Pulp International

vintage and modern pulp fiction; noir, schlock and exploitation films; scandals, swindles and news

A SLAVE TO THE GRINDING

The total lack of freedom sucks. But I get to wear nice lingerie. So I guess on the whole it's a break even deal.

In romance novels of the past, “no” often meant “maybe,” and men in such tales sometimes took what they wanted until women realized they wanted the same thing. Mary Clare’s White Man’s Slave, originally from 1949, with our Leisure Library digest paperback coming in 1953, is a particuarly unequivocal example, as a British traveler in Damascus named Maria Standish is abducted by the “great white chief” Paul de Ruez and spirited away to his Palace of Dreams deep in the desert. Forced embraces and forced kisses lead to forced everything else, but Maria comes to adore de Ruez just in time for outside forces to attempt to rip her away—not least of these being Maria’s anguished father, who’s been hot on de Ruez’s trail.

Here’s a typical passage:

One moment she was standing with her back towards the man quite oblivious of his presence, the next she was swung round and drawn into a tight, possessive embrace, and his kisses were being rained passionately on her mouth, her cheeks, and her bare white throat. For a few moments she was passive; imprisoned in a strong masterful hold, then fear and indignation replaced her surprise and she began to struggle wildly. But the man retained his hold of her with a vise-like overpowering strength that reduced her resistance to a writhing and squirming that availed her little.

Sexy, right?

Because behaviors like these were somewhat tolerated, you realize why some older men are baffled that women have preferences about how sex is to be conducted. Such men can’t be convinced that their beliefs are harmful. They believe society suddenly got too sensitive and everything. It doesn’t matter though—despite the occasional regressive eddy, on the long timeframe Westerners (in terms of the cultures that produced this type of material) make progress. Judged contemporaneously with its publication date, White Man’s Slave isn’t bad. It isn’t deftly written, but neither is it a travesty, and the cover art by Reginald Heade adds to its value as a very expensive collector’s piece. We just wonder whether the price is more for the art, or for the fantasy of women as chattel.

Syria, Damascus, Leisure Library, Mary Clare, Reginald Heade, cover art, literature

AN UNHEALTHY ATMOSPHERE

The decline and incineration of Western civilization.

These covers for Pat Frank’s acclaimed post apocalypse drama Alas, Babylon can be considered additions to our collection of nuclear explosion book covers. In the story, a missile from a fighter jet causes an explosion in Syria that the Soviets mistake for a full scale NATO nuclear strike. They retaliate with a full strike, the U.S. retaliates with a full strike, and that’s all she wrote. Actually, not really. That’s the first act. Frank wrote plenty more, none of it fun. The novel first appeared in 1959, with these not-quite-identical Bantam editions coming later. We may have missed them in our initial searches for nuke covers because they’re pretty subtle, combing the idea of a red sun with an atomic blast, but we’re sure these are supposed to be explosions—or at least evoke them. There’s also a very cool Spanish cover we posted way back in 2009. No explosion on that one, but it’s exceedingly interesting.

Soviet Union, Syria, Bantam Books, Pat Frank, cover art, literature, nukes

WINDS OF CHANGE

Casablanca drifts 2,500 miles east and loses a little something along the way.


Above you see a nice French poster for the Humphrey Bogart adventure Sirocco, which we touched upon briefly several months back. As we noted then, Columbia Pictures promoted the film as being, “beyond Casablanca…” but Sirocco comes up short in that department. How could it not? It’s like saying, “beyond chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream,” or “beyond a raspberry gin Ricky,” or “beyond the 2003 Hurricanes-Buckeyes NCAA Championship Game.” These things are not possible. But Sirocco is actually pretty good anyway, owing largely to its setting in 1925 Damascus, Syria (the film was actually shot in Yuma, Arizona, but the illusion worked adequately).

Plotwise, local independence fighters are trying to drive out French occupiers via any means deemed necessary, including what we call today terrorist bombings. Bogart plays Rick from Casablanca, except he’s named Harry Smith. But he’s the same cynical, opportunistic, womanizing lone wolf he was before, who instead of running a bar, runs guns. He has no ideology in his profession, except love of money, and will work for whoever can hire him, Syrian or French. As the situation in Damascus grows increasingly fraught he finds himself unwillingly stuck between the locals and the occupiers. He also finds himself in a love triangle with slinky Märta Torén and a French military officer played by Lee J. Cobb.

