vintage and modern pulp fiction; noir, schlock and exploitation films; scandals, swindles and news
We have a second calendar page for you today. Above you see German actress Uschi Glas in a May 1968 feature from the West German magazine Bravo called Star de Monats, or “star of the month.” We watched her recently in the Italian giallo flick Sette orchidee macchiate di rosso, aka Seven Blood-Stained Orchids, and she was by far the best performer in it. We’ll be seeing more of her later.
We mentioned a while back we were taking a closer look at vintage giallo flicks, and today you see a Renato Casaro poster for Sette orchidee macchiate di rosso, aka Seven Blood-Stained Orchids. During a train trip a serial killer who’s been dispatching women in various diabolical ways tries to make a victim of Uschi Glas. Uschi’s man Antonio Sabato is the police’s number one suspect, and the only way he can disprove their suspicions is by finding the killer. Uschi plays sidekick for him, which is good, because he looks terribly confused most of the time. This falsely-accused-must-find-real-killer gimmick had already reached perennial status when Antonio arrived on the scene, so you’d hope for a fresh take on it—and be disappointed. This isn’t a bad movie, but it’s undistinguished, a giallo without the high style of the best entries in the genre. Umberto Lenzi, who had directed numerous films but was making his first giallo here, would do a bit better later. Sette orchidee macchiate di rosso premiered in Italy today in 1972.
It’s a self portrait. I don’t know why I painted myself bloody and mutilated. Just a weird inspiration.
These are my new strangling gloves. 100% lambskin. Nice, right?
My last victim didn’t like gloves so this time I’m going bareback!
Not cutting him down.
Me either.
Wait, what? That’s not fair. I didn’t even see him until just now.
This mystery is probably far less complicated than we think.
American blues and jazz singer Billie Holiday records “Strange Fruit”, which is considered to be the first civil rights song. It began as a poem written by Abel Meeropol, which he later set to music and performed live with his wife Laura Duncan. The song became a Holiday standard immediately after she recorded it, and it remains one of the most highly regarded pieces of music in American history.
American actress and playwright Mae West is sentenced to ten days in jail for obscenity for the content of her play Sex. The trial occurred even though the play had run for a year and had been seen by 325,000 people. However West’s considerable popularity, already based on her risque image, only increased due to the controversy.
In the U.S, cult leader Charles Manson is sentenced to death for inciting the murders of Sharon Tate and several other people. Three accomplices, who had actually done the killing, were also sentenced to death, but the state of California abolished capital punishment in 1972 and neither they nor Manson were ever actually executed.
In New York City, Yankee Stadium, home of Major League Baseball’s New York Yankees, opens with the Yankees beating their eternal rivals the Boston Red Sox 4 to 1. The stadium, which is nicknamed The House that Ruth Built, sees the Yankees become the most successful franchise in baseball history. It is eventually replaced by a new Yankee Stadium and closes in September 2008.
A group of CIA financed and trained Cuban refugees lands at the Bay of Pigs in southern Cuba with the aim of ousting Fidel Castro. However, the invasion fails badly and the result is embarrassment for U.S. president John F. Kennedy and a major boost in popularity for Fidel Castro, and also has the effect of pushing him toward the Soviet Union for protection.
