Vintage Pulp

August 29 2024

URBAN HEAT EFFECT

Anyone for barbecue? 1970s disaster epic charbroils entire city.

City on Fire is a good old fashioned ’70s disaster movie, and we have to tell you, it’s been ages since we’ve seen one. We’re talking rentals at Blockbuster ages. We never had a chance to see one in a cinema, but we have to wonder if a big room with a booming Sensurround system is what City on Fire needs to make it enjoyable, because on our television the movie didn’t get the job done.

Everything starts when three kids accidentally set a blaze while trying to smoke cigarettes, but the real firestorm ignites when a disgruntled oil refinery employee gets sacked, decides as revenge to sabotage the works. He twists some valves and whatnot, causing flammables to run through the city sewers. The stuff combusts and the rest, as they say, is hysteria.

The cast of this flick is outstanding. Leslie Nielsen is the mayor, Henry Fonda a fire chief, Ava Gardner an on-air news personality, Barry Newman an emergency room physician, and Shelley Winters a nurse. Their perspectives continually alternate as the city-eating fire runs rampant. To pull off the incendiary visuals the filmmakers use models of skyscrapers, rear projection, and practical fire stunts of types that died with the advent of computer graphics.

While we appreciated the work that went into the movie, and some of the cinematography was spectacular, we were largely unmoved. Maybe it needed Hindenburg correspondent Herbert Morrison to narrate: “Oh, the humanity!” However, we were very moved by the poster art, which is another top effort by John Solie. City on Fire was made in Canada and, after opening in Europe, premiered in the Great White North today in 1979.

Avco Embassy Pictures, City on Fire, Barry Newman, Leslie Nielsen, Ava Gardner, Susan Clark, James Franciscus, Shelley Winters, Henry Fonda, John Solie, poster art, cinema, movie review

Vintage Pulp

August 23 2024

LUKEWARM COCOA

Whatever Lola wants Lola gets—except a decent script and a sufficient budget.

A low rent poster usually indicates a low rent movie. The poster you see here for Lola Falana’s crime drama Lady Cocoa, which premiered today in 1975, is obviously underwhelming. Sometimes, though, digging into the dusty archive of cheap cinema yields forgotten gems. But not in this instance. You know you’re in trouble with Lady Cocoa right from the opening theme, which is a sort of mash-up between a disco song and, “Pop Goes the Weasel.” Literally, that’s the chorus. We’ve come across some terrible theme songs (who can forget the indelible strains of “Flare-Up”?—but this one might take the booby prize.

Falana plays a Reno gangster’s girlfriend who’s spent eighteen months in prison for reasons that are obscure, possibly because she’s insanely annoying. She’s released into protective custody when she finally decides to testify against her man. She doesn’t seem to understand the gravity of her decision, but there’s a reason for that—she has no intention of testifying. She just wants out of the joint for a while. She has total confidence her boyfriend will intuit this, but she’s wrong—kingpins don’t become kingpins through trust. He sends assassins to perforate her, and the movie becomes a standard witness protection actioner. While this basic plot has been done many times, it has rarely been done with dialogue so poor.

Gene Washington: “I remember when I got it in Nam.”

Falana: “Nam?”

Gene Washington: “Yeah. Vietnam.”

Let’s fix that exchange of dialogue for them:

Gene Washington: “I remember when I got it in Nam.”

Falana: “It?”

Gene Washington: “Yeah. Syphilitic meningitis.”

See? Much better. Poor Lola never had a chance in this one. But there are a few items of note. Falana, who’s really cute even playing a grating harpy, spends a lot of the movie in a towel and flashes a backside that’ll leave a permanent impression. Late in the program she and co-star Gene Washington share a real-deal hot tango of a tongue kiss, which is something you rarely see actors do. And one of the assassins is played by Joe Greene, as in Mean Joe Greene, as in the Pittsburgh Steelers. If he’d sacked the producers before they had a chance to make the movie, Hollywood would have given him an honorary Oscar. No such luck.

Despite your ample sexual charms I’m irrationally annoyed I have to bodyguard you.

Still hate me?

Abso-goddamned-lutely.

You sure?

I can’t even budge I’m so filled with loathing.

What if I let you slowly rub this lotion all over me, we enjoy some leisurely oral sex, then fuck like beasts?

Then again, I’m only human.

