1950s it can feel occasionally overwrought in 2025. We’ll agree with twenty. A filmmaker wants a remake to surpass the original, and it does. Every source we checked agrees on that. But wherever you rank it, Hitchcock is always worth a look. The Man Who Knew Too Much premiered at the Cannes Film Festival in April 1956, and had its official opening in the U.S. today.

Morocco, Marrakech, London, Cannes Film Festival, The Man Who Knew Too Much, James Stewart, Doris Day, Alfred Hitchcock, poster art, cinema, movie review

SASORI FOR YOUR LOSS

To gain a mistress but at the cost of everything else you hold dear.

This beautiful poster was made to promote the drama Sasori, or Scorpion, a nice bit of cinematic diversion, as it turned out. Basically, it’s about how Tokyo businessman Yunosuke Itô goes on a trip to Nagoya, sees a porn movie in an underground film club, and is inspired to cheat on his wife with the establishment’s beautiful projectionist Tomomi Sato. Instead of letting sleeping flings lie, Itô keeps messing around with Sato over the course of several days, then decides to invite her back to Tokyo to become his mistress. She’s into it, but not long afterward runs into an old friend who she takes as a lover, which prompts her to start demanding more money from Itô.

You can see how this would be a problem, feeding two mouths, so to speak. When Itô finds out Sato has been two-timing him a break-up would be the logical move, but instead pride comes to the fore and the situation goes terribly sideways. Is it two-timing when your mistress cheats, or is it three-timing? Doesn’t matter. Itô is in trouble up to his little mustache, and getting out may be nigh impossible. That’s probably the moral of the film: the scorpion always stings. In the end, Sasori is a solid drama that looks excellent, is well acted, and gets help from an ultrahip jazz score. If you like Japanese cinema, you can proceed with confidence. It premiered in Japan today in 1967.

Japan, Tokyo, Nagoya, Shochiku Company Limited, Sasori, Scorpion, Tomomi Satô, Mariko Kaga, Yûnosuke Itô, poster art, cinema, movie review

LAND OF THE BLIND

Where everyone is corrupt no one can truly be king.

Johnny One-Eye is a public domain film that premiered today in 1950. Public domain sometimes means bad copies, and in this case the title of the movie really fits, because we felt like we were viewing it with one eye closed. The film was adapted from a Damon Runyon play, hence his billing on the poster. The title deals not with a human character, but a one-eyed dog, while the plot follows a wounded killer hiding out in New York City who has a $5,000 reward on for his capture. We weren’t impressed by this movie, despite its film noir stylings. Our main issue, once we focused past its visual degradation, is that a pivotal role belongs to young Gayle Reed. She’s probably around eight years old, and we dislike movies that rely on pre-teen children, because they really can’t act. Or maybe that’s just a prejudice because we have no children. But what you want to know is whether there’s actually a copy of Johnny One-Eye around that’s good enough to screen. Not that we were able to discover, so we can’t recommend it. It’ll make your eyes go bad. Luckily, there are some crystal clear production photos, below.

New York City, Johnny One-Eye, Pat O'Brien, Wayne Morris, Dolores Moran, Gayle Reed, Damon Runyon, poster art, cinema, movie review, film noir

OUT OF PATIENCE

What do they want? Change! When do they want it? Now!

When we saw this poster for Outlaw Women we were hoping for semi-serious b-level western action. No such luck. It’s a comedy. But we watched it anyway, and it’s about a town called Las Mujeres, controlled by women and led by tough Marie Windsor. They don’t want more men there, by any stretch, but the place needs a doctor, so traveling sawbones Richard Rober is kidnapped and brought into the fold, where he immediately bemoans what he considers to be the unnatural state of distaff rule. He may get his wish that women be toppled from power when a federal judge gallops into town and announces elections. While nine of ten residents in Las Mujeres are women, they can’t vote, and can’t hold political office.

No need for more plot discussion. As we said, this is a lightweight movie, so everything will sort itself out about the way you expect, weddings and all. The film is certainly interesting to watch in today’s social climate. On the surface it’s meant to be a cute and chauvinistic little romp, and with the good feelings and flirting cranked up to ten it works pretty well. But it’s also—accidentally—a good illustration of a meme from a couple of years ago in which a woman is asked by a man, “If there are no men around who’s going to be there to protect you?” The woman responds, “Protect us from what?” That’s the real lesson of Outlaw Women. We don’t recommend the movie, but we can’t slam it either. It’s fine. It premiered today in 1952.

Outlaw Women, Marie Windsor, Richard Rober, Carla Balenda, Jackie Coogan, Allan Nixon, Jacqueline Fontaine, poster art, cinema, movie review
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HISTORY REWIND

The headlines that mattered yesteryear.

1953—The Rosenbergs Are Executed

Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, who were convicted for conspiracy to commit espionage related to passing information about the atomic bomb to the Soviet spies, are executed at Sing Sing prison, in New York.

1928—Earhart Crosses Atlantic Ocean

American aviator Amelia Earhart becomes the first woman to fly in an aircraft across the Atlantic Ocean, riding as a passenger in a plane piloted by Wilmer Stutz and maintained by Lou Gordon. Earhart would four years later go on to complete a trans-Atlantic flight as a pilot, leaving from Newfoundland and landing in Ireland, accomplishing the feat solo without a co-pilot or mechanic.

1939—Eugen Weidmann Is Guillotined

In France, Eugen Weidmann is guillotined in the city of Versailles outside Saint-Pierre Prison for the crime of murder. He is the last person to be publicly beheaded in France, however executions by guillotine continue away from the public until September 10, 1977, when Hamida Djandoubi becomes the last person to receive the grisly punishment.

1972—Watergate Burglars Caught

In Washington, D.C., five White House operatives are arrested for burglarizing the offices of the Democratic National Committee in the Watergate Hotel. The botched burglary was an attempt by members of the Republican Party to illegally wiretap the opposition. The resulting scandal ultimately leads to the resignation of President Richard Nixon, and also results in the indictment and conviction of several administration officials.

1961—Rudolph Nureyev Defects from Soviet Union

Russian ballet dancer Rudolf Nureyev defects at Le Bourget airport in Paris. The western press reported that it was his love for Chilean heiress Clara Saint that triggered the event, but in reality Nuryev had been touring Europe with the Kirov Ballet and defected in order to avoid punishment for his continual refusal to abide by rules imposed upon the tour by Moscow.

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INSATIABLE APPETITE

George Gross art for Joan Sherman’s, aka Peggy Gaddis Dern’s 1950 novel Suzy Needs a Man.

TIT FOR TAT

Swapping literature was a major subset of midcentury publishing. Ten years ago we shared a good-sized collection of swapping paperbacks from assorted authors.

TO DIE FOR

Cover art by Italian illustrator Giovanni Benvenuti for the James Bond novel Vivi e lascia morire, better known as Live and Let Die.

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Uncredited cover art in comic book style for Harry Whittington's You'll Die Next!

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