Vintage Pulp

November 17 2020

CUT TO THE CHASE

Our best option is to run as fast as we can. You can keep up with me okay in that floor length gown, right?

These two orange promos were made for The Chase, starring Robert Cummings as a down and out war vet and Steve Cochran as a Miami gangster. The film also has Peter Lorre as Cochran’s henchman and Michèle Morgan as his wife. The plot set-up is simple. When Cummings finds a wallet packed with cash he returns it, though he’s down on his luck. The wallet belongs to shady Cochran, who is impressed by Cummings’ honesty and hires him to be a chauffeur. Pretty soon he’s driving Morgan around too, which is a nice bonus. When she decides she wants to leave Cochran, she asks Cummings for help and he dreams up a scheme to escape by ship to Havana.

If you watch this you’ll notice that Cummings is sedate, almost in a daze, but there are reasons for this that are revealed later. His escape plan does not—of course—come off without a hitch. Lorre figures it out and throws a monkey wrench in the works. That’s not a spoiler. This is film noir, which means you know his initial plan won’t work. But we won’t reveal more. In our opinion, it would have been nice if the filmmakers had at least gotten some second unit shots from Havana to use, just a few street scenes or harbor shots, but no such luck. Though the movie has a backlot feel, some of the sets are pretty nice just the same. In the end it’s worth seeing. It premiered in the U.S. today in 1946.

The Chase, Robert Cummings, Michèle Morgan, Steve Cochran, Peter Lorre, poster art, cinema, movie review

Femmes Fatales

November 10 2015

CAULFIELD CALLING

Petty woman look my way.

This unusual 1950 promo photo of American actress Joan Caulfield was made for her role in The Petty Girl, in which she starred with Robert Cummings. The Petty Girl was a curious movie—a famous pin-up artist based on actual pin-up king George Petty encounters a shy college professor and becomes both romantically intrigued by her, and determined to have her pose for one of his paintings. We may watch this one and get back to you.

The Petty Girl, Joan Caulfield, Robert Cummings, George Petty, cinema

Vintage Pulp

February 22 2015

COMPUTER BLUES

Love and the single robot.

This National Star Chronicle published today in 1965 doesn’t stand up well against the more colorful Keyhole (above), but it does have Julie Newmar, which is something. The photo that editors opt to use is just a handout, and it’s actually several years older than the issue, having appeared in glamour magazines as far back as 1961. When Newmar says she’s no robot, she’s referring to her role in the television series My Living Doll, in which she played an android named AF 709. In the show she’s created as a blank slate, which prompts her maker to partner her with a psychiatrist played by Robert Cummings, whose job is to program her to behave like an actual woman. We know. We know. The job should probably be given to… erm… a woman, but where’s the fun in that? Anyway, AF 709 is redubbed Rhoda Miller, given over to Cummings, and he tries to teach her things like obedience to males, and to not talk back—yes, really—but she of course develops a few quirks independent of her programming, and hilarity ensues. The show didn’t last long, shockingly, but it did contribute an enduring catchphrase to the American lexicon: “Does not compute.”

National Star Chronicle, My Living Doll, Julie Newmar, Robert Cummings, tabloid, television, sci-fi

ABOUT

EMAIL

LEGAL

SEARCH PULP INTERNATIONAL

PULP INTL.
HISTORY REWIND

The headlines that mattered yesteryear.

March 25

1957—Ginsberg Poem Seized by Customs

On the basis of alleged obscenity, United States Customs officials seize 520 copies of Allen Ginsberg’s poem “Howl” that had been shipped from a London printer. The poem contained mention of illegal drugs and explicitly referred to sexual practices. A subsequent obscenity trial was brought against Lawrence Ferlinghetti, who ran City Lights Bookstore, the poem’s domestic publisher. Nine literary experts testified on the poem’s behalf, and Ferlinghetti won the case when a judge decided that the poem was of redeeming social importance.

March 25

1975—King Faisal Is Assassinated

King Faisal of Saudi Arabia dies after his nephew Prince Faisal Ibu Musaed shoots him during a royal audience. As King Faisal bent forward to kiss his nephew the Prince pulled out a pistol and shot him under the chin and through the ear. King Faisal died in the hospital after surgery. The prince is later beheaded in the public square in Riyadh.

March 24

1981—Ronnie Biggs Rescued After Kidnapping

Fugitive thief Ronnie Biggs, a British citizen who was a member of the gang that pulled off the Great Train Robbery, is rescued by police in Barbados after being kidnapped. Biggs had been abducted a week earlier from a bar in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil by members of a British security firm. Upon release he was returned to Brazil and continued to be a fugitive from British justice.

March 23

2011—Elizabeth Taylor Dies

American actress Elizabeth Taylor, whose career began at age 12 when she starred in National Velvet, and who would eventually be nominated for five Academy Awards as best actress and win for Butterfield 8 and Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, dies of congestive heart failure in Los Angeles. During her life she had been hospitalized more than 70 times.

March 22

1963—Profumo Denies Affair

In England, the Secretary of State for War, John Profumo, denies any impropriety with showgirl Christine Keeler and threatens to sue anyone repeating the allegations. The accusations involve not just infidelity, but the possibility acquaintances of Keeler might be trying to ply Profumo for nuclear secrets. In June, Profumo finally resigns from the government after confessing his sexual involvement with Keeler and admitting he lied to parliament.

March 22

1978—Karl Wallenda Falls to His Death

World famous German daredevil and high-wire walker Karl Wallenda, founder of the acrobatic troupe The Flying Wallendas, falls to his death attempting to walk on a cable strung between the two towers of the Condado Plaza Hotel in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Wallenda is seventy-three years old at the time, but it is a 30 mph wind, rather than age, that is generally blamed for sending him from the wire.

March 22

2006—Swedish Spy Stig Wennerstrom Dies

Swedish air force colonel Stig Wennerström, who had been convicted in the 1970s of passing Swedish, U.S. and NATO secrets to the Soviet Union over the course of fifteen years, dies in an old age home at the age of ninety-nine. The Wennerström affair, as some called it, was at the time one of the biggest scandals of the Cold War.