Nevada, Lake Tahoe, Lady Cocoa, Lola Falana, Gene Washington, Millie Perkins. Joe Greene, Mean Joe Greene, James A. Watson Jr., poster art, cinema, blaxploitation, movie review

Vintage Pulp

August 21 2024

ARTIFICIAL MALEVOLENCE

Computer scientists go back to drawing board after first self-aware robot is arrested for sexual harassment.

This rare promo poster is signed by Italian illustrator Giuliano Nistri, who we think only produced the background, considering it’s obviously a production image. The movie is Saturn 3, a sort of forgotten British sci-fi adventure from the early 1980s. How to describe it. A little bit Star Wars, a little bit Alien, and a little bit 2001: A Space Odyssey is probably how it was pitched to the studios. The actual result was a little more like b-movies such as Star Crash and Battle Beyond the Stars. But it starred Kirk Douglas, helped launch Harvey Keitel, and had Farrah Fawcett, seen here being brutally suspended by the movie’s deranged AI robot.

The immediate post-Star Wars period was a time when even well known performers had to look twice at cheeseball sci-fi scripts. No actor wanted to miss out on the next cultural phenomenon. That’s the only way to explain Douglas’s involvement. Sadly for him, Saturn 3 came up about 887 million miles short of achieving any lasting impact. Other than a convincingly scary robot, Douglas’s naked ass, and Fawcett wearing a series of negligees and other scanty items, it didn’t offer much of note. At least back then. But these days, the AI that copies its programmer’s worst traits seems plenty relevant. After its U.S. premiere in February 1980, Saturn 3 made a controlled burn into Italy today the same year.

Britain, Italy, Saturn 3, Giuliano Nistri, Farrah Fawcett, Kirk Douglas, Harvey Keitel, poster art, cinema, sci-fi, movie review

Vintage Pulp

August 20 2024

DATE WITH DESTINY

Everybody's gotta die sometime.

This photo-illustrated poster was made for the 1948 suspense thriller Night Has a Thousand Eyes, which demands to be watched if for no other reason than its lyrical title. The awesome Edward G. Robinson plays a phony psychic who’s thrown for a loop when he unexpectedly starts to have real visions—or seems to. Has he merely refined his scam, or can he really see the future? He tells Gail Russell she’s fated to die in mere days but claims he wants to help her avoid her destiny. She believes the prediction, but her beau and a handful of cops keep trying to pin various crimes on Robinson as Russell’s clock dwindles to zero hour. The base ingredients here—the good cast, experienced director John Farrow, a source novel by William Irish, aka Cornell Woolrich, aka George Hopley—were probably pre-destined to produce something worthwhile. We’d say the novel is better, but as adaptations go Night Has a Thousand Eyes mostly works. We sense that… Wait! It’s becoming clear… It’s you! With a bowl of popcorn and a beer! Watching the movie!

Night Has a Thousand Eyes, Edward G. Robinson, Gail Russell, John Lund, Virginia Bruce, William Demarest, John Farrow, William Irish, Cornell Woolrich, George Hopley, poster art, cinema, movie review

Vintage Pulp

August 3 2024

DOOMED WE TELL YOU

All he needs is a good firm push.

Edge of Doom, for which you see a nice promo poster above, was based on a novel by Leo Brady. We showed you the cover art for that not long ago. AFI.com categorizes this as a drama, not a film noir, though most sites label it the latter. The story begins with a noir staple—the framing narration, as two priests, one young and faltering, is told by the other, older and stalwart, how he was brought closer to God through his interaction with a man accused of murder. Dana Andrews plays the experienced priest, while Farley Granger plays the troubled subject of Andrews’ voiceover.

Granger’s issues begin when his dear old ma dies and he needs money to bury her in style. He goes to his ma’s rectory, but the priest there had previously refused to bury Granger’s dear old pa in consecrated ground. Granger asks the priest for a nice funeral for his dear old ma, but the priest refuses to promise anything but a pine box and a fare-thee-well, so Granger flies into a rage and ends up bludgeoning the pompous old skinflint into the hereafter. The murder ushers Andrews into the scenario—he’s next in line at the rectory, so he’ll inherit the dead priest’s job. That soon brings him into contact with Granger, and the rest is easy to figure.

