Femmes Fatales

August 24 2024

LOY AND ORDER

I've always heard that power corrupts. But what nobody told me is that it also feels really good.

Legendary U.S. actress Myrna Loy strikes a stern pose in this beautiful photo. Because she made more than one hundred films, and some of them are lost, it’s impossible to pinpoint from where this shot comes. At least it is for us, and we spent quite a bit of time on it. At first we thought that because the 1934 comedy The Thin Man is the film that made her a big star, and this was surely shot earlier, we’d be able to narrow the possibilities down to a smallish number of pre-Code dramatic roles. Turns out she made many, many pre-Code dramas. In fact, she almost didn’t get The Thin Man because she was considered a strictly dramatic actress. So the provenance of the photo is a mystery to us, but someone will figure it out eventually. Meanwhile, see another image here. And incidentally, there’s a good Loy themed Tumblr out there with numerous photos, if you’re a big fan. Check here.

Hays Code, The Thin Man, Myrna Loy

Sex Files

April 3 2020

THIN MAN, FAT DICK

Powell and Loy take their relationship to the next level.

The lockdown has put us in a lewd mood. So to scratch that itch, today we have William Powell and Myrna Loy, famous for the series of Thin Man movies they made during the 1930s and ’40s, starring in an x-rated Tijuana bible. It’s called Nuts to Will Hays, a reference to the Hays Code, the motion picture censorship regime that arrived on the Hollywood scene in 1930. In the comic Powell decides to become more than friends with Loy, explicitly planting his huge hairy organ into hers, to the enjoyment of both. We’re glad we ran across this—it’s a reminder to watch the entire series of Thin Man movies. We already watched the first, and nothing like this happened. We’re probably safe in assuming nothing like this happens in any them, but we can dream. See more Tijuana bibles by clicking the keywords at the bottom of this post.

Tijuana bible, Hays Code, The Thin Man, William Powell, Myrna Loy, Will Hayes

Vintage Pulp

March 8 2020

THROWING SHADE

Shadows of The Thin Man.

Above, Spanish, French, and German posters for 1934’s The Thin Man, featuring interesting shadow motifs. Read about movie here, and the excellent book here.

France, Germany, Spain, L'introuvable, La cena de los acusados, Der unauffindbare, The Thin Man, William Powell, Myrna Loy, poster art, cinema

Vintage Pulp

October 16 2019

DRUNK AND DISORDERLY

Cocktails, comedy, and crime make a mix that'll go right to your head.

Above, a fantastic Czech poster for the 1934 romantic comedy-murder mystery The Thin Man, which there was titled Detektiv Nick v New Yorku. This is a photo-illustration, rather than the paintings we love, but it’s still, in our book, as good as promo art gets. As far as the film goes, like Casablanca or Chinatown, there’s no way to overrate it. Some of the humor is so modern that you’ll have trouble believing it was made almost a century ago and wasn’t cribbed from an episode of Friends or Seinfeld. Just goes to show that in the infinity of time we don’t change as quickly as we think.

We adore the boozing party animals at the center of this tour de force—Nick and Nora Charles, played by William Powell and Myrna Loy—whose drunken interactions could easily be the inspiration for Jim and Jules of the hilarious television show Brockmire. Credit the director, actors, editors, and everyone else for this masterpiece, but give the biggest nod to Dashiell Hammett, who wrote the excellent source novel. There’s no release date for Detektiv Nick v New Yorku in Czechoslovakia, but figure spring or early summer of 1935.

Czechoslovakia, Detektiv Nick v New Yorku, The Thin Man, William Powell, Myrna Loy, Dashiell Hammett, poster art, cinema, movie review

Vintage Pulp

March 22 2019

THROUGH THICK AND THIN

Nick and Nora Charles—never shaken, never stirred, and almost never sober.

1934’s The Thin Man is what we like to think of as a palate cleanser. After reading a few less accomplished authors you grab a Hammett because you know he’s great. It’s pure fun following functional alcoholic Nick Charles and his equally hard drinking young wife Nora as they navigate deception and murder. How much do Nick and Nora Charles drink? At one point Nick wakes up feeling terrible and realizes it’s because he’d gone to bed sober. Several cocktail sessions a day is about average. Maybe that’s why danger doesn’t faze them. Even being shot at is reason for a libation and a quip.

This edition of The Thin Man is a rare one. It’s the Pocket Books paperback from 1945, with the type of art that was prevalent on paperbacks during the heyday of pulp. We can’t tell you much about the book that hasn’t already been written, including the fact that it’s less a mystery than a comedy of manners, but there is one aspect that’s rarely commented upon. Nick Charles is of Greek descent. His full last name is Charalambides. This was the ’30s, when there was open racism in the U.S. against Greeks. James M. Cain delves into this in The Postman Always Rings Twice, in which the Greek character Nick Papadakis is insulted behind his back and set apart as a non-white inferior.

