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

TRYING TO KUNDU THE PAST

I can't make it all out, sir, but it's something about how it's their land, we're invaders, yadda yadda yadda— You know how they are.

Australian author Morris L. West’s novel Kundu has been reprinted many times, which is often (though not always) an indicator of quality. We’ve seen editions from HarperCollins, Panther, Bantam, Ulverscroft, Allen & Unwin, Granada, White Lion, and Mayflower, and those are just the English editions. But he first published it in 1956 as the Dell paperback you see here with nice Victor Kalin art.

Between the covers West tells the story of a diverse group of colonials in the highlands of New Guinea, amongst them a priest, a district police officer, a “witch doctor,” a German farmer named Kurt Sonderfeld, and his wife Gerda. There are many unusual undercurrents among these people, not least the hate-hate relationship between the Sonderfelds, who openly cheat and can barely stand each other’s company.

That relationship comes into focus once West reveals that Sonderfeld is really escaped Sturmbannführer Gottfried Reinach, who operated a Polish concentration camp where he plucked beautiful Gerda from the masses headed for the crematoria, made her his mistress, and brought her along when, under a false identity, he escaped the collapsing Reich and eventually settled in New Guinea. Because she knows the truth, Gerda can never be free, and Nazi hunters aren’t kind to mistresses anyway.

Gerda is Sonderfeld’s only danger. Otherwise his fake identity is ironclad. He even had a concentration camp number tattooed onto his arm. But safety breeds hubris. He harbors dreams of power and domination over the vast valley in which he resides. In order to achieve that he must control the tribal medicine men, and that’s where the book generates its intrigue. West blends interpersonal strife, tribal magic (i.e. the belief therein), and subterfuge into an unlikely colonialist potboiler. The book was reportedly written in a flash, but there’s occasional eloquence to the prose, such as in this passage about a supporting character lost early in the narrative:

They marked the grave with a big square stone and left him there—lonely in death as he had been in life—loveless, barren of achievement, crowned with dust, naked in the naked earth of the oldest island on the planet.

As in all colonialist novels, locals do not fare well with white characters, but there are degrees. Sonderfeld, being a Nazi, has some harsh ideas about New Guineans, while the priest is more paternal. They’re opposite in makeup. Sonderfeld is smart and loves to show it, but he’s also impulsive. The priest is unassuming and always thinking of the long term. Sonderfeld is an atheist; the priest has deep religious conviction. He emerges as Sonderfeld’s main resister, and main protector of the tribes.

We don’t feel Sonderfeld’s contemptuous atheism is a natural fit for that character—after all, the Nazis were predominantly, vastly, overwhelmingly Christian, so the more interesting opposition with the priest would have been not atheist against believer, but a loving Christianity against a violent one. It’s a split that existed in Germany then, and exists in the U.S. today. But other than that, and one or two other facile confabulations, we have to call Kundu a good book.

Poland, Germany, Australia, New Guinea, World War II, Dell Publications, Morris L. West, Victor Kalin, cover art, literature, nazis

INTO THE MANOSPHERE

Women are invited too, but only for sex.

There’s a blurred line between men’s adventure magazines of the 1970s and what most people would call porn. Man’s World is a publication we looked at a while back and commented upon in terms of its move toward the latter. That issue was from February 1973. Today’s is from June 1972, and it too has amplified sexual content compared to a few years earlier. It offers articles about masturbating women, tested lovemaking techniques, a “sex swap newsletter,” and there’s nude photography. We suspect most people would agree that a porn magazine is one in which the models pose—at minimum—frontally nude. For Man’s World that shift had been completed by 1977. It was defunct two years later, unable to keep pace with more explicit and better budgeted competitors in a shifting marketplace. For now, though, its illustrations were still coming from veterans of the men’s adventure heyday—Earl Norem, Bob Larkin, and Mort Künstler, using the pseudonym Emmett Kaye. They always lent men’s adventure magazines artistic credibility, no matter how they evolved. Thirty scans below.