Granger plays nervous and unstable here quite well. He’d later perfect the disturbed young man role with Strangers on a Train. Andrews does far less—he plays his priest as low key and ready with an aphorism, which is where most actors went with that type of role back then. Within those parameters, he’s fine. As to whether Edge of Doom is a film noir, it lacks most of the non-visual requirements—notably the hard-boiled cynic we all love so much. However, the noir visuals are so incessant that it’s impossible not to include this movie in the grouping, in our opinion. Edge of Doom premiered in the U.S. today in 1950.

Edge of Doom, Dana Andrews, Farley Granger, Joan Evans, Robert Keith, Mala Powers, Adele Jergens, poster art, cinema, movie review

Vintage Pulp

July 22 2024

EAT, DRINK, AND BE BURIED

Your usual server won't be with you tonight. She's come down with a small case of murder.

The Swinging Barmaids, which splashed across U.S. screens for the first time this month in 1975, is one of those movies with a deliberately misleading title. Rather than the breezy erotic romp you’d expect, it’s a thriller about an insane serial killer who stalks a group of waitresses working in a Los Angeles go-go bar. The problems commence when Dyanne Thorne (yes, she made movies aside from the Ilsa atrocities) is stabbed to death, setting off an inept police investigation, while the killer sets his crazy sights on more victims. He’s the classic maladjusted loner you find in ’70s grindhouse filcks. You know the type: “You’re the first girl I ever met that wasn’t dirty underneath.” What type of woman wouldn’t immediately leave town after hearing something like that? Answer: a woman in a bad movie.

Eventually, to facilitate his homicidal efforts, Mr. Maladjustment gets a job as a dishwasher at the bar. More killings eventually lead to the unveiling of this wolf in the fold, and his inevitable perforation with 12-gauge buckshot. That isn’t a spoiler. His death is the entire point of the film. Well, that and boobs. But the problem is that this is all mounted perfunctorily, is poorly written, visually lackluster, narratively sluggish, and devoid of actorly charisma. In fact, if not for the nudity, you’d think The Swinging Barmaids was a minor television movie. The best thing going for it is the above poster art by the incomparable John Solie. Check, please.

Los Angeles, The Swinging Barmaids, Bruce Watson, Laura Hippe, Katie Saylor, William Smith, Renie Radich, Dyanne Thorne, John Solie, poster art, cinema, sexploitation, movie review

Vintage Pulp

July 4 2024

KAREN A HEAVY BURDEN

Have you ever had a visitor that refused to leave?

Above and below are two posters for Bewitched, a movie we decided to watch because its title stood out when we saw it. Why? Well, we’re still watching the entire run of television’s Bewitched. Could this be about the supernatural, we wondered? If that sounds silly, remember, we try not to read synopses of these movies. It’s just better, if possible, to go in knowing little or nothing. Obviously, we already know generally about all the more popular films we haven’t yet seen, but this one is obscure.

Turns out it’s a no-budget melodrama, written and directed by Arch Oboler, about poor Phyllis Thaxter, who suffers from a split personality, or more accurately a histrionic form of cinematic schizophrenia, that sees her taken over by an evil alter ego. This mental invader is named Karen, and she’a a bitch. She forces Joan to commit murder. We thought: Wait—if Joan is imprisoned or executed what does Karen get out of it? Well, Oboler tries to finesse that by suggesting Karen knows Joan will be acquitted because she/they look innocent and an all-male jury will think she’s too pretty to kill. Okay.

Joan has never told anyone that she hears an evil voice. She doesn’t break the pattern at trial, refusing to take the stand in her own defense. It looks bad, but surprise—that scheming Karen is right. But the moment the jury is about announce an acquittal, Joan realizes that if she’s freed her evil side will make her do more bad things, so she stands up and screams: “Stop! I did it! I killed him! I’m guilty! Guilty! Guilty! Guilty!” And… dissolve.

She ends up on death row. But a mere five hours before she’s due to ride old sparky, she finally admits to her lawyer that she has a split personality, and the wheels of deus ex machina lurch into motion. It’s as cheesy as it sounds. There’s really nothing in the film but a good example of what a b-feature was like during the mid-century era. Sloppy. Slapdash. A baritone voiceover brackets the film, and though it’s meant to hammer the movie’s point home for viewers, there really is no point. None at all. Bewitched premiered in the U.S. today in 1945.

Do I want to stab my fiancée? Or maybe it’s too harsh a method for breaking an engagement.

In the end, I guess it was really more of a rhetorical question.

