Pulp International

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

NEW TRICKS

Invention is the daughter of necessity.

Midnight has a track record of interesting front page art, but sometimes a headline does all the work needed. We didn’t feel like spending thirty dollars on this issue published today in 1965, but we can give you the gist. In Mexico, a fifteen-year old girl named Rosa Gonzalez, wanted to harm her abusive father but knew he was impervious, so she targeted the only thing he loved—his wife. Rosa faked spiritual powers, gradually gaining her mother’s trust, then pretended she’d received a command “from above” to take mom to Tijuana to become a prostitute.

Clever, if sociopathic. Needless to say, Rosa didn’t just hurt her dad—she broke him. No word on what it did to her mom, which is a major gap in the reporting. Let’s assume she was totally fine. For sure. In all, it’s a pretty strange story, even if it’s almost certainly fiction. But on the other hand, what if Rosa really did receive instructions from above to turn her mom into a Tijuana prostie? We lived in L.A. for some years, which means we know plenty of people who think they received instructions from above to go to Tijuana and fuck prostitutes, so, there you go. Anything is possible. More Midnight at the tabloid index.

Mexico, Tijuana, Midnight, tabloid, prostitution

KNIT WIT

Here's a hint—it's for keeping something warm, it'll be really useful in about eight months, and by then we'll have the same last name.

Above: the front cover of Our Flesh Was Cheap by Eve Linkletter, 1959, for Fabian Books. Linkletter, whose photo appears on the back cover, wrote a handful of books with sensational titles, such as Dime-a-Dance Hustler, B-Girl Decoy, Lesbian Orgies, and The Gay Ones.

We’ve heard that Our Flesh Was Cheap is far better than it looks. It’s a first-person narrative about an eighteen-year-old Tijuana prostitute named Rosa, and the American woman who brings her San Diego with fake papers and gives her a job as maid. Unfortunately, though Rosa tries to let go of her past, her past doesn’t want to let go of her. We may buy this one if it appears at a reasonable price.

Mexico, Tijuana, San Diego, Fabian Books, Eve Linkletter, cover art, literature

YOU GET MISTY

Bringing joy to the world through burlesque.


In choosing a femme fatale for today we wanted to reinforce an idea we constantly discuss—that pulp fiction and film noir protagonists are often motivated by sex. Due to censorship, writers and directors of the era had to be subtle about the connection, but it’s obvious. The lead characters of gritty crime tales were nearly always men of the world, which is to say they’d had sex before. So when a femme fatale drove or enticed them to robbery/murder/extortion/et al, it wasn’t because she was beautiful, but special. And she wasn’t just someone willing to have sex, but someone who gave even experienced men pleasures they’d never imagined. That’s the subtext of numerous pulp novels, as well as scores of mid-century films, and it’s something we try to hit upon with our femmes fatales, who sometimes lay that subtext bare by being bare themselves.

To exemplify what we mean, we wanted someone very tempting, which is why we chose Misty Ayers, who was one of many burlesque dancers embodying sexual allure during the mid-century era. The art of burlesque features in many of the books we’ve talked about—in fact a couple of our very favorites—so the link to pulp is perfect. Ayers is seen here keeping fit, and below, preparing to make a meal to keep that body of hers functioning at top efficiency. She was pretty well known in her day. She appeared in the 1953 burlesque documentary A Night in Hollywood, played herself in the 1954 films Tijuana After Midnite and Striptease Goddess, and later scored an acting role in the 1965 film Bad Girls Do Cry, which we’ll circle back to later. We don’t have a copyright date on these photos, but figure they’re from the zenith of her fame—circa 1953.

Bonus material: two of the greatest burlesque dancers you never heard of here and here.

Tijuana, A Night in Hollywood, Tijuana After Midnite, Striptease Goddess, Bad Girls Do Cry, Misty Ayers, burlesque

THE PLOT THICKENS

Fact challenged tabloid may have predicted presidential assassination plot.

Midnight claims in this issue published today in 1968 that a conspiracy was afoot to assassinate Richard Nixon during his presidential campaign, but with mid-century tabloids the question is always: Is this true? We found no mention of the plot anywhere, though Midnight is pretty authoritative in its assertions, claiming three men were involved, two of whom were in FBI custody, with the third having been picked up by Mexican police in Tijuana. But authoritative or not, the paper got this one wrong.