New Guinea, Man's World, Earl Norem, Bob Larkin, Mort Kunstler, Emmett Kaye, magazine art

HUNTER AND HUNTED

Two roads diverged in a wood, they took the one less traveled by, and really wished they'd taken the other.

Above: some scans from Adam magazine, published this month in 1965. The cover illustrates the tale, “Calamity’s Apprentice,” by Walter S. Bratu, who had a story in the previous issue we featured, as well as ones we posted last year, in 2018, and back in 2012. We looked him up expecting to find a lengthy bibliography, but apparently he published only with Kenmure Press—i.e. Adam and Man. Elsewhere inside this issue is art by Jack Waugh and Cal Cameron, more fiction, stories claimed to be true about cannibalism in New Guinea and Cold War spy Margarete Klosa, and a couple of beautiful models, as usual. We’ve now shared ninety-two issues of Adam, and a glance at the shelves suggests we have about thirty-five more. Yes, we’ve cornered the market on this particular Australian publication. Was doing so expensive? A bit. But it was worth it. More to come.

Australia, New Guinea, Adam Magazine, Jack Waugh, Cal Cameron, Walter S. Bratu, Margarete Klosa, magazine art, literature

WOMANLY CURIOSITY

Italian filmmakers manage to produce an archetypal example of the male gaze.

This super poster was made to promote the Italian film La donna nel mondo, known in English as Women of the World, made by schlockmeisters Paolo Cavara, Gualtiero Jacopetti, and Franco Prosperi with leftover footage from their 1962 gross-out documentary Mondo Cane. This effort discusses women—full stop. It looks at different types of women all around the world, from Israeli soldiers to New Guinean tribeswomen to Cannes Film Festival movie star wannabes to Japanese amas, with occasional digressions into whether they’re hot and/or bedworthy.

It’s narrated by Peter Ustinov, who in his urbane and continental accent drops nuggets like this: “What are the deep rooted emotions that remove [these lesbians] from the company of men, yet at the same time cause them to emulate the masculine appearance with such pathetic results? Even though these emotions are covered up by a blasé attitude, one is still aware of their underlying sadness.” Ouch.

If we were to speculate, we’d say it’s possible that living in a repressed early-1960s society that treats you as persona non grata could cause some sadness, but in the here-and-now our lesbian friends don’t seem to have an underlying sadness about anything except not having enough time to do all the cool shit they dream up. There’s still plenty of second class treatment, but being able to exist above ground really makes a difference in one’s life. Ustinov’s narration is snobbish through most of the film, so it’s less purely anti-lgbt than anti-everything that isn’t middle ground and whitebread. You have to expect it for the period.

The movie goes on to feature drag performers, everyday cross-dressers, manages to work in insults toward trans star Coccinelle, and even briefly squeezes in a cameo from actress Belinda Lee. The title is “women of the world” and indeed, the filmmakers leave few corners of the globe unexplored. We suppose on some level that really does make it educational, if voyeuristic, so in the end we have to pronounce it worth a glance. At the very least you’ll get a primer on square-peg mid-century social attitudes. La donna nel mondo premiered in Italy in January 1963, and in Japan today the same year.

Italy, Japan, Israel, New Guinea, La donna nel mondo, Women of the World, Belinda Lee, Coccinelle, Peter Ustinov, Gualtiero Jacopetti, Franco Prosperi, Paolo Cavara, poster art, cinema, lgbt, movie review

URSULA ON THE MENU

They may be cannibals but you have to credit their exquisite culinary taste.


The above poster for was made to promote Sergio Martino’s La montagne du dieu cannibale, which was originally filmed in Italy as La montagna del dio cannibale, and in English was known as Slave of the Cannibal God and The Mountain of the Cannibal God. Basically, Ursula Andress ventures into the New Guinean jungle to find her husband, who disappeared during an expedition to Ra Ra Me Mountain, considered by native tribes to be cursed. The movie was actually shot in Sri Lanka, but details, details. Andress is accompanied on her quest by her brother, played by Antonio Marsina, a professor, played by Stacy Keach, and some unlucky locals. Their jungle trek brings on interpersonal strife, native attacks, gruesome murders, eventual capture, and additional gruesome murders, all to the accompaniment of creepy drum and synth music.