Bewitched, Edmund Gwenn, Phyllis Thaxter, Henry H. Daniels Jr., Arch Oboler, poster art, cinema, movie review

Vintage Pulp

June 28 2024

UNMADE IN CHINA

Cross country train thriller never quite reaches its destination.

Our interest in Peking Express was wholly due to Corinne Calvet, who we’ve seen in promo images, but never speaking and moving. The movie, which was an update of 1932’s Shanghai Express, is an overcooked spy adventure with cheesy, anti-commie filling, making for a creation that’s hard to swallow. Joseph Cotten arrives in Shanghai as a World Health Organization specialist on a mission to operate on some bigwig general. On a Peking bound train he encounters two complications—his ex-flame Calvet, and attempted murder. The latter has to do with the smuggling of contraband inside WHO crates. Soon both Cotten and Calvet are held prisoner by ringleader Marvin Miller (playing a Chinese military officer named Kwon) who wants to engineer a hostage exchange.

The movie ultimately portrays Miller as a money-grubbing bandit willing to betray wife, party, and country for personal gain. Threats and torture are his methods of persuasion, along with a hefty dose of general sneakiness. He spouts some of the worst dialogue ever, often starting with, “We Chinese…” But he doesn’t get the worst line. We just about upchucked on this, spoken about Miller by a saintly priest played by Edmund Gwenn: “If only he had as much devotion to God’s cause we would never have to worry about the world.” Really? Is that so? History says otherwise. To add insult to cognitive dissonance, the soundtrack contains some of the worst villain music imaginable. Composer Dimitri Tiomkin must have worn out an entire brass section recording it.

We’re fine, in principle, with the main plotline. The seemingly contradictory idea of a villain driven by a mix of entrepreneurial greed and communist doctrine is fertile. The crosscurrent of the WHO trying to save lives in a country where many are suspicious of its mandate struck us as relevant. But the operatic dimensions of the characters backfire to infantilise the movie’s messages. We suspect that the average Christian would find Gwenn’s missionary priest a pompous cardboard cut-out. The average communist would laugh the entire enterprise off as delusional b-grade propaganda. And the typical thief would judge Miller to be an incompetent boob. What would the typical Chinese person think? We can’t say, but our special consulting critic Angela the sunbear, whose native habitat includes China, might be able to enlighten us. And finally, what do fans of Corinne Calvet think? We thought: What a waste.
Thanks for throwing that China question my way, boys. I disliked the movie, and I extend an invitation to any who want to understand the complicated reasons why to discuss it with me over grubs and beetles.

China, Peking Express, Joseph Cotten, Corinne Calvet, Edmund Gwenn, Marvin Miller, Benson Fong, poster art, cinema, communism, movie review

Vintage Pulp

June 25 2024

HERE AND GONE

In an L.A. minute anything can be stolen.

The now-cult movie Gone in 60 Seconds is remembered partly because the 2000 Nicolas Cage remake rekindled interest, but also because a man named H.B. Halicki is famous for being the producer, writer, star, director, and stunt coordinator. He’s a classic example from an earlier era of Hollywood of a guy with knowledge specific to an industry who dreamt up a story then cobbled together the funds to put his vision on the screen. He was a car mechanic who for years had been owner of a Southern California junkyard. In his work life he’d conceived or learned of a foolproof method for stealing and reselling cars. It involved boosting cars that were identical to wrecks, then swapping vehicle identification numbers and other elements so the stolen car disappeared and the wreck was reborn as a new ride. The technique became well known eventually, but back then it wasn’t. That idea provided Halicki’s entree into the world of moviemaking.

You see a Japanese poster above, with one more plus promo shots below. The movie opened in the U.S. in 1974, and premiered in Japan today in 1975. It’s what some people these days like to call car porn, as audiences get to see formula one cars, custom sports cars, limousines, and a customized Ford Bronco owned by Parnelli Jones, who has a cameo in the film. The centerpiece (really more like the endpiece) is a forty minute chase sequence that in order to film allegedly resulted in ninety-three wrecked cars. Storywise, it’s about an insurance investigator who moonlights as a professional car thief, who accepts a contract from a South American drug cartel to provide forty-eight luxury cars by week’s end. The task seems impossible, but failure isn’t an option. Several complications arise. Halicki, playing a character named Maindrian Pace, is called upon to investigate the very thefts his ring is perpetrating. When one of his crew steals a car packed with heroin things start to get really complicated.

