Vintage Pulp

January 29 2023

WELL ROUNDED

What! A big bubble? Well, yours looks like five pounds of potatoes in a ten pound sack!

It seems like Florida novels are a distinct genre of popular fiction, and most of the books, regardless of the year of their setting, lament how the state is being drawn and quartered in pursuit of easy money. But those complaints are usually just a superficial method of establishing the lead characters’ local cred. Theodore Pratt, in his novel The Big Bubble, takes readers deep inside early 1920s south Florida real estate speculation in the person of a builder named Adam Paine (based on real life architect Addison Mizner), who wants to bring the aesthetic of old world Spain to Palm Beach—against the wishes of longtime residents.

Paine builds numerous properties, but his big baby is the Flamingo Club, a massive hotel complex done in Spanish and Moorish style. He even takes a trip to Spain to buy beautiful artifacts for his masterpiece. This was the most interesting part for us, riding along as he wandered Andalusia (where we live), buying treasures for his ostentatious palace. He buys paintings, tapestries, sculptures, an ornate fireplace, an entire staircase, basically anything that isn’t nailed down, even stripping monasteries of their revered artifacts. His wife Eve is horrified, but Paine tells her he’s doing the monks a favor because they’d otherwise go broke.

You may not know this, but Spain is pretty bad at preserving its ancient architecture. That’s another reason The Big Bubble resonated for us—because Spain is very Floridian in that it’s being buried under an avalanche of cheap, ugly developments. We love south Florida’s Spanish revival feel. What’s metastasized in Spain is a glass and concrete aesthetic that offers no beauty and weathers like it’s made of styrofoam. The properties are basically glass box tax dodges. The point is, reading The Big Bubble felt familiar in terms of its critique of real estate booms, but simultaneously we saw Paine as a visionary. He made us wish Spanish builders had a tenth of his good taste.

Since the book is set during the 1920s (and its title is so descriptive) you know Florida’s property bubble will burst. Paine already has problems to deal with before the crash. Pratt resolves everything in interesting fashion. He was a major novelist who wrote more than thirty books, with five adapted to film, so we went into The Big Bubble expecting good work, and that’s what we got. And apparently it’s part of a Palm Beach trilogy (though he set fourteen novels in Florida total). We’ll keep an eye out for those other two Palm Beach books (The Flame Tree and The Barefoot Mailman). In the meantime, we recommend The Big Bubble. Originally published in 1951, this Popular Library edition is from 1952 with uncredited art.

Spain, Florida, Palm Beach, Popular Library, Theodore Pratt, cover art, literature

Vintage Pulp

May 17 2020

LIP SYNCING

Kiss me and I'll kiss you back.

Below, another collection of covers featuring characters expressing a little affection, a continuation of the lip locks we put together way back in 2013, and an adjunct to our collection of Harry Barton neck kisses from 2017.

Bonus action: see more kisses here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.

Tiffany Thayer, Michael Avallone, Franklin M. Davis Jr., Von Hoffman, Ruth Livingston, Florenz Branch, Rex Weldon, Ruth Park, Kathleen Norris, R. G. Mayzk, Robert Carse, Robert Paul Smith, John Dexter, Peter Cheyney, J.B. O'Sullivan, Perry Lindsay, Harry Best, Erskine Caldwell, Watkins E. Wright, Don Elliott, Van Nize, William E. Gordon, Edith Roberts, Frank Yerby, Kyle Onstott, Lance Horner, Dick Dale, Vicki Baum, Nancy Hale, John Bramlett, James Ramsey Ullman, Viña Delmar, Ian Stuart Black, Dana Wilson, James M. Cain, John B. Thompson, Judith Heiman, Gordon Merrick, Kim Savage, Daoma Winston, Vladimir Nabokov, William Faulkner, Alberto Moravia, Dylan Thomas, Émile Zola, Robert Wilder, Martha Gellhorn, Ellen Caren, Robert Briffault, Anthony Thorne, Theodore Pratt, Vincent James, Faith Baldwin, cover art, cover collection, literature

Vintage Pulp

April 6 2020

HAFEN A ROUGH TIME

Bogart finds himself stuck on Key Largo when hurricane Edward blows into town.

Above is a West German poster for Hafen des Lasters, which translates as “port of vice,” but is better known as Key Largo. We love this piece of art. It’s imitative of earlier posters, particularly a Belgian promo from 1949. But that one is by Wik. This one is signed by a different artist, but illegibly, so we can’t tell you who painted it. We’ll work on that. We’ve uploaded

the signature in case you have an idea what this scrawl says.

This is simply a great film, a crime drama set in a hurricane. Many books using the same idea were written later, such as Theodore Pratt’s Tropical Disturbance and Russell Trainer’s No Way Back. Whether they were inspired by Key Largo or earlier works like W. Somerset Maugham’s Rain we can’t say, but any writer will tell you never let a good gimmick go to waste. In any case, Key Largo premiered in the U.S. in 1948 and reached West Germany today in 1950.

West Germany, Hafen des Lasters, Key Largo, Humphrey Bogart. Edward G. Robinson, Lauren Bacall, John Huston, Theodore Pratt, poster art, cinema

Vintage Pulp

September 16 2019

THE IMPERFECT STORM

Elements and people mix dangerously in Theodore Pratt's weather driven drama.