You’ll sometimes see this movie classified as horror, but it’s really a mondo revulsion flick, padded with real animal deaths that most people will find unwatchable. These gross-outs are somewhat balanced by the imminently watchable Ursula Andress, who’s forty-two here and looking just fine. We don’t mention that in passing. The entire point of this gorefest is to get her tied to a stake, stripped, and caressed by hot native girls. The plot about her missing husband—which morphs into a scheme to get rich with uranium—is just a fig leaf. We don’t recommend the movie even with Andress undressed in it, but if you watch it maybe don’t eat lunch beforehand. After originally premiering in West Germany, La montagne du dieu cannibale opened in France today in 1978.

New Guinea, Italy, France, La montagne du dieu cannibale, La montagna del dio cannibale, Slave of the Cannibal God, The Mountain of the Cannibal God, Ursula Andress, Stacy Keach, Claudio Cassinelli, Antonio Marsina, Sergio Martino, Luigina Rocchi, poster art, cinema, nudity, movie review

SOMEDAY ISLE

Errol Flynn takes readers back to the romantic South Seas of his youth.

Above you see a cover for Showdown, which is a terrible name for this novel. It’s evocative of nothing, a failing that’s particularly egregious considering the story is set in the exotic South Seas. You may not have known that Errol Flynn was a novelist, but indeed he was, writing this and Beam Ends, plus his autobiography My Wicked, Wicked Ways, which you can consider fiction due to all the sticky episodes from his life it omits. Flynn was the equal of most popular fiction authors of his era, possibly even better than most, however Showdown, besides a better title, could have used an edit for conciseness in the first half. He goes into what we feel is unneeded detail into secondary characters, but even so, everything he writes is confident and steeped in tropical atmosphere.

In the tale, a British boat captain named Shamus O’Thames plies the waters around New Guinea, falls in love with a nun named Granice, and eventually takes on a charter of Hollywood types shooting second unit footage for a movie. It’s an ill-advised trip, but he agrees to it mainly because it will take him near his nun’s isolated jungle mission. Of course the voyage aboard his boat Maski does not go as planned, as the group end up stranded in headhunter territory. We could offer more details, but we don’t want to spoil it for interested readers. We’ll just say that it’s a fantastic tale with unexpected turns, some of them hard to believe, but with the whole lent credibility by the fact that Flynn, who was from Tasmania, had numerous real life adventures in New Guinea before he became a star.

Showdown probably couldn’t be published today due to its casting of native New Guinean people, known as Papuans or sometimes Melanesians, as either loyal servants or depraved villains. The book was originally published in 1946, a time when most white men didn’t think of native peoples as owners of their own land, nor deserving of self determination. It’s difficult to know exactly how Flynn himself felt about colonialism. We suspect, based on the narrative, that he might not have been entirely on the side of the forces of so-called civilization, but we’d have to re-read his autobiography to know for sure, and that book, sadly, vanished somewhere into the heart of darkness during one of our international moves. Flynn’s adventurer O’Thames is certainly kinder than most, but can’t be called enlightened by any stretch.

Anyway, Showdown is worth reading, bad title and all (by the way, we totally get the inference of a showdown not only between characters, but between cultures—it’s still a bad title). Flynn covers land and sea, love and hate, race and racism (however inadequately), and ultimately, like other authors in this sub-genre (see here and here), asks whether white men should be in the tropics at all. He doesn’t have any new answers, but he certainly says what he wants to with some style and an abundance of conviction. He was open about the fact that he preferred being a novelist over being an actor. His personal foibles and failings aside, it’s too bad he didn’t write more.

