vintage and modern pulp fiction; noir, schlock and exploitation films; scandals, swindles and news
Above: a Dutch language cover from Belgian publisher Uitgeverij A.B.C. for Mike Splane’s Sex en Lood, or “sex and lead.” What a title. As we probably don’t need to splane, Splane was a pseudonym. The actual author of this and other books for the A.B.C.’s Collection Vamp is for the moment unknown.
Here’s a nice cover for a Dutch language paperback titled Nachtkatje, which translates as “night kitten,” written by Mike Splane, and published by Antwerp based Uitgeverij A.B.C. for its Collection Vamp in 1957. This publisher is not the same as Uitgeversmij, based in Rotterdam, Netherlands, and whose output we’ve shown you here and here. The cover on this is uncredited, but A.B.C.’s Vamp series often had Alain Gourdon art that had been modified from a previous form, and this piece has that look.
Everything we just wrote, we learned with minimal research. Now comes the part where our research falls short. You might guess that this is a translated Mickey Spillane novel, but we can’t confirm that. If it’s a translated Spillane it’s mighty short—just sixty-plus pages. Which presents a problem. Spillane’s short stories weren’t published in book form until after 1957, at least not in the U.S. So finding out if this is a Spillane short—which we doubt—will have to wait for more knowledgable people than us. See more covers in the same vein here.
The board game company Parker Brothers acquires the forerunner patents for Monopoly from Elizabeth Magie, who had designed the game (originally called The Landlord’s Game) to demonstrate the economic ill effects of land monopolism and the use of land value tax as a remedy for them. Parker Brothers quickly turns Monopoly into the biggest selling board game in America.
American actress Gene Tierney, one of the great beauties in Hollywood history and star of the seminal film noir Laura, dies in Houston, Texas of emphysema. Tierney had begun smoking while young as a way to help lower her high voice, and was hooked on cigarettes the rest of her life.
Adolf Hitler holds a secret meeting with Nazi officials and states his intention to acquire “lebensraum,” or living space for Germany. An old German concept that dated from 1901, Hitler had written of it in Mein Kampf, and now possessed the power to implement it. Basically the idea, as Hitler saw it, was for the Nazis to kill, deport, or enslave the Polish, Russian and other Slavic populations to the east, whom they considered inferior, and to repopulate those lands with a Germanic upper class.
American actor Fred MacMurray dies of pneumonia related to leukemia. While most remember him as a television actor, earlier in his career he starred in 1944’s Double Indemnity, one of the greatest films noir ever made.
American baseball player Cy Young, who had amassed 511 wins pitching for five different teams from 1890 to 1911, dies at the age of 88. Today Major League Baseball’s yearly award given to the best pitcher of each season is named after Young.
A thirteen year-old child who had been kept locked in a room for her entire life is found in the Los Angeles house of her parents. The child, named Genie, could only speak twenty words and was not able even to walk normally because she had spent her life strapped to a potty chair during the day and bound in a sleeping bag at night. Genie ended up in a series of foster homes and was given language training but after years of effort by various benefactors never reached a point where she could interact normally in society.
