vintage and modern pulp fiction; noir, schlock and exploitation films; scandals, swindles and news
Continuing with our recent theme, we’ve done a deep search on our site and found every instance where we said we’d get back to a subject later. We can’t fulfill all those promises, but we’re shortening the list again today. After sharing a couple of promos of an underwear clad Meika Seri from a 1974 photo session, we said we’d reveal whether the Secret Chronicle actress shed any more clothing. Above is your answer. She shed all her clothing.
If the Siri voice application for iPad is ever given a visual form, we vote for this one. The two panels above show lovely Japanese actress Sayaka Seri, aka Meika Seri, who made her debut in 1973 with Yasagure anego den: sôkatsu rinchi, aka Female Yakuza Tale: Inquisition and Torture, but became well known for the Nikkatsu hit (Maruhi) shikijô mesu ichiba, aka Secret Chronicle: She Beast Market, which was released in 1974. These photos date from that year. You may be wondering if Seri keeps disrobing in subsequent shots. Actually, she does, and if you’re really good maybe we’ll show you those a bit later.
(Maruhi) shikijô mesu ichiba, aka Secret Chronicle: She Beast Market is the third installment of Nikkatsu Studios’ prostitution-centered trilogy that began with Maruhi: joro ichiba (Prostitution Market) and continued with (Maruhi) jorô seme jigoku (ProstituteTorture Hell). This one was directed by Noboru Tanaka and stars Meika Seri as an Osaka prostie trying to survive her difficult profession and dysfunctional relatives. Some highlights (or lowlights) include one character killing another using a love doll inflated with explosive gas, Seri sexually indulging her mentally impaired younger brother, and the brother later doing what can best be described as choking the chicken (literally). In other words, it’s trademark Nikkatsu craziness, often disturbing but beautifully shot in both color and b&w. (Maruhi) shikijô mesu ichiba premiered in Japan today in 1974.
American journalist, playwright, and author Richard Harding Davis dies of a heart attack at home in Philadelphia. Not widely known now, Davis was one of the most important and influential war correspondents ever, establishing his reputation by reporting on the Spanish-American War, the Second Boer War, and World War I, as well as his general travels to exotic lands.
In Mexico, revolutionary leader Emiliano Zapata is shot dead by government forces in the state of Morelos, after a carefully planned ambush. Following the killing, Zapata’s revolutionary movement and his Liberation Army of the South slowly fall apart, but his political influence lasts in Mexico to the present day.
F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel The Great Gatsby is published in New York City by Charles Scribner’s Sons. Though Gatsby is Fitzgerald’s best known book today, it was not a success upon publication, and at the time of his death in 1940, Fitzgerald was mostly forgotten as a writer and considered himself to be a failure.
American clergyman and civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr., is buried five days after being shot dead on a Memphis, Tennessee motel balcony. April 7th had been declared a national day of mourning by President Lyndon B. Johnson, and King’s funeral on the 9th is attended by thousands of supporters, and Vice President Hubert Humphrey.
In Kenya, Jomo Kenyatta is sentenced to seven years in prison by the nation’s British rulers for being a member of the Mau Mau Society, an anti-colonial movement. Kenyatta would a decade later become independent Kenya’s first prime minister, and still later its first president.
Major League Baseball player Hank Aaron hits his 715th career home run, surpassing Babe Ruth’s 39-year-old record. The record-breaking homer is hit off Al Downing of the Los Angeles Dodgers, and with that swing Aaron puts an exclamation mark on a twenty-four year journey that had begun with the Indianapolis Clowns of the Negro League, and would end with his selection to Major League Baseball’s Hall of Fame.