So in The Thin Man Hammett was portraying Nick Charles not as the upper crust dilettante William Powell made famous in the film version, but as a tough guy outsider. People are a bit afraid of him. Filmgoers were definitely not afraid of pencil mustached William Powell. Hammett wanted the written Charles to possess street cred, to be a person who had been places and seen things others had not. Hammett was going for a different type of detective in more ways than merely his drinking habits. Charles’ maverick role is just a little extra flavor in an already entertaining novel. The actual mystery is difficult to follow, but even so we highly recommend this if you haven’t read it.

Pocket Books, The Thin Man, Dashiell Hammett, William Powell, cover art, literature

Femmes Fatales

June 4 2017

A LANG TIME COMING

Never try to copy the uncopyable.

U.S. born actress Barbara Lang was one of many actresses promoted as a Marilyn Monroe type, but it was wishful thinking. She only looked like Monroe in shots like this upnose angle from a 1957 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer promo. However, Lang was beautiful and talented in her own right and went on to star mainly on television, including on series such as 77 Sunset Strip and The Thin Man. After a short career and a turbulent personal life she died in Los Angeles in 1982 aged fifty-four.

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, 77 Sunset Strip, The Thin Man, Barbara Lang, television

Intl. Notebook

January 16 2015

STAR NOIRS

San Fran film fest once again celebrates the best and brightest of mid-century crime cinema.

Today, once again, the U.S.’s premier film noir festival begins in San Francisco. Well, we aren’t impartial—we used to live in Berkeley, just across the Bay, and San Fran was our nocturnal playground—but we think the Noir City Film Festival is the best, that its locale the Castro Theatre is awesome, and that San Francisco, with its iconic hills, clanking cable cars, and rogue fogs, is the also the best possible host city. This year the art produced for the festival in its thirteenth year references worn pulp paperbacks, which we can appreciate, and we also love the festival line-up.

The extravaganza opens with Woman on the Run, a film we discussed recently. Apparently the last known print burned in a fire, and this year’s showing represents the culmination of years of restoration work. Since the film was in the public domain, we imagine some secondary sources existed and needed to be tracked down and cobbled together. Other classics to be screened include Clash By Night, The Thin Man, Shockproof, Cry Terror!, and twenty others. Hopefully a few of our Bay Area friends will attend the festival and report back. And to Pulp Intl. readers in that part of the world, this is your official reminder—any chance to see film noir on a big screen is an opportunity not to be wasted.

San Francisco, Noir City Film Festival, Castro Theatre, Clash By Night, The Thin Man, Shockproof, Cry Terror, Woman on the Run, cinema, film noir

Intl. Notebook

February 4 2011

UNTOLD STORIES

Previously unknown Dashiell Hammett works to appear in crime fiction magazine The Strand.

In an announcement bound to excite and intrigue pulp and literature fans the world over, magazine editor Andrew Gulli has slated for publication fifteen previously unknown Dashiell Hammett short stories. Gulli found the writings in the archives of the Harry Ransom Centre, a literary memorabilia storehouse based at the University of Texas, in Austin.

Gulli says he has no idea why the works ended up at the Ransom Centre, and he can offer no historical context for the works, since all are undated. He plans to publish the first of these new stories, entitled “So I Shot Him,” in his crime fiction magazine The Strand, with the others possibly to appear later as a book-length collection.

Hammett’s many works include classics such as The Maltese Falcon and The Thin Man, and as a stylist he established many techniques that later became foundational in pulp writing. As far as the quality of the new works goes, Gulli has said in an interview with The Guardian newspaper that, “There are some very, very good pieces of fiction here. Some of them are classic Hammett and fit in with the style we know and others are very different and go off to places that were a different direction for him.”

Texas, Austin, University of Texas, Harry Ransom Centre, The Guardian, The Strand, The Maltese Falcon, The Thin Man, Dashiell Hammet, Andrew Gulli, literature

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HISTORY REWIND

The headlines that mattered yesteryear.

September 10

1935—Huey Long Assassinated

Governor of Louisiana Huey Long, one of the few truly leftist politicians in American history, is shot by Carl Austin Weiss in Baton Rouge. Long dies after two days in the hospital.

September 9

1956—Elvis Shakes Up Ed Sullivan

Elvis Presley appears on The Ed Sullivan Show for the first time, performing his hit song “Don’t Be Cruel.” Ironically, a car accident prevented Sullivan from being present that night, and the show was guest-hosted by British actor Charles Laughton.

September 8

1966—Star Trek Airs for First Time

Star Trek, an American television series set in the twenty-third century and promoting socialist utopian ideals, premieres on NBC. The series is cancelled after three seasons without much fanfare, but in syndication becomes one of the most beloved television shows of all time.

September 8

1974—Ford Pardons Nixon

U.S. President Gerald Ford pardons former President Richard Nixon for any crimes Nixon may have committed while in office, which coincidentally happen to include all those associated with the Watergate scandal.

September 7

1978—Giorgi Markov Assassinated

Bulgarian dissident Giorgi Markov is assassinated in a scene right out of a spy novel. As he’s waiting at a bus stop near Waterloo Bridge in London, he’s jabbed in the calf with an umbrella. The man holding the umbrella apologizes and walks away, but he is in reality a Bulgarian hired killer who has just injected a ricin pellet into Markov, who develops a high fever and dies three days later.