Pulp International

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

DALTON UNMADE

Four of the best cheeseball movies that never existed.

Above are four mock-up posters from the Quentin Tarantino fable Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, which premiered at the Cannes Film Festival today in 2019 and is one of our favorite movies of recent years. If you haven’t seen it, basically it’s an L.A. fairtytale/alternate reality in which the Manson Family stands in for a terrible dragon, and if slain all of American history might be different. The fictional films within the film—Uccidimi Subito Ringo, disse il Gringo, aka Kill Me Now Ringo, Said the Gringo, Nebraska Jim, Operazione Dyn-o-mite!, and Tanner—starred declining b-movie actor Rick Dalton, played by Leonardo DiCaprio. Operazione Dyn-o-mite! “co-starred” real-life actress Margaret Lee, and Nebraska Jim was helmed in fantasy by real-life Italian director Sergio Corbucci. The one figure whose involvement wasn’t fictive is Italian artist Renato Casaro. He signed Nebraska Jim, but actually painted all four posters. He was of course responsible for many high quality promos from the 1960s onward and is eighty-nine years old today. The brush still works fine.

France, Cannes Film Festival, Los Angeles, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, Renato Casaro, Leonardo DiCaprio, Quentin Tarantino, Manson Family, Charles Manson, Sergio Corbucci, Margaret Lee, poster art, cinema

THE TELL-TALE CAT

So far he's shown little interest in the scratching post she bought him.

I racconti del terrore is better known as Tales of Terror. It’s a three-part anthology film based on the writing of Edgar Allen Poe that starred Vicent Price as different characters in the three segments, and featured as co-stars Peter Lorre, Maggie Pierce, Basil Rathbone, Debra Paget, and others. The brilliant art here was painted by Renato Casaro and fits into the proud tradition of posters featuring horrible cats. You can see other examples here, here, here, and here. And just for the hell of it, here’s a poster featuring a horrible rat. It rhymes. Those are only a fraction of the historical total of horrible cat-rats on posters. As for Tales of Terror…

We won’t mince words—it’s bad. We feel the blame is mainly on director Roger Corman. Sure, Poe is melodramatic, but the movie is beyond. It’s stagy and overacted by all involved, most egregiously by Price, Lorre, and Pierce. The second segment, “The Black Cat,” is played semi-comically, but with Price and Lorre jousting hamo a hamo you’ll cringe more than laugh. We’ll admit, though, that its narrative—loosely based on Poe’s tale of the same name about a cuckolded husband who plots vengeance on his wife—contains a sidebar that manages to skewer snobby wine culture effectively. As wine drinkers we enjoyed that.

The third segment, based on Poe’s, “The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar,” has some glimmers of hope, but largely because Price, playing a dying man who’s weakening by the day, dials the cheese back from schloss to something in the range of maybe gorgonzola. There’s still a thick slab of ham underneath. However, everything we just wrote comes with a caveat: we’d had no drinks or other substances when we watched the movie. There’s possible potential for improvement if chemical compounds are coursing through your bloodstream. Tales of Terror opened in the U.S. July 1962, and premiered in Italy today the same year.

Italy, I racconti del terrore, Tales of Terror, Vincent Price, Peter Lorre, Basil Rathbone, Debra Paget, Maggie Pierce, Leona Gage, Joyce Jameson, Edgar Allen Poe, Roger Corman, Renato Casaro, poster art, cinema, horror, movie review

GUNS BLAZING

Did somebody order a spaghetti western with extra cheese?

We take every opportunity we can to show you the work of Renato Casaro, even when it’s used to promote a movie as bad as Carogne si nasce. Casaro painted a lot of spaghetti western posters but this one is a bit more intense than most. There’s a reason for that—the character he painted was intense. The movie is known in English as Cry of Death, and it deals with conflict that erupts between squatters and ranchers in fictional Houstonville, Texas, and the marshal—Glenn Saxson—who first tries to stay out of it, but later chooses a side when he realizes that inside the land rights struggle is a deeper problem regarding someone’s secret past and corruption amongst the town bigwigs.