The movie quickly coalesces around what we like to think of as the big three Bogart plot devices: romantic feelings threaten to upset his hard-won cynicism, he must make a choice between desire and conscience, and he must beat the clock if he hopes to get out of Dodge with his skin intact. Beyond Casablanca? Columbia pretty much strip mined Casablanca, is what happened. Even so, Bogart had few serious misses in his career, and Sirocco isn’t one of them. Fans will get to see him doing exactly what made him an icon, and for that reason alone we think it’s worth a watch. After premiering in the U.S. in mid-1951, it opened in France today the same year.

France, Syria, Damascus, Arizona, Yuma, Columbia Pictures, Sirocco, Humphrey Bogart, Märta Torén, Lee J. Cobb, Zero Mostel, poster art, cinema, movie review

SYRIA’S CONDITION

Whatever the problem is Bogart will solve it.

Above are two Italian posters for the Humphrey Bogart film Damasco ’25, which is better known as Sirocco, and is yet another Casablanca clone. The U.S. poster even promises flat-out that the movie, an adventure about Syrian freedom fighters and French colonials in Damascus circa 1925, is “beyond Casablanca.” We’ll see about that a bit later. These pieces were painted by the great illustrator Anselmo Ballester, whose work we’ve highlighted here. We’ll get back to him later too. Sirocco opened in the U.S. in 1951, and premiered in Italy today in 1952.

Italy, Syria, Damascus, Anselmo Ballester, Sirocco, Damasco '25, Humprey Bogart, Märta Torén, poster art, cinema

A HELL OF A PROBLEM

The Devil went down to Southeast Asia looking for fortunes to steal.

1969’s I, Lucifer is Peter O’Donnell’s third Modesty Blaise novel, and it’s a series we’re going through mainly to highlight the great cover art by Robert McGinnis. He didn’t illustrate all the books. In fact, this might be the last, which means we’ll probably move on to other authors. But that won’t be because the Blaise books aren’t good. In fact, for the sexy spy genre they’re top notch—exotically located, compellingly plotted, and peopled by wacky Bond-style supervillains. Case in point: the titular character in I, Lucifer is a man suffering from a psychotic delusion that he’s Satan. The funny part is he isn’t evil. The real evil guy is Seff, the opportunist who launches a global extortion scheme that hinges on faux-Lucifer’s participation even though his delusion prevents him having a clue what he’s really doing. Lucifer might be the only villain we’ve encountered in a novel who’s a victim.

When Seff’s murderous extortion hits too close to home for Modesty, she and sidekick Willie Garvin gear up and eventually end up in the Philippines, where they right some wrongs, explosively. As usual Modesty uses sex to get over on the bad guys, and it’s a major part of what readers enjoyed about the series. At one point she ponders whether a colleague thinks she’s promiscuous. Well, no, she isn’t by 1969 standards. But the joy of literature is she can be unpromiscuous, yet we can be there in the room for every one of her widely spaced encounters. This book is particularly amusing along those lines, as it brings two of Modesty’s lovers together to be uncomfortable and/or jealous as they’re displaced by a third. But sleaze fans will need to look elsewhere. O’Donnell is subtle—if not poetic—with his sex scenes.

Though the sexual aspects of Modesty Blaise were a major attraction of the novels, we enjoy even more the tactical nature of O’Donnell’s action, which is probably an influence from his military service in Iran, Syria, Egypt, Greece and other places. It’s also probably why so much of the Blaise series is connected to that region. While the tales are always exotic, this entry is even wilder than usual. How wild? It involves precognition, trained dolphins, Moro mercenaries, and body implants that kill remotely, yet it all works. That’s because as always, in the center of the chaos, you have Blaise and Garvin, perfect friends, platonic soulmates, and two armed and extremely deadly halves of a razor sharp fighting machine. Abandon all hope ye who cross them.

