Femmes Fatales

February 20 2021

A MAYO K.O.

I call this next punch the goodnight kiss.

Virginia Mayo wasn’t much of a boxer. In addition to being very light, she telegraphed her punches, like this haymaker roundhouse right she’s about throw after winding it up from somewhere around Sausalito. Good thing she could act. She appeared in such classic films as The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, The Flame and the Arrow, South Sea Woman, and, interestingly, in 1946 starred in both White Heat and Red Light. That sounds like a must-watch double bill, and despite the hundreds of vintage crime flicks we’ve seen, amazingly we’ve never seen those. So our night is all mapped out.

South Sea Woman, White Heat, Red Light, The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, The Flame and the Arrow, Virginia Mayo

Vintage Pulp

October 19 2018

SOUTH SEA DRIFTER

I may be a bum but that's Sergeant Bum to you.

Above, an Italian promo poster painted by Luigi Martinati for the U.S. adventure flick South Sea Woman, with Burt Lancaster and Virginia Mayo. In Italy it was called Il sergente Bum! There’s no Italian release date known. We did a little write-up of the film you can see at this link, and you can check out more of Martinati’s brilliant brushwork here.

Italy, South Sea Woman, Il sergente Bum!, Burt Lancaster, Virginia Mayo, Luigi Martinati, poster art, cinema

Vintage Pulp

June 3 2018

LOST AT SEA

Virginia Mayo and company prove romance and politics don't mix.

We said back in May of last year we’d watch South Sea Woman to see how Virginia Mayo ended up in a crate. Because the movie premiered in the U.S. today in 1953, we’ve decided to answer the question now. She ended up in a crate because she stowed away in it to follow Burt Lancaster and Chuck Connors across the Pacific Ocean. Lancaster and Connors are two marines accidentally left in Shanghai when their ship sails into battle after the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor. Mayo wants out of Shanghai too, but she also wants to marry Connors. Naturally these three stumble upon the Japanese and are able to do their bit for the war effort even though they’re stuck in the middle of nowhere.

New York Times reviewer Bosley Crowther called the movie “a rip-snorting glorification of two United States marines.” The movie is indeed supposed to glorify the military. It’s also supposed to be funny, so it’s too bad it generates zero laughs. Its fatal flaws are that Lancaster plays a throughly reprehensible character, and that as war propaganda it needs perhaps a modicum more subtlety. Also a better adventure would help. And maybe it could use a more involving romance too. In sum, it’s a forgettable effort. But at least now we know why Mayo was hidden in a crate. We’ll hide South Sea Woman in one too.

China, Shanghai, World War II, New York Times, South Sea Woman, Burt Lancaster, Virginia Mayo, Chuck Connors, Bosley Crowther, poster art, cinema, movie review

Femmes Fatales

May 20 2017

SIDE OF MAYO

I suggest closing the lid if you don't want me to spoil.

Virginia Mayo lounges in a crate in this promo shot made in 1953 during the filming of South Sea Woman, in which she starred with Burt Lancaster. What’s she doing in a crate? We’ll find out when we watch the movie.

South Sea Woman, Virginia Mayo

ABOUT

EMAIL

LEGAL

SEARCH PULP INTERNATIONAL

PULP INTL.
HISTORY REWIND

The headlines that mattered yesteryear.

July 12

1971—Corona Sent to Prison

Mexican-born serial killer Juan Vallejo Corona is convicted of the murders of 25 itinerant laborers. He had stabbed each of them, chopped a cross in the backs of their heads with a machete, and buried them in shallow graves in fruit orchards in Sutter County, California. At the time the crimes were the worst mass murders in U.S. history.

July 11

1960—To Kill a Mockingbird Appears

Harper Lee’s racially charged novel To Kill a Mockingbird is published by J.B. Lippincott & Co. The book is hailed as a classic, becomes an international bestseller, and spawns a movie starring Gregory Peck, but is the only novel Lee would ever publish.

July 11

1962—Nuke Test on Xmas Island

As part of the nuclear tests codenamed Operation Dominic, the United States detonates a one megaton bomb on Australian controlled Christmas Island, in the Indian Ocean. The island was a location for a series of American and British nuclear tests, and years later lawsuits claiming radiation damage to military personnel were filed, but none were settled in favor in the soldiers.

July 10

1940—The Battle of Britain Begins

The German Air Force, aka the Luftwaffe, attacks shipping convoys off the coast of England, touching off what Prime Minister Winston Churchill describes as The Battle of Britain.

July 9

1948—Paige Takes Mound in the Majors

Satchel Paige, considered at the time the greatest of Negro League pitchers, makes his Major League debut for the Cleveland Indians at the age of 42. His career in the majors is short because of his age, but even so, as time passes, he is recognized by baseball experts as one of the great pitchers of all time.

DON’T RIDE THE WHITE HORSE

Rafael DeSoto painted this excellent cover for David Hulburd's 1954 drug scare novel H Is for Heroin. We also have the original art without text.

BARN GIRLS

Two Spanish language digest novels from Argentine publishers Malinca Debora and Malinca Nueva Pandora.

Argentine publishers Malinca Debora reprinted numerous English language crime thrillers in Spanish. This example uses George Gross art borrowed from U.S. imprint Rainbow Books.

LOVES OF A BLONDE