We ordered Theodore Pratt’s Tropical Disturbance long before hurricane season arrived, but as the timing worked out we read it during Dorian, and the news reports reminded us of what the author sometimes didn’t. The main plot device here is a love triangle between a rich clod, a poor everyman, and a beautiful virgin who both of the guys would be better off without. Pratt didn’t intend for the third to be true. He lost his way because of his desire to contrive a specific type of conflict. But the problem is we don’t think a woman who’s dating one man can begin dating another, deliberately keeping both on the hook, and act all oops-gee-whiz when everything goes pear-shaped. More importantly, we don’t think the author can expect her to remain a sympathetic character the way he obviously intends.

Occasionally it’s instructive to think about fictional situations with characters swapped or reimagined, just to be sure you’re making objective judgments, and again, we don’t think a man who’s dating one woman, then starts dating another while telling the first she just has to wait around until he makes up his mind, would be labeled anything but a tremendous douche. But Tropical Disturbance is a good book anyway. When the anticipated hurricane finally comes those sequences are vivid and effective, and because Pratt has maneuvered all three members of his love triangle into the same house to weather the storm, almost anything can happen—and does. 1961 on this, with uncredited art, but which the experts say is by Robert McGinnis.

Fawcett Publications, Gold Medal Books, Theodore Pratt, Robert McGinnis, cover art, literature

Vintage Pulp

February 17 2018

BEACH BUMS

I guess I'll just wait until they're finished before I tell them I only date women.

Danger Trail, written by Theodore Pratt, is about a mailman in Florida who braves storms, gators, thieves, politics, and more, along a seventy mile route from Miami to Palm Springs, to get a difficult job done. If it sounds like an unusual and imaginative tale, you’re right. Pratt was an experienced writer who knew his stuff, and had five books adapted to the big screen. Danger Trail was originally published in 1943 as The Barefoot Mailman and was made into a 1951 movie with that title. This Bantam paperback arrived in 1949.

Bantam Books, The Barefoot Mailman, Theodore Pratt, cover art, literature

Vintage Pulp

January 24 2018

FASHION STATEMENT

What kind of monster do you take me for? Of course it's not real—I only wear faux female.

Above, a cover for Handsome by Theodore Pratt, 1951, from Gold Medal Books. Pratt turns the time-honored sleaze staple of nymphomania on its head by writing about a man who’s addicted to sex.

Gold Medal Books, Theodore Pratt, cover art, literature

Vintage Pulp

June 9 2016

MERCY RULE

I know what the damn island is called! Lemme go! After I kill him we'll change the name!

Novels set in South Florida and the Keys are basically a sub-genre of popular literature today, but Theodore Pratt was one of the earlier writers to continually set his work there, using the area for thirty-five novels. Mercy Island involves a group—local captain, youthful crewman, hard-headed sportsman, and beautiful wife—who are stranded on a deserted island when their fishing boat runs aground. But the island isn’t empty. It’s occupied by a man with a criminal past who has been hiding out there to dodge the law. As tensions rise and food runs short it becomes less clear who is the real danger to the group. Originally written in 1941, the book was immediately made into a hit movie starring Ray Middleton, Gloria Dickson, and Otto Kruger. This Dell paperback appeared in 1954 with uncredited cover art.

Dell Publications, Mercy Island, Theodore Pratt, Ray Middleton, Gloria Dickson, Otto Kruger, cover art, literature

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HISTORY REWIND

The headlines that mattered yesteryear.

September 6

1901—McKinley Fatally Shot

Polish-born anarchist Leon Czolgosz shoots and fatally wounds U.S. President William McKinley at the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York. McKinley dies September 12, and Czolgosz is later executed.

September 5

1939—U.S. Declares Neutrality in WW II

The Neutrality Acts, which had been passed in the 1930s when the United States considered foreign conflicts undesirable, prompts the nation to declare neutrality in World War II. The policy ended with the Lend-Lease Act of March 1941, which allowed the U.S. to sell, lend or give war materials to allied nations.

September 5

1972—Munich Massacre

During the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich, West Germany, a paramilitary group calling itself Black September takes members of the Israeli olympic team hostage. Eventually the group, which represents the first glimpse of terrorists for most people in the Western world, kill eleven of the hostages along with one West German police officer during a rescue attempt by West German police that devolves into a firefight. Five of the eight members of Black September are also killed.

September 4

1957—U.S. National Guard Used Against Students

The governor of Arkansas, Orval Faubus, mobilizes the National Guard to prevent nine African-American students known as the Little Rock Nine from enrolling in high school in Little Rock, Arkansas.

September 3

1941—Auschwitz Begins Gassing Prisoners

Auschwitz-Birkenau, the largest of Nazi Germany’s concentration camps, becomes an extermination camp when it begins using poison gas to kill prisoners en masse. The camp commandant, Rudolf HÃ¶ss, later testifies at the Nuremberg Trials that he believes perhaps 3 million people died at Auschwitz, but the Auschwitz-Birkenau State Museum revises the figure to about 1 million.