Philippines, Iran, Syria, Greece, Egypt, Fawcett Publications, Crest Books, Peter O'Donnell, Robert McGinnis, Modesty Blaise, cover art, literature

IT’S A WONDERFUL KNIFE

Hmm… an Englishman to gut with my new blade. And here I was planning to go home and shave my monobrow.

We were talking recently about Harlequin’s early days as a publisher of more than romance fiction. Above is another example—Bats with Baby Faces by W. Stanley Moss, a former British Army officer who wrote such best sellers as Ill Met by Moonlight and A War of Shadows. Bats with Baby Faces, the title of which references bat-like masks rather than actual bats, deals with intrigue and smuggling in the Deir-ez-Zor region of Syria, and in Cairo, where Moss lived in a villa that became a hub for the British social set. The most famous of his numerous real-life adventures occurred during that period, and that time also served as inspiration for much of his fiction. Harlequin’s edition of Bats with Baby Faces was published in 1952, and the cover art, with its mean caricature of an Egyptian who’s so swarthy he’s—bizarrely—purple, is uncredited. More Harlequin here and here.

Egypt, Syria, Britain, Deir-ez-Zor, Cairo, Harlequin Enterprises, Bats with Baby Faces, Ill Met by Moonlight, A War of Shadows, W. Stanley Moss, cover art, literature

TOREN APART

A siren in the desert.

This Columbia Pictures promo photo of Swedish actress Märta Torén was shot when she appeared in the adventure Sirocco in 1951, starring opposite Humphrey Bogart. The film, which was set in Syria, was an attempt to recapture the magic of Casablanca, and one of its taglines was: “Beyond Casablanca… Fate, in a low-cut gown lies in wait for Bogart!” The movie didn’t recapture that Casablanca magic, but it was a nice role for Torén. She worked steadily until 1957 when she died of a sudden brain hemorrhage at age 30. 

Syria, Columbia Pictures, Casablanca, Sirocco, Märta Torén, Humphrey Bogart, cinema
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HISTORY REWIND

The headlines that mattered yesteryear.

1918—Wilson Goes to Europe

U.S. President Woodrow Wilson sails to Europe for the World War I peace talks in Versailles, France, becoming the first U.S. president to travel to Europe while in office.

1921—Arbuckle Manslaughter Trial Ends

In the U.S., a manslaughter trial against actor/director Roscoe ‘Fatty’ Arbuckle ends with the jury deadlocked as to whether he had killed aspiring actress Virginia Rappe during rape and sodomy. Arbuckle was finally cleared of all wrongdoing after two more trials, but the scandal ruined his career and personal life.

1964—Mass Student Arrests in U.S.

In California, Police arrest over 800 students at the University of California, Berkeley, following their takeover and sit-in at the administration building in protest at the UC Regents’ decision to forbid protests on university property.

1968—U.S. Unemployment Hits Low

Unemployment figures are released revealing that the U.S. unemployment rate has fallen to 3.3 percent, the lowest rate for almost fifteen years. Going forward all the way to the current day, the figure never reaches this low level again.

1954—Joseph McCarthy Disciplined by Senate

In the United States, after standing idly by during years of communist witch hunts in Hollywood and beyond, the U.S. Senate votes 65 to 22 to condemn Joseph McCarthy for conduct bringing the Senate into dishonor and disrepute. The vote ruined McCarthy’s career.

1955—Rosa Parks Sparks Bus Boycott

In the U.S., in Montgomery, Alabama, seamstress Rosa Parks refuses to give her bus seat to a white man and is arrested for violating the city’s racial segregation laws, an incident which leads to the Montgomery Bus Boycott. The boycott resulted in a crippling financial deficit for the Montgomery public transit system, because the city’s African-American population were the bulk of the system’s ridership.

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WALKING AFTER MIDNIGHT

Cover art by the great Sandro Symeoni for Peter Cheyney's mystery He Walked in her Sleep, from Ace Books in 1949.

PARIS BLEUS

The mysterious artist who signed his or her work as F. Harf produced this beautiful cover in 1956 for the French publisher S.E.P.I.A.

RAISE EM UP

Aslan art was borrowed for many covers by Dutch publisher Uitgeverij A.B.C. for its Collection Vamp. The piece used on Mike Splane's Nachtkatje is a good example.

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