vintage and modern pulp fiction; noir, schlock and exploitation films; scandals, swindles and news
He’s gonna need a closer boat. The globally popular Charles Williams appears in yet another foreign edition, this time from Munich based publisher Heyne-Bücher. Heiss weht der wind von Yukatan, which means, “the wind blows hot from Yucatan,” is a translation of Scorpion Reef, aka Gulf Coast Girl, and came in 1959 with art that is signed but, unfortunately, illegibly. As always when it comes to Williams, this was an excellent novel.
Have you ever seen a 3D sexploitation movie? Rittai Poruno-Sukoppu: Sentensei Roshutsukyou, which was originally released as Liebe in drei Dimensionen and known in English as Love in 3-D, is a typical piece of West German goofball sexploitation—except it comes right at you! Ingrid Steeger is top billed but the film’s Japanese distributors—no fools they—put Christina Lindberg on the promo poster.
There isn’t much of a plot to this. It’s basically just sex vignettes wrapped around Steeger apartment sitting and dealing with her bad boyfriend. 3D movies always overuse their gimmickry and this effort is no exception. Items thrust at the camera include Dorit Henke’s panties, Ulrike Butz’s bush, several animatronic monsters in a house of horrors, and of course Lindberg’s boobs.
Lindberg was globally famous for her breasts (see what we just did there?), which means her nudity was expected and duly delivered, but watching her tour Munich rocking a red mini-skirt and fluffy pink jacket may impress you even more. Lederhosen must have gotten cramped all over Bavaria when she shot those scenes. Liebe in drei Dimensionen premiered in West Germany in January 1973 and reached Japan today in 1974.
Above are the covers of some promotional brochures made by Illustrierte Film-Bühne for movies released in West Germany during the 1950s and 1960s. The examples here, some of which have killer designs, feature Elizabeth Taylor, Marisa Mell, Cary Grant, Virna Lisi, Sophia Loren, Doris Day, Tony Curtis, et.al. IFB was founded in 1946 in Munich by Paul Franke, and over the years produced thousands of these pamphlets. We’ll share more later.
Ahh, the National Police Gazette. What a quirky publication. We’ve talked before about how America’s longest running magazine unrelentingly used Adolf Hitler to move issues. Well, in this one from fifty years ago this month, they’re at it again, claiming to have found the secret diaries of Hitler’s mistress Eva Braun. The first sentence of the story goes like this: Of all the fanatically loyal people who attended Adolf Hitler and are still with him in his present hideout, none have known him so intimately as the young, voluptuous blonde from Munich, Eva Braun. You caught that, right? And are still with him in his present hideout? They must mean that bunker in Antarctica.
If nothing else, you have to admire the editors’ perseverance. They started on the whole Hitler-survived-the-war theme pretty much the moment the armistice was signed, and as late as 1968 were still banging the same drum. But here’s the oddity surrounding this. Of all the Hitler Gazettes we’ve found—twenty-five at last count—none are from before 1945. Not that some don’t exist. But we haven’t seen any. It’s like Hitler was totally off the Gazette’s radar the entire time he was alive. Curious, no? A few scans below, including one of showgirl and actress Gloria Pall, who we may get back to later.
The Imperial Japanese Navy sends aircraft to attack the U.S. Pacific Fleet and its defending air forces at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. While the U.S. lost battleships and other vessels, its aircraft carriers were not at Pearl Harbor and survived intact, robbing the Japanese of the total destruction of the Pacific Fleet they had hoped to achieve.
In Montreal, Canada, at the École Polytechnique, a gunman shoots twenty-eight young women with a semi-automatic rifle, killing fourteen. The gunman claimed to be fighting feminism, which he believed had ruined his life. After the killings he turns the gun on himself and commits suicide.
Utah becomes the 36th U.S. state to ratify the 21st Amendment to the United States Constitution, thus establishing the required 75% of states needed to overturn the 18th Amendment which had made the sale of alcohol illegal. But the criminal gangs that had gained power during Prohibition are now firmly established, and maintain an influence that continues unabated for decades.
During an overwater navigation training flight from Fort Lauderdale, five U.S. Navy TBM Avenger torpedo-bombers lose radio contact with their base and vanish. The disappearance takes place in what is popularly known as the Bermuda Triangle.
U.S. President Woodrow Wilson sails to Europe for the World War I peace talks in Versailles, France, becoming the first U.S. president to travel to Europe while in office.
In the U.S., a manslaughter trial against actor/director Roscoe ‘Fatty’ Arbuckle ends with the jury deadlocked as to whether he had killed aspiring actress Virginia Rappe during rape and sodomy. Arbuckle was finally cleared of all wrongdoing after two more trials, but the scandal ruined his career and personal life.