This is one cheap-ass movie. The budget is exemplified by a barroom brawl during which a character is shoved through a cardboard wall. Every castmember is a b-level actor at best. And the script—don’t even bring up the script. It’s like it was accidentally shot full of holes during one of the gunfights. But we’ll give this cheeseball movie one thing—the main bad guy is amazing. He’s played by ex-bodybuilder Gordon Mitchell, and he looks like a demon wearing bronzer. Spaghetti western producers were good at casting villains, and Mitchell fits the tradition with a capital V. Otherwise, this flick—even with its final act twist—is nowheresville. Carogne si nasce premiered in Italy today in 1968

That’s right. I’m the bad guy. You never guessed, did you?

I’m pure evil, but I can smile winningly. See?

Though I’m from hell and consume only souls, I can mimic human rituals such as drinking beer.

But I don’t mimic swallowing it. My master should serve this pisswater to the thirsty wretches in his realm.
 
Italy, Carogne si nasce, Cry of Death, Glenn Saxson, Gordon Mitchell, Renato Baldini, Nello Pazzafini, Mirella Pamphili, Renato Casaro, poster art, cinema, spaghetti western, movie review

SPLASH GORDON

Dirty mind, clean body.

Above: a poster for the 1972 sexploitation flick I pornogiochi delle femmine svedesi, painted by Italian illustrator Renato Casaro, along with a photo of star Claire Gordon going a rub-a-dub-dub with both hands in a tub, used by Casaro to inspire his creative process. The movie was originally made in England as Suburban Wives. While Gordon is lovely, and the poster is too, the movie is pretty dumb. Many years back we discussed it in a bit more detail and shared another Casaro promo, so if you’re inclined to check that out, you can do so here.

Italy, I pornogiochi delle femmine svedesi, Suburban Wives, Claire Gordon, Renato Casaro, poster art, cinema, sexploitation

CIRCUS MAXIMUS

Welcome to the greatest show on Earth


Renato Casaro was a celebrated Italian movie poster artist, but he worked in other media, including album sleeves and portraiture. Above he’s created an advertising poster for Cirque d’Hiver Bouglione, a Parisian circus that traces its roots back to 1852, when Charles de Mornay, commonly referred to as Duc de Morny, undertook its creation and named it after his half brother Prince Louis-Napoléon III. When the circus finally opened in 1859 it featured equestrianism, animal acts, and aerial acrobatics from the famed Jules Léotard. After being interrupted by World War I, the business passed over to Gaston Desprez in 1923, and again in 1934 to the Bouglione Brothers, who were Italians who’d made a name for themselves traveling France with a menagerie and wild cat act. The circus was halted during World War II and the occuptation of its buildings by the Nazis, but emerged post-war to continue its growth and fame, known by then as Cirque d’Hiver Bouglione, the name it bears today. Casaro’s lovely poster dates from 1970.

Italy, France, Paris, Renato Casaro, Louis-Napoléon III, Jules Léotard, Gaston Desprez

ENTER MILAN

A city with no exit.


Milano Calibro 9, for which you see a promo poster painted by Renato Casaro, is a fun entry in the ranks of Italian crime cinema. Derived from a book of twenty-two short stories by Giorgio Scerbanenco, the plot follows a career thief played by a deadpan Gastone Moschin who’s suspected by a crime kingpin of stealing $300,000 of his money. When Moschin is released from prison he’s dogged by the kingpin and the local cops, who both want him to produce the cash. But he says he doesn’t have it. The fact that the money is missing is what’s keeping him alive for the moment, but if he doesn’t come up with it the kingpin will kill him.

This trapped ex-con scenario runs along classic lines familiar to fans of vintage noirs, which works to the movie’s benefit and disadvantage simultaneously. On the negative side, the plot offers little new in the gangster genre, and contemporary reviews pointed that out, but on the positive the movie has gritty Milan exteriors (shot when air pollution was still a major problem throughout the industrialized West), a cold-as-ice mood, a set of great character actors as various brutal criminals, and the presence of Barbara Bouchet as the world’s least rhythmic but most beautiful go-go dancer.