Weirdly, though, there may have been a plot to kill Nixon in 1968, but a week after the above Midnight hit newsstands. Though the episode is little remembered today, a man of Yemeni origin named Ahmed Rageh Namer was arrested along with his two sons Hussein and Abdo on November 12—a full eight days after Midnight made its arrest claims—and charged with conspiracy to assassinate Nixon, who had won the presidential election the previous Tuesday. You can see Namer under arrest in the photo just below.

The evidence against him and his sons was scant—an informant claimed the father possessed two rifles, had asked him join him in the killing, and had offered him money to do so. This was back before the word of a shady informant could get a person thrown in a black pit in Guantanamo for ten years, so the Namers actually got a trial and their defense lawyer of course shredded the case. All three men were acquitted in July of 1969.

But how weird is it that Midnight would fabricate an assassination story a week before the FBI uncovered what they thought was an actual assassination plot? Maybe Namer read Midnight and got the idea. Nah… he was probably just innocent in the first place. But still, how odd. Sometimes history is stranger than fiction. Elsewhere in the issue you get a bit of Hollywood gossip and a pretty cool photo of Maureen Arthur and another of Carmen Dene, below. See more Midnight at our tabloid index.

Mexico, Yemen, Tijuana, Midnight, Richard Nixon, Ahmed Rageh Namer, Hussein Namer, Abdo Namer, Maureen Arthur, Carmen Dene, tabloid

FOURTH TIME’S THE CHARM

For some men divorce is not a tragedy—it's an opportunity.


If you’ve never seen one, this is what an AP wire photo looked like back in 1966. The text at the bottom gives newspaper editors the identity of the subject and some basic facts. No identity needed here—this is Ursula Andress, and the photo is the one widely used when newspapers reported that her husband John Derek was filing for divorce in Tijuana, Mexico. This made us smile because the basic idea here was to show that Derek was out of his mind.

Perhaps, however he had already established a pattern of moving on to younger, equally beautiful women. He was first married to Pati Behrs, but divorced her when he met nineteen-year-old Andress. She was thirty when they divorced and he moved on to twenty-three-year-old Linda Evans. And Evans was thirty-two when Derek tossed her over for sixteen-year-old Mary Collins, who you know better as Bo Derek.

Andress, Evans, and Collins could have been sisters, and in fact they looked quite a bit like John Derek too (see below). But in Bo he had found not just another doppleganger, but an ingénue willing to star in the poorly made sexually oriented films he liked to direct. These included Fantasies (when Bo was sixteen), the almost competent Bolero, Ghosts Can’t Do It, and Tarzan, the Ape Man. Bo and John Derek stayed together until John died, so it seems wife number four cured him of his habit of trading for younger models. Just an interesting Hollywood factoid to enliven your Monday.

Mexico, Tijuana, Fantasies, Bolero, Ghosts Can't Do It, Tarzan the Ape Man, Ursula Andress, John Derek, Linda Evans, Bo Derek, Pati Behrs

IMITATION OF SEX LIFE

The Lowdown proves that it deserves its name.

We’re jumping right into our treasure trove of newly arrived tabloids today with a glance at this issue of The Lowdown published in March 1965. On the cover you see Jean Harlow, Carroll Baker, and Ed Sullivan. We talked about Baker recently and there she is in that crazy gown again (below)—or is she? No, on close examination this is yet another version of the dress. Clearly, the photo was shot on a different night than all the others because her hair and jewelry are different. But the actual dress also looks slightly different from both the Oleg Cassini and Pierre Balmain iterations. A reference in the story clears things up at least a little: “Transparency gowns are another of her big passions and she often wears them.” There you have it. Half naked was a fairly standard look for Carroll Baker. They just don’t make stars like they used to.

You might be curious what the article is about. On the cover the header reads: “The Night Carroll Baker Played a Call Girl,” but on the inside, it says: “The Night Carroll Baker Played a Harlot!” The story goes that she wanted to research her role as a prostitute in the movie Sylvia, so sheventured down to Tijuana, Mexico, toured a few brothels, and somehow disappeared alone for two hours: “We don’t know what happened in the house in Mexico or what sights she could have barged in on, but that is bouncy Miss Baker’s bit.” Lost in a Mexican whorehouse. The mind reels. Do we buy it? Not for a minute.

