Vintage Pulp

November 11 2025

ACAPULCO GOLD

Quasi doc clues in viewers about sexual possibilities in paradise.

We had to watch Acapulco Uncensored for two reasons. First, it’s set in Mexico, which is our favorite country of all those we’ve visited so far (nine trips for PSGP and counting), and two, it’s in “throbbing color,” according to this promo poster. Well, there’s color but not much throbbing. At least at first. But about ten minutes in Virginia Gordon makes an appearance. We had no idea. So we retract that statement about there being no throbbing. This was one of three movies Gordon made in 1968, in her thirties by then and growing still more beautiful, sporting six pack abs and a slimmed down frame since her Playboy days.

Okay, so what’s the movie about? It’s a travelogue of Acapulco, part staged, part documentary, purporting to take viewers through the sexual hot spots, places where sun lovers can sun, swingers can swing, and whorehouse Johns can get their ashes hauled. It also discusses the dark side—women stuck in prostitution or sexual slavery, drug dangers, the places where tourists can be robbed or shot if they aren’t watchful. It’s narrated, and the script is intelligently written and occasionally eloquent—another surprise. It’s also a bit superior and rude—not a surprise at all.

Acapulco Uncensored is mainly supposed to be a titillation movie, and it offers plenty of that, including Kathy Williams, aka Ira Makepeace, briefly implying oral sex. Surprisingly for the era, there are flashes of pubes. Gordon pushes the envelope—she’d be offering extended looks at her old growth forest if she weren’t shaved. We presume that was a decision made to confound the censors. If the camera goes low enough that there should be hair but none is seen, should those frames be cut? Apparently not. Acapulco Uncensored is a worthy cinematic oddity, and you’ll even learn a few things. It premiered in the U.S.—and weakened some taboos—today in 1968.

Mexico, Acapulco, Acapulco Uncensored, Playboy, Victor Izay, Vic lance, Virginia Gordon, Kathy Williams, Ira Makepeace, poster art, cinema, nudism, naturism, movie review

Vintage Pulp

September 13 2025

ALONE IN THE HAREM

There used to be others but they all got laid off one by one.

For some reason this image of Virginia Gordon vibed harem for us, though she has no companions in her colorful room. Must be lonely, but on the plus side she gets all the peeled grapes and bubbly beverages to herself. She was a Playboy centerfold in 1959 and went on to make several films, among them Hot Spur and The Muthers. This image, which is titled “Reflections,” probably dates from around 1960. Gordon will be back.

Playboy, Technicolor pin-up, Virginia Gordon, nudity

Vintage Pulp

May 25 2024

SPURRED INTO ACTION

Gordon and others get bushwacked in no-budget horse opera.

L’éperon brûlant is a U.S. movie titled Hot Spur, but once again we found a foreign poster far more intriguing than the domestic version. The movie was originally released in 1968, but this poster is from France and was made for the movie’s premiere there today in 1970. It’s signed by the artist: Loris. We can’t tell you anything about him or her except that they also painted posters for 1971’s L’homme qui vient de la nuit and 1974’s La virée superbe. This is an interesting effort.

We mainly wanted to watch this for raven brunette beauty Virginia Gordon, so imagine our suprise and dismay to see the filmmakers turn her into an unnatural blonde. In any case, the movie is nothing special—it’s a Western revenge drama, poorly directed by Lee Frost of Policewomen fame, and poorly acted by Gordon and everyone else. Basically, a Mexican farmhand is driven by constant abuse to seek revenge, and does so by kidnapping his cruel employer’s wife. Probably a bad idea.

The film takes advantage of the fraying censorship enforcement of the era to show more nudity and sexual violence than in previous years. There are themes embedded within the script about racism, patriarchal control, and what we’d call today male toxicity, but they’re so obscured by sexploitative content that you’ll be too busy feeling queasy to absorb any well-intentioned messaging. L’éperon brûlant/Hot Spur is basically a footnote suitable for true cineastes only. All others can give it a pass.

We decided to share this specific poster for a secondary reason. Users on both Alamy and Diomedia claim it as theirs, which is what happens when bloggers and Ebay sellers post high resolution images online to be hoovered up by opportunistic hustlers. Not that we don’t sometimes get images from Ebay. This one came from there. But we don’t try to claim false copyright on them. Once upon a time we considered uploading our thousands of original scans at huge sizes, but now the decision not to looks pretty smart. Many of those images would be on Alamy, Shutterstock, et al now.

In the last several years the problem of copyright squatters has grown, and with AI programs scouring the internet for instances of presumed infringement, threatening e-mails are increasingly going out to website operators. But once again, it needs to be pointed out that movie posters and promo shots were made for non-copyright holders to publicize the associated works, and such items fall into the category of fair use. The copyright on this poster belongs to the film studio or production company that originally made it (Les Films Leitienne), and isn’t transferred just because someone uploaded it to Alamy or any other site. If you operate a blog and get a threatening e-mail, ask for documentation of copyright. They’re obligated to provide that. But they won’t be able to.

France, L'éperon brûlant, Hot Spur, L’homme qui vient de la nuit, La virée superbe, James Arena, Virginia Gordon, Joseph Mascolo, Angel Carter, Loris