| Modern Pulp | Mar 8 2024 |
In Japan business is war—complete with innocent bystanders.
This brilliant promo was painted for Hana to hebi: Shiiku-hen, known in English as Flower and Snake 3: Punishment. It starred Minako Ogawa of Dan Oniroku ikenie shimai, aka Sisters To Be Sacrificed, and in fact the same painter must have produced both posters. Have a look. The central figure is almost identical, no? Right down to her hairy armpits. Since there's no official info on who the artist is we'll throw in our two cents. It was bondage painter Kaname Ozuma. He painted at least one other poster for the Flower and Snake series, which you can see here. In the meantime this piece is literally nowhere else to be found in the quality you see here. At least, as far as we can tell.
We watched the film and it's a typically perverse roman porno tale about a powerful businessman married to Minako Ogawa, who he stole from a subordinate who was helpless to prevent it. When he later declines to help a business associate out of a jam that person has Ogawa kidnapped—literally thrown into a giant bag—taken to an isolated house, sexually assaulted, and coercively trained using bondage, a kielbasa, and other esoterica in order to turn her into a performer for live sex shows. That's a hell of a twisted retaliation for being refused financial help, but twisted is what roman porno is all about.
Of technical note is the fact that, though it was illegal to show pubic hair in Japanese movies, the ever clever roman porno filmmakers found a loophole. They have Ogawa's captors, as part of her torment, cut off her pubic hair with scissors. Though it couldn't be shown attached to her body without bringing down the wrath of censors, they got away with showing it falling into bathwater. You gotta give the pervs credit. They were always thinking outside the—er—box. Hana to hebi: Shiiku-hen premiered in Japan today in 1986.
After a long day on the set filming sex and bondage...
I'm very happy to spend the evening doing this.
JapanNikkatsuHana to hebi: Shiiku-henFlower and Snake 3: PunishmentMinako OgawaYuri YauMariko KajikawaKaname Ozumapinkuroman pornosexploitationbdsmnudityposter artcinemamovie review
| Vintage Pulp | Jan 28 2024 |
Liking this film will demand very hard work.
We're back to Cheri Caffaro quicker than you thought, finally taking a look at The Abductors, part of a trilogy of films, along with Ginger and Girls Are for Loving, in which she plays government agent Ginger McAllister. The character, who is no James Bond or Emma Peel (budget alone prevents that), usually lounges around sun-drenched climes, but occasionally is called in by her handler to deal with tough cases. This time she's needed to take down a sex trafficking ring. She recruits her pal Laurie Rose as bait, has her swallow a tracking chip, allows her to be kidnapped, and intends to follow her to the heart of the operation. But the plan doesn't quite work out—cut to Caffaro and Rose bound, gagged, and at the mercy of bad men.
Things look dire at that point. There's not much upside in being tied up in a basement in nothing but your panties. However Caffaro and Rose have two advantages. First, they both know karate or something. And second, they both love sex. They don't even have to fake it. These two can get off even with the flabbiest villains. And if their martial arts and sexual prowess don't bring down the crooks, they have outside help from an entire government funded crimefighting organization. In short—they'll be just fine. The movie is less so. In the end you can say about it exactly what you can say about the other two entries in the Ginger McAllister series: it's bad but interesting; it's surprisingly equal opportunity with its nudity; and it showcases a uniquely brave actress in Caffaro. The Abductors premiered today in 1972.
| Vintage Pulp | Nov 24 2023 |
Cold War spies make waves in the City of Canals.
The Venetian Affair, which premiered today in 1966, has a rather interesting promo poster. It was painted by U.S. artist Frank McCarthy, who was big in paperback covers early in his career, moved into high-budget movie promos such as James Bond posters, and finally made a mark in realist fine art. We love this piece from him. There's a lot going on. If you check out his effort for You Only Live Twice here you'll see how dense and chaotic his work could be, same as above, where he has people falling off the bridge, off the gondola, and guns being brandished everywhere. In addition, his likenesses of the movie's stars are good. He was a major talent.
The first observation you might make while watching The Venetian Affair is that it would be impossible to make a similar movie in that city today. Nearly four million tourists visited Venice in 2022, making nearly every street—and certainly every site of special historical note—like the mass exodus from a just-completed football game. With that level of humanity about, closing parts of the city or main squares—while maybe possible—would not be practical or economical.
