TELEPHONE LINE

Only losers wait their turn.

Here’s an unusual Dutch cover that caught our eye for Martin Porlock’s Het Mysterie van de Telefooncel—“the mystery of the phone booth”—published in 1949, with art by Piet Marée. The two characters here sort of look like they’re dancing, but they’re fighting, probably over which one cut in line for the phone booth (the Dutch are famously bad at queueing). Anyway, this is beautiful work. We can’t find more info about Marée, but we’ll keep digging, as always. Martin Porlock was a pseudonym used by Philip MacDonald, and the book is a translation of his 1932 novel Mystery in Kensington Gore, which is also known as Escape.

Netherlands, Anker Boekenclub, Martin Porlock, Philip MacDonald, Piet Marée, cover art, literature

Vintage Pulp

May 13 2019

DEADLY IS THE MALE

The cover tries to shift the blame, but Sweet and Deadly is man-on-man mayhem at its most basic.

The cover of Sweet and Deadly is pulp style, thanks to Zenith Books’ 1959 rebranding of Philip MacDonald and A. Boyd Correll’s 1948 novel The Dark Wheel, but this is actually more a melodrama than a true pulp style novel. And there’s no femme fatale, as implied by the title. What you get here is a tangled web woven by men in love, women with ambition, and an homme fatale who has a serious mental problem.

To detail it a bit more, when a rich man’s actress wife dies, he begins habitually attending the play in which she starred, so that he can observe and obsess over her replacement. Not healthy. The new actress has a psychosomatically paralyzed husband who she thinks will be cured if his brilliant new play is produced. So, not knowing anything about her rich secret admirer, she’s steered in his direction looking for financial backing, and unwittingly sets into motion his plan to murder her husband and take his place.

However you categorize this one, it was good, if a bit contrived in reaching its climax. Set in the rarefied world of New York City’s performing arts community, with characters that are all actors, playwrights, producers, and such, it felt fresh compared to the career criminals that often populate the books we read. Perhaps its most serious flaw—one we always hate—is that its cover art is uncredited.

New York City, Zenith Books, Philip MacDonald, A. Boyd Correll, cover art, literature

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HISTORY REWIND

The headlines that mattered yesteryear.

October 5

1945—Hollywood Black Friday

A six month strike by Hollywood set decorators becomes a riot at the gates of Warner Brothers Studios when strikers and replacement workers clash. The event helps bring about the passage of the Taft-Hartley Act, which, among other things, prohibits unions from contributing to political campaigns and requires union leaders to affirm they are not supporters of the Communist Party.

October 4

1957—Sputnik Circles Earth

The Soviet Union launches the satellite Sputnik I, which becomes the first artificial object to orbit the Earth. It orbits for two months and provides valuable information about the density of the upper atmosphere. It also panics the United States into a space race that eventually culminates in the U.S. moon landing.

October 4

1970—Janis Joplin Overdoses

American blues singer Janis Joplin is found dead on the floor of her motel room in Los Angeles. The cause of death is determined to be an overdose of heroin, possibly combined with the effects of alcohol.

October 3

1908—Pravda Founded

The newspaper Pravda is founded by Leon Trotsky, Adolph Joffe, Matvey Skobelev and other Russian exiles living in Vienna. The name means “truth” and the paper serves as an official organ of the Central Committee of the Communist Party between 1912 and 1991.

October 3

1957—Ferlinghetti Wins Obscenity Case

An obscenity trial brought against Lawrence Ferlinghetti, owner of the counterculture City Lights Bookstore in San Francisco, reaches its conclusion when Judge Clayton Horn rules that Allen Ginsberg’s poetry collection Howl is not obscene.

October 3

1995—Simpson Acquitted

After a long trial watched by millions of people worldwide, former football star O.J. Simpson is acquitted of the murders of ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ronald Goldman. Simpson subsequently loses a civil suit and is ordered to pay millions in damages.

October 2

1919—Wilson Suffers Stroke

U.S. President Woodrow Wilson suffers a massive stroke, leaving him partially paralyzed. He is confined to bed for weeks, but eventually resumes his duties, though his participation is little more than perfunctory. Wilson remains disabled throughout the remainder of his term in office, and the rest of his life.