What really sets Milano Calibro 9 apart, though, is its political undertones. The police investigation is hampered by a bitter division between classic rightwing commissioner Frank Wolff and far left head inspector Luigi Pistilli. Their ideological conflict and its implicaition of widespread class struggle in Italy gives the movie’s fight over loose money a significance that still resonates today. In our era characterized by (among other serious problems) a yawning financial inequality gap, Milano Calibro 9 is a reminder that cinematic thrillers weren’t always politically mindless. We recommend it. It premiered in Italy today in 1972.
Italy, Milan, Milano Calibro 9, Calibre 9, Gastone Moschin, Barbara Bouchet, Mario Adorf, Frank Wolff, Lionel Stander, Giorgio Scerbanenco, Renato Casaro, poster art, cinema, movie review

TROPICO STORM

Haiti gets hit by hurricane Anita.


These two posters for Al tropico del cancro, aka Tropic of Cancer, were painted by Italian master Renato Casaro, and really demonstrate his artistic range, as they’re stylistically different from the other poster he painted for the film. We have plenty of Casaro in the website, so if you want to see more just click his keywords below, or if you’re pressed for time, you can see what we think is his best work here and here. He isn’t the only person we want to highlight today. The movie stars Anita Strindberg, yet another luminous actress to come out of Sweden, and she plays a wife who travels to Haiti and is soon caught up in tropical sensuality, hallucinogenic drugs, and voodoo. It’s unabashed exploitation ranging from the sexual to the cultural, and Strindberg is the main reason it’s watchable, as you see below. Al tropico del cancro premiered in Italy today in 1972.

Italy, Sweden, Al tropico del cancro, Tropic of Cancer, Peacock's Place, Anita Strindberg, Anthony Steffen, Renato Casaro, poster art, cinema, sexploitation, giallo

BRIGHT LIGHTS BIG CITTA

An American con man in London.

Above: a nice Italian poster for Jules Dassin’s 1950 film noir Night and the City. The city is London, which proves to have numerous hazards for shady Richard Widmark. In Italy the movie was called I trafficanti della notte, then retitled Nella citta la notte scotta. You see both on the poster. Earlier promos exist that have only the first title, but we like this later one painted by Renato Casaro the most. It has a beautiful glowing cityscape in the background. Amazing work. We don’t know why the title was changed, but the original translates as “the traffickers of the night,” while the second is, “in the city the night is hot,” so maybe the distributors simply preferred the more poetic second title. We certainly do. We haven’t talked about this movie yet, but we’ll get to it a little later. It opened in Italy today in 1951.

Italy, I trafficanti della notte, Nella citta la notte scotta, Night and the City, Richard Widmark, Gene Tierney, Jules Dassin, Renato Casaro, poster art, cinema, film noir

MUSHROOM CROWD

The fallout from this situation will be lethal.

Above, an Italian poster painted by Renato Casaro for the Japanese macabre sci-fi flick Matango, which in Italy was called Matango il mostro and in the U.S. Attack of the Mushroom People. We shared the excellent Japanese posters back during the summer and you can see those here. The film opened in Italy at the Festival della Fantascienza di Trieste today in 1964.

Japan, Italy, Trieste, Festival della Fantascienza di Trieste, Matango il mostro, Matango, Attack of the Mushroom People, Renato Casaro, poster art, cinema, sci-fi

FEELING KIND OF BLEU

A film noir of a different color.


Above, two Italian posters for Operazione Lotus bleu, better known as The Scarlet Hour. Funny that the color in the title changed. Why not call it “operazione lotus rosso”? Actually, “bleu” isn’t evan an Italian word, as far as we know, which makes this poster even weirder. Italian for blue is “blu.” The movie also played under a title translated literally from the English original—L’ora scarlatta—and we’d show you those posters but they don’t compare to these. No surprise, since these were painted by the great Renato Casaro. As for the color change, that will likely remain a mystery. There’s no known Italian release date for the film, but it premiered nearly everywhere in Europe between September and November of 1956. More here. 

Italy, The Scarlet Hour, L'ora scarlatta, Operazione Lotus bleu, Tom Tryon, Carol Ohmart, Renato Casaro, poster art, cinema, film noir
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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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