But The Venetian Affair was made back when quiet streets and dark corners existed. Old world architecture always makes for a good spy movie backdrop. That's exactly what you get in this adventure about a mind control drug being used to foment conflict between the U.S. and U.S.S.R. Robert Vaughn stars as a former CIA agent who was fired after he married Elke Sommer, who was suspected of being a double agent. Vaughn never found out whether that was true because he and Sommer were torn apart by turbulent events. But when a bomb blows up a Venice political conference and Sommer is thought to be involved, the CIA drags Vaughn back into its clutches to find Sommer, as well as the crucial clue that might explain the bombing.
Vaughn is a cool and composed actor, any movie with Sommer is one we'll watch, and co-stars Felicia Farr, Luciana Paluzzi, Ed Asner, and the venerable Boris Karloff are all enticements, but we can't say The Venetian Affair is a scintillating example of a Cold War spy flick. It's such a fertile sub-genre, one that produced some of the best movies of 1950s through 1970s. Even against the beautiful Venice backdrop it mostly falls flat due to a screenplay that never hits any highs. But that doesn't mean you shouldn't watch it. Though it lacks highs, it also lack any serious lows. You can spend your time worse ways. Plus—Sommer. What more do you need?
ItalyU.S.S.R.Soviet UnionVeniceCold WarThe Venetian AffairRobert VaughnElke SommerFelicia FarrKarlheinz BöhmmKarl BohmLuciana PaluzziBoris KarloffEdward AsnerFrank McCarthyposter artcinemamovie reviewcommunism
| Intl. Notebook | Nov 22 2023 |
Clean-up needed in the peepshow aisle. Repeat. Clean-up in the peepshow.
This guy should probably have been in combat gear slogging through stifling heat on a Pacific island, but instead, today in 1942, he was getting a cheap thrill by checking out a reel called “Back to Nature.” Maybe he had bone spurs that kept him out of uniform. In any case, he's using a coin operated mutoscope, which had been patented in 1894 and quickly became popular throughout the U.S. They were often stationed in arcades and carnival peep shows, and usually contained tittilating content—in this case a nudism vignette—though they sometimes showed travel, nature, or comedy. We weren't sure whether the racier displays featured any actual nudity, but we quickly found out because the internet knows all. Some enterprising folks have uploaded various mutoscope reels, which you can see at a YouTube playlist here.
| Vintage Pulp | Nov 5 2023 |
Cooler heads will not prevail.
Above: a beautiful cover for Jonathan Craig's Red-Headed Sinners. We discussed the book a while back, but the version we read was from Lancer, published in 1963 with uncredited art. This version, the first published, arrived in 1953 from Croyden Books with art by another uncredited talent. It could be Lou Marchetti, since he was working with Croyden at the time, but there's no way to attribute this definitively. Into the mystery bin it goes.
| Vintage Pulp | Oct 24 2023 |
Chinese communists try to whip Americans in the nuclear race.
The Chinese Keyhole, Richard Himmel's second novel starring his creation Johnny Maguire, finds the ass kicking lawyer immersed in intrigue in Chicago's Chinatown district, where a mission to deliver a coded message reveals a conspiracy centered in a strip bar. Turns out communists, including a whip wielding psycho, are trying to steal nuclear secrets. Maguire is no longer just a lawyer, but a government agent with his law practice as a front. We don't remember that from the first book, but maybe we missed it.
As in the debut outing Maguire is a guy who takes what he wants, never really asking permission before laying his lips on a nearby woman, and always, of course, he's correct in his assumption that he's sexually desired. Faithful Tina from book one returns to be shabbily treated again, and as before the romantic subplots blossom into full-blown melodrama that would fit perfectly in a Harlequin novel.
We probably don't need to mention that any mid-century book with Asian characters is going to cross some lines, and Maguire doesn't defy expectations on that front, nor does he miss an opportunity to disparage homosexuality. If you haven't read many of these old thrillers you might think that was the norm, but actually it's rare because gay characters don't figure in most of the books. When they did, well, the language got baroque, to say the least. Culturally we've arrived at a better—though still imperfect—place in time.