The other story of note asks: “How Hot Was Jean Harlow’s Sex Life?” Well, let’s take an up close look and find out. In 1932 when Harlow was 21 years old she married Paul Bern, a director and screenwriter. Bern apparently had never done well in the sex department due entirely to his own lack of passion, and his shyness was well known. To him Harlow supposedly represented a chance at true sexual fulfillment. If the most desired woman in Hollywood couldn’t rouse his slumbering libido, nobody could. According to The Lowdown, Bern failed on the wedding night. Here’s what the text says:
 
In the wee hours of the morning, Jean’s agent [Arthur] Landau received a frantic call from her asking that he come and get her immediately. When [they] got to Landau’s home, according to the agent, Jean stripped off her filmy wedding nightgown to reveal her beautiful body a mass of welts and bruises. “Her back and buttocks were covered with bruises. Therewas one especially bad bruise directly over her kidneys.” The implication here is because Harlow died several years later of kidney failure that she incurred the fatal damage during that wedding night beating. It gets weirder—brace yourselves. Landau goes to Paul Bern’s house, geared for a confrontation:
 
The bridegroom of some eleven hours was [snip] sprawled nude and drunk on the floor of his den. Silently hating the man at his feet, Landau wanted to kick the slight, pasty body of Bern. Instead he rolled the unconscious man to his back to discover what had never been suspected by anybody in the industry. Paul Bern had the sack and penis of an infant boy. The story goes on to explain that the entire mess was hushed up for the sake of Harlow’s career. Two months later Bern committed suicide via a bullet through the brain. One more excerpt:
 
Paul had prepared himself for death by removing all his clothing and stood before the dressing room mirror. [snip] And, staring at his tormented body, he pulled the trigger. The nudity added a sexual element to his suicide that encouraged a spectrum of interpretations of his farewell note:
 
“Dearest dear, unfortunately this is the only way to make good the frightful wrong I have done to you and to wipe out my abject humiliation. I love you. Paul.
 
You understand that last night was only a comedy.”
 
What was the comedy? Harlow said nothing to the press. But according to Arthur Landau, she told him Paul Bern had spent $200 on a device to increase his manhood. Wearing the contraption he had entered their bedroom intent on finally consummating their marriage. This hope was doomed from the start and the whole plan turned into such a tragic farce that both he and Jean finally gave way to hysterical laughter. That’s probably one of the sadder stories you’ll ever hear. Is it true? It appeared in a biography about Harlow, but we can never know. We can, however, at least answer the question posed by The Lowdown’s story header. No—Jean Harlow’s sex life was not hot at all.

Mexico, Tijuana, Washington D.C., Jean Harlow, Carroll Baker, Ed Sullivan, Paul Bern, Nikita Khrushchev, cinema, prostitution, lgbt, suicide

EASY MONEY

Critics claim Felipe Calderón’s government is in league with Sinaloa drug cartel.

Last week in Mexico, critics of President Felipe Calderón’s administration ratcheted up claims that Calderón is playing favorites in his high-profile war on drugs. Arrest records going back to 2003 show that the Sinaloa Cartel, which is responsible for 45% of drug trafficking in Mexico, has suffered only a handful of arrests—none involving high-ranking members. Even as a group of investigative reporters pointed out last week that this indicated possible collusion between Calderón and the Sinaloa Cartel, two more Sinaloa members were arrested, but again they were little more than errand boys—sacrificial lambs, according to skeptics.

The Sinaloa Cartel is run by Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzmán, seen at lower right in the photo. He is estimated to have amassed more than a billion dollars trafficking cocaine, heroin, and methamphetamines to the U.S. Calderón denies being in league with Guzmán, yet statistics reveal that his military-style drug war has targeted only the weakest cartels, such as Familiana Michoacana. It’s also indisputable that 15,000 lives have been lost with no measurable benefits—save for the infusion of hundreds of millions of dollars of U.S. financial support, money that comes directly from American taxpayers.