That’s all fine and fun, and Halicki’s personal Hollywood success story is an inspiring one, but the movie does still have the touch of amateurism about it, particularly in the acting. That’s to be expected with a quickly mounted production, starring a first-timer who also cast various family members and amateurs in small roles. In the writing area, the characters are mere sketches, which worked fine in other indie flicks from the period like Two-Lane Blacktop, but somehow doesn’t quite come to fruition here. The great director John Huston once said Hollywood had a bad habit of remaking good movies. They should remake the bad ones, he advised. Since the remake wasn’t as good as it could have been either, Gone in 60 Seconds could probably still use a revamp, but until that time comes audiences will have to make do. Halicki thought outside the box (did we mention the forty minute car chase?) which means his original Gone in 60 Seconds is the only one to watch.

Japan, Los Angeles, Gone in 60 Seconds, H.B. Halicki, Marion Busia, Jerry Daugirda, James McIntyre, George Cole, Parnelli Jones, poster art, cinema, movie review

Vintage Pulp

June 24 2024

LESS IS MORE

Sinatra and his band of merry men hit movie screens in streamlined form.

In 1960 the amusing self-promotional film known as Ocean’s Eleven hit cinemas with Frank Sinatra and the Rat Pack in the starring roles. Four years later the Pack—minus Joey Bishop and Peter Lawford—assembled for another crime comedy with another numerical title—Robin and the 7 Hoods, which premiered today in 1964 (and came after the Sinatra/Dean Martin vehicle 4 for Texas). You see the movie’s insert style poster above. It’s a period piece set in Chicago during the gangster era, and deals with Sinatra and his cohort waging a crime war against wannabe kingpin Peter Falk, along the way becoming like the Robin Hood of legend by stealing from the rich and giving to the poor.

Ocean’s Eleven is a very famous movie, perhaps even a landmark, as we discussed a while back, but we didn’t love it. We thought Robin and the 7 Hoods would be worse, but we have to confess we liked it better. After we forgave ourselves for such heretical thoughts, we decided it’s just possible that without the entire Rat Pack to apportion screen time to the writing is actually a bit better. Have you ever seen rats fight over food? Scripts, being made of paper, are particularly fragile. Could be, too, that fewer Rat Packers meant a bit less extemporizing.

But the main improvement over Ocean’s Eleven is in the ancillary casting. Barbara Rush doesn’t rise, perhaps, to the level of Angie Dickinson, but casting Falk as the villain was a masterstroke. He already had that Falk thing down pat, which meant that his screen time was engaging from beginning to end. An Edward G. Robinson cameo never hurts, either. Having him open the film as an aging Chicago capo was also a nice choice. Even so, we’re not going out on a limb and claiming that Robin and the 7 Hoods is exactly a good movie. But in the end, whatever its flaws, it has Sinatra. And that’s always enough.

Chicago, Robin and the 7 Hoods, Ocean's Eleven, Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr., Barbara Rush, Peter Falk, Bing Crosby, Victor Buono, poster art, cinema, movie review

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HISTORY REWIND

The headlines that mattered yesteryear.

September 10

1935—Huey Long Assassinated

Governor of Louisiana Huey Long, one of the few truly leftist politicians in American history, is shot by Carl Austin Weiss in Baton Rouge. Long dies after two days in the hospital.

September 9

1956—Elvis Shakes Up Ed Sullivan

Elvis Presley appears on The Ed Sullivan Show for the first time, performing his hit song “Don’t Be Cruel.” Ironically, a car accident prevented Sullivan from being present that night, and the show was guest-hosted by British actor Charles Laughton.

September 8

1966—Star Trek Airs for First Time

Star Trek, an American television series set in the twenty-third century and promoting socialist utopian ideals, premieres on NBC. The series is cancelled after three seasons without much fanfare, but in syndication becomes one of the most beloved television shows of all time.

September 8

1974—Ford Pardons Nixon

U.S. President Gerald Ford pardons former President Richard Nixon for any crimes Nixon may have committed while in office, which coincidentally happen to include all those associated with the Watergate scandal.

September 7

1978—Giorgi Markov Assassinated

Bulgarian dissident Giorgi Markov is assassinated in a scene right out of a spy novel. As he’s waiting at a bus stop near Waterloo Bridge in London, he’s jabbed in the calf with an umbrella. The man holding the umbrella apologizes and walks away, but he is in reality a Bulgarian hired killer who has just injected a ricin pellet into Markov, who develops a high fever and dies three days later.