Fawcett Publications, Cardinal Books, Tasmania, New Guinea, Errol Flynn, cover art, literature

PEEKS AND VALLEYS

But Dad, you said we were here to show them what the outside world has to offer!


Today’s issue of Adam magazine, the sixty-seventh we’ve shared, was published this month in 1977, and has an interesting cover illustrating J.W. Anderson’s adventure tale, “The Valley of Kaha.” Adam has a unique style of covers, nearly all painted by either Phil Belbin or Jack Waugh, but this example is unusually nice, we think, with its monochrome background meant to capture the look of jungle mists. Those mists are supposed to be in New Guinea, and in Anderson’s story a rich, cruel, and aging industrialist catches wind of a legend that makes him think he can find the fountain of youth. Does he find it? We have no worries telling you, since the story is so obscure. He does indeed, and it turns him into a baby. We love a short story that has a punchline. Actually, he goes even further than infancy. Eventually he plain disappears—pop! The story isn’t well written, but it amused the hell out of us. Also amusing, on the final pages of the issue are topless archers. You’ll probably assume the text explaining why they’re topless was omitted by us, but you’ll be wrong. Adam offered no explanation. And really, who needs one? Scans below.

Australia, New Guinea, Adam Magazine, Phil Belbin, Jack Waugh, Walter Stackpool, J.W. Anderson, magazine art, literature
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HISTORY REWIND

The headlines that mattered yesteryear.

1960—Nevil Shute Dies

English novelist Nevil Shute, who wrote the books A Town Like Alice and The Pied Piper, dies in Melbourne, Australia at age sixty-one. Seven of his novels were adapted to film, but his most famous was the cautionary post-nuclear war classic On the Beach.

1967—First Cryonics Patient Frozen

Dr. James Bedford, a University of California psychology professor, becomes the first person to be cryonically preserved with intent of future resuscitation. Bedford had kidney cancer that had metastasized to his lungs and was untreatable. His body was maintained for years by his family before being moved to Alcor Life Extension Foundation in Arizona.

1957—Jack Gilbert Graham Is Executed

Jack Gilbert Graham is executed in Colorado, U.S.A., for killing 44 people by planting a dynamite bomb in a suitcase that was subsequently loaded aboard United Airlines Flight 629. The flight took off from Denver and exploded in mid-air. Graham was executed by means of poison gas in the Colorado State Penitentiary, in Cañon City.

1920—League of Nations Convenes

The League of Nations holds its first meeting, at which it ratifies the Treaty of Versailles, thereby officially ending World War I. At its greatest extent, from 28 September 1934 to 23 February 1935, the League had 58 members. Its final meeting was held in April 1946 in Geneva.

1957—Macmillan Becomes Prime Minister

Harold Macmillan accepts the Queen of England’s invitation to become Prime Minister following the sudden resignation of Sir Anthony Eden. Eden had resigned due to ill health in the wake of the Suez Crisis. Macmillan is remembered for helping negotiate the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty after the Cuban Missile Crisis. He served as PM until 1963.

1923—Autogyro Makes First Flight

Spanish civil engineer and pilot Juan de la Cierva’s autogyro, which was a precursor to the helicopter, makes its first successful flight. De la Cierva’s autogyro made him world famous, and he used his invention to support fascist general Francisco Franco when the Spanish Civil War broke out in July 1936. De la Cierva was dead by December of that same year, perishing, ironically, in a plane crash in Croydon, England.

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WALKING AFTER MIDNIGHT

Italian artist Sandro Symeoni showcases his unique painterly skills on a cover for Peter Cheyney's He Walked in Her Sleep.

OPEN SECRETS

French artist Jef de Wulf was both prolific and unique. He painted this cover for René Roques' 1958 novel Secrets.

THE WORST DAY OF CHRISTMAS

Christmas themed crime novels are rare, in our experience. Do Not Murder Before Christmas by Jack Iams is an exception, and a good one. The cover art is by Robert Stanley.

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