The feeling among some Mexicans is that Calderón is playing both ends against the middle—accepting American cash, while receiving kickbacks from Guzmán to leave his operation unmolested. If so, it would represent a scam of breathtaking proportions, even in the chaotic world of drug interdiction. A more charitable interpretation is that Calderón simply believes the Sinaloa Cartel is too powerful to tackle, and that an all-out assault would lead to even more violence that might destabilize the entire country. Calderón’s critics have asked for answers to these latest questions, but so far he has had no comment.

Mexico, Sinaloa, Tijuana, Felipe Calderón, Joaquin Guzmán, drugs

P-SOUP

Holy pozole, this guy is off the charts crazy.

We thought this guy was hardcore for dissolving one corpse in acid. We stand humbly corrected. The ever-shifting hardcore bar has been reset at a new, quite possibly unsurpassable height by the gentleman you see at left.

His name is Santiago Meza Lopez, but he’s known as el pozolero—the pozole maker. Pozole is a Mexican stew made from corn, except Meza made his stews from people, as many as 300 of them, who he dissolved in acid for his employer, Tijuana drug trafficker Teodoro Garcia Simental. Meza claims to have concocted his brews over a period of years, though he remembers December 2007 as a busy month during which he melted and dumped 32 bodies.

Mexican police have begun the tedious process of digging in various locations around Tijuana for human remains, and about 100 families have come forward with photos of missing relatives, hoping—and certainly fearing as well—that Meza can identify them. Meza has asked for forgiveness from the families, and stressed to authorities that he is no woman killer—he only dissolved men.

Mexico, Tijuana, Santiago Meza Lopez, Teodoro Garcia Simental
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HISTORY REWIND

The headlines that mattered yesteryear.

1960—Nevil Shute Dies

English novelist Nevil Shute, who wrote the books A Town Like Alice and The Pied Piper, dies in Melbourne, Australia at age sixty-one. Seven of his novels were adapted to film, but his most famous was the cautionary post-nuclear war classic On the Beach.

1967—First Cryonics Patient Frozen

Dr. James Bedford, a University of California psychology professor, becomes the first person to be cryonically preserved with intent of future resuscitation. Bedford had kidney cancer that had metastasized to his lungs and was untreatable. His body was maintained for years by his family before being moved to Alcor Life Extension Foundation in Arizona.

1957—Jack Gilbert Graham Is Executed

Jack Gilbert Graham is executed in Colorado, U.S.A., for killing 44 people by planting a dynamite bomb in a suitcase that was subsequently loaded aboard United Airlines Flight 629. The flight took off from Denver and exploded in mid-air. Graham was executed by means of poison gas in the Colorado State Penitentiary, in Cañon City.

1920—League of Nations Convenes

The League of Nations holds its first meeting, at which it ratifies the Treaty of Versailles, thereby officially ending World War I. At its greatest extent, from 28 September 1934 to 23 February 1935, the League had 58 members. Its final meeting was held in April 1946 in Geneva.

1957—Macmillan Becomes Prime Minister

Harold Macmillan accepts the Queen of England’s invitation to become Prime Minister following the sudden resignation of Sir Anthony Eden. Eden had resigned due to ill health in the wake of the Suez Crisis. Macmillan is remembered for helping negotiate the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty after the Cuban Missile Crisis. He served as PM until 1963.

1923—Autogyro Makes First Flight

Spanish civil engineer and pilot Juan de la Cierva’s autogyro, which was a precursor to the helicopter, makes its first successful flight. De la Cierva’s autogyro made him world famous, and he used his invention to support fascist general Francisco Franco when the Spanish Civil War broke out in July 1936. De la Cierva was dead by December of that same year, perishing, ironically, in a plane crash in Croydon, England.

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WALKING AFTER MIDNIGHT

Italian artist Sandro Symeoni showcases his unique painterly skills on a cover for Peter Cheyney's He Walked in Her Sleep.

OPEN SECRETS

French artist Jef de Wulf was both prolific and unique. He painted this cover for René Roques' 1958 novel Secrets.

THE WORST DAY OF CHRISTMAS

Christmas themed crime novels are rare, in our experience. Do Not Murder Before Christmas by Jack Iams is an exception, and a good one. The cover art is by Robert Stanley.

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