Intl. Notebook

March 5 2022

DIVING BELLE

Taina Béryl and an aquatic companion get into the swim of things.

It was about time for an addition to the Pulp Intl. swim team, so above you see German actress and dancer Taina Béryl from a 1970 issue of the French magazine Moi. She joins vintage water sprites Belita, the Townhouse Aqua Maidens, Ella Raines, the synchronized swimmers of Hellzapoppin, the mermaids of Weeki Wachee Springs, and—if we want to stretch the theme—vintage drowner Christine Todd, but ups the ante with body paint and dolphin accompaniment.

The feature is called “La belle et la bête,” which means, “beauty and the beast.” Needless to say, the dolphin community was up in fins about one of their number being called a beast, and we don’t blame them. Last we checked they hadn’t eaten almost every living thing in the oceans. Not surprisingly, the dolphin was shunned in the magazine business after the fuss and its modeling career came to an unjust end.

Béryl appeared in nine films during her career, including 1968’s Run, Psycho, Run, 1965’s Spy in Your Eye, and 1963’s L’inconnue de Hong Kong, aka Stranger from Hong Kong. All of those sound like fun to us. Béryl was also popular as a magazine model, scoring covers and centerfolds of publications like Ciné-Revue and Cinémonde. We have a shot of her on land, and if you want to see that just go here.

France, Germany, Moi Magazine, Run Psycho Run, Spy in Your Eye, L'inconnue de Hong Kong, Stranger from Hong Kong, Taina Béryl

Intl. Notebook

September 30 2019

ENTER CONTINENTAL

For British movie lovers Continental Film Review was their ticket across the English Channel.

Continental Film Review was first published—as far as we can discern—in November 1952. We decided on that month because we saw a copy from February 1953 numbered Vol. 1 Issue 4, and the masthead said the magazine was published the first week of every month. CFR would go on to become one of Britain’s most popular film magazines, exposing English language readers to the wide variety of foreign movies being made across continental Europe. The above issue appeared this month in 1966 with cover star Maria Pia Conte, and numerous film personalities inside, including Vanessa Redgrave, Alan Bates, Rossana Podesta, Evi Marandi, and more. We have other issues we’ll get around to sharing at some point. In the meantime see more here, here, here, and here.

Femmes Fatales

February 4 2017

BERYL OF FUN

Hah hah, don't worry about my gun. Worry about my mood.

Above, a photo of German actress and dancer Taina Béryl, aka Taina Beryll, aka Tayna Beryll, happily playing with a sidearm, which given a choice is better than her unhappily playing with it. Her name is often spelled “Tania” around the internet but that’s incorrect. As a dancer Taina-not-Tania Béryl performed at the Teatro San Carlo in Naples, and in cinema was seen in such productions as Une blonde comme ça, L’inconnue de Hong Kong, and Berlin, cites with los Espias. 1963 on the image.

Naples, Teatro San Carlo, Berlin cites with los Espias, Une blonde comme ça, L'inconnue de Hong Kong, Taina Béryl, Tayna Beryll, cinema

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HISTORY REWIND

The headlines that mattered yesteryear.

February 12

1961—Soviets Launch Venus Probe

The U.S.S.R. launches the spacecraft Venera 1, equipped with scientific instruments to measure solar wind, micrometeorites, and cosmic radiation, towards planet Venus. The craft is the first modern planetary probe. Among its many achievements, it confirms the presence of solar wind in deep space, but overheats due to the failure of a sensor before its Venus mission is completed.

February 12

1994—Thieves Steal Munch Masterpiece

In Oslo, Norway, a pair of art thieves steal one of the world’s best-known paintings, Edvard Munch’s “The Scream,” from a gallery in the Norwegian capital. The two men take less than a minute to climb a ladder, smash through a window of the National Art Museum, and remove the painting from the wall with wire cutters. After a ransom demand the museum refuses to pay, police manage to locate the panting in May, and the two thieves, as well as two accomplices, are arrested.

February 11

1938—BBC Airs First Sci-Fi Program

BBC Television produces the first ever science fiction television program, an adaptation of a section of Czech writer Karel Capek’s dark play R.U.R., aka, Rossum’s Universal Robots. The robots in the play are not robots in the modern sense of machines, but rather are biological entities that can be mistaken for humans. Nevertheless, R.U.R. featured the first known usage of the term “robot”.

February 10

1962—Powers Is Traded for Abel

Captured American spy pilot Gary Powers, who had been shot down over the Soviet Union in May 1960 while flying a U-2 high-altitude jet, is exchanged for captured Soviet spy Rudolf Abel, who had been arrested in New York City in 1957.

February 9

1960—Woodward Gets First Star on Walk of Fame

Actress Joanne Woodward receives the first star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, the Los Angeles sidewalk at Hollywood Boulevard and Vine Street that serves as an outdoor entertainment museum. Woodward was one of 1,558 honorees chosen by the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce in 1958, when the proposal to build the sidewalk was approved. Today the sidewalk contains nearly 2,800 stars.

February 9

1971—Paige Enters Baseball Hall of Fame

Satchel Paige becomes the first player from America’s Negro Baseball League to be voted into the Major League Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York. Paige, who was a pitcher, played for numerous Negro League teams, had brief stints in Cuba, Mexico, Puerto Rico, and the Major Leagues, before finally retiring in his mid-fifties.