Flaws aside, we thought The Chinese Keyhole was better written than Himmel's first Maguire novel I'll Find You. Even with this mostly hackneyed commie conspiracy potboiler, he's intrigued us enough to take another ride with his interesting lawyer/lothario/secret agent, so we'll read the third book I Have Gloria Kirby and see where that leaves us. The art on this Gold Medal edition is by Barye Phillips and it dates from 1951.
| Vintage Pulp | Oct 13 2023 |
That bimbo has no idea she can't get hair dye here. When her roots grow out we'll see if men still think she's so amazing.
We have other Wade Miller books to read, but we picked up this copy of 1960's Jungle Heat and moved it to the head of the line because the story is set in Malaya (now Malaysia), and the last book we read that the authors (Bob Wade and Bill Miller writing together under a pseudonym) set in an exotic country was phenomenal. Jungle Heat was originally published in 1954 under the name Dale Wilmer, with this reattributed Pyramid edition coming a bit later, and it finds Miller taking on the unexpected challenge of writing in first person from a woman's point-of-view. The lead character is Hollywood b-actress Roxy Powell, who is sent to Malaya with a small crew to shoot background footage for an upcoming jungle adventure. Never mind that a communist revolution is brewing. What Hollywood wants, Hollywood gets.
Plantation boss Llewelyn Kirk, under whose roof Roxy and the crew are residing, is one of those characters who's colonial through-and-through but thinks that because he's been in Malaya for twenty years he isn't an invader and knows what's best for locals. Since the authors agree with this paternalistic sentiment, the narrative is steered—to an almost ludicrous extent—toward Kirk being correct. We won't get into any of it except to say that, generally, anti-communist fiction from the mid-century era was unavoidably propagandist. In this case the authors are basically correct in their regional political analysis, but gloss over important details and whiff on overarching points. For example, there's an interesting scene where a Malayan tells Kirk that he'd heard blacks in America are unjustly killed by whites. Kirk assures him it isn't true. We almost did a spit-take on that one.
Roxy first hates, then by a circuitous path, comes to adore Kirk. She's initially driven by her need for “respect,” which here doesn't mean respect as normally understood, but is instead code for sexual desirability. Because Kirk ignores her, she hates him. Therefore she embarks on a campaign to discover his humanity—i.e. his sexual attraction to her. Even if you didn't know the author, that's when you might suspect a guy—or two—was in the driver seat. Okay, so if the politics take liberties and the justification for romance is male fantasy in disguise, is the book any good? Well, sure. There's a nice jungle setting, a fun Hollywood sidebar, a backdrop of war in which enemies circle ever closer, a traitor hiding in the fold, and love blossoming amid chaos. With all that going for it, the book has to be good. But that said, Wade/Miller definitely wrote better.
| Hollywoodland | Sep 9 2023 |
Movie stars were always willing to give each other a hand.
Once again we've been struck, so to speak, by the sheer number of cinema promo images featuring actors and actresses pretending to slap each other. The just keep turning up. The above shot is more about the neck than the face, but it still counts, as Gloria Swanson slaps William Holden in 1950's Sunset Boulevard. Below we have a bunch more, and you can see our previous collection at this link. Since we already discussed this phenomenon we won't get into it again, except briefly as follows: pretend slaps, film is not reality, and everyone should try to remember the difference. Many slaps below for your interest and wonder.
Diana Dors smacks Patrick Allen blurry in 1957's The Long Haul.
Mob boss George Raft menaces Anne Francis in a promo image made for 1954's Rogue Cop.
Bud Abbott gets aggressive with Lou Costello in 1945's Here Come the Co-Eds.
Jo Morrow takes one from black hat Jack Hogan in 1959's The Legend of Tom Dooley.
Chris Robinson and Anita Sands get a couple of things straight about who's on the yearbook committee in Diary of High School Bride.
Paul Newman and Ann Blyth agree to disagree in 1957's The Helen Morgan Story.
Verna Lisi shows Umberto Orsini who gives the orders in the 1967 film La ragazza e il generale, aka The Girl and the General.
What the fuck did you just call me? Marki Bey slaps Betty Anne Rees loopy in the 1974 horror flick Sugar Hill.
Claudia Cardinale slaps (or maybe punches—we can't remember) Brigitte Bardot in the 1971 western Les pétroleuses, known in English for some reason as The Legend of Frenchie King.
Audrey Totter reels under the attentions of Richard Basehart in 1949 Tension. We're thinking it was probably even more tense after this moment.
Anne Baxter tries to no avail to avoid a slap from heel Steve Cochran in 1954's Carnival Story.
Though Alan Ladd was a little guy who Gail Russell probably could have roughed up if she wanted, the script called for him to slap her, and he obeyed in the 1946 adventure Calcutta.
Peter Alexander guards his right cheek, therefore Hannelore Auer crosses him up and attacks his left in 1964's Schwejk's Flegeljahre, aka Schweik's Years of Indiscretion.
Elizabeth Ashley gives Roddy McDowall a facial in in 1965's The Third Day.
Tony Anthony slaps Lucretia Love in 1972's Piazza pulita, aka Pete, Pearl and the Pole.
André Oumansky goes backhand on Lola Albright in 1964's Joy House.
Frank Ferguson catches one from Barbara Bel Geddes in the 1949 drama Caught.
This looks like a real slap, so you have to credit the actresses for their commitment. It's from 1961's Raisin in the Sun and shows Claudia McNeil rearranging the face of Diana Sands.
Gloria Grahame finds herself cornered by Broderick Crawford in 1954's Human Desire.
Bette Davis, an experienced slapper and slappee, gets a little assistance from an unidentified third party as she goes Old West on Amanda Blake in a 1966 episode of Gunsmoke called “The Jailer.”
There are a few slaps in 1939's Gone with the Wind, so we had our pick. We went with Vivien Leigh and Leslie Howard.
Virginia Field takes one on the chin from Marshall Thompson in Dial 1119.
Clint Eastwood absorbs a right cross from nun Shirley MacLaine in 1970's Two Mules for Sister Sara.Sunset BoulevardThe Long HaulRogue CopHere Come the Co-EdsThe Legend of Tom DooleyDiary of High School BrideThe Helen Morgan StoryLa ragazza e il generaleThe Girl and the GeneralSugar HillLes pétroleusesThe Legend of Frenchie KingTensionCarnival StoryCalcuttaSchwejk's FlegeljahreSchweik's Years of IndiscretionThe Third DayJoy HouseCaughtHuman DesireGunsmokeGone with the WindDial 1119Gloria SwansonWilliam HoldenDiana DorsPatrick AllenBud AbbottLou CostelloJo MorrowJack HoganChris RobinsonAnita SandsVirna LisiUmberto OrsiniMarki BeyBetty Anne ReesClaudia CardinaleBrigitte BardotRichard BasehartAudrey TotterAnne BaxterSteve CochranAlan LaddGail RussellHannelore AuerPeter AlexanderElizabeth AshleyRoddy McDowallAndré OumanskyLola AlbrightFrank FergusonBarbara Bel GeddesClaudia McNeilDiana SandsBroderick CrawfordGloria GrahameBette DavisAmanda BlakeVivien LeighLeslie HowardVirginia FieldMarshall ThompsonClint EastwoodShirley MacLainecinematelevision
| Vintage Pulp | Aug 24 2023 |
It's a must-have item for the fashion forward femme fatale.
Caviar et vodka, which is credited to Bob Toomey and is the first entry in French publisher SEF's Police Sexy series, came in 1978. That's late for our website, and we also tend to avoid photo covers, but the black-coated killer lady wearing nothing beneath her fur but some heavy steel makes it an appropriate share. The story is less police than espionage, having to do with a trio of Russian spies (interestingly named Elvire, Debrisse and Natacha) up to dastardly doings during the hottest period of the Cold War. Bob Toomey, a far less interesting name, was a pseudonym, but we can't trace it to its origin. There's a review of the book online and it isn't flattering, so maybe “Toomey” had only this one shot before being flushed out of the bottom of French publishing. In any case, cool cover.
| Femmes Fatales | Aug 17 2023 |
This thing reminds me of my ex-boyfriend—loud as hell and powered by compressed gas.
Above: cinema sweetheart Ginger Rogers poses with a pneumatic rivet gun in a promo image made for her wartime romantic drama Tender Comrade. The movie is about Rogers and three other women sharing a house and working in an airplane factory while their fellas are away on the front. It was a wild success and looked patriotic to filmgoers, but somehow the reactionaries and opportunists comprising HUAC—the House Un-American Activities Committee—in an effort to blacklist the writer Dalton Trumbo turned Tender Comrade upside down and managed to shake out what it claimed were examples of communist propaganda. As we've noted before, history has rendered its verdict on HUAC, and it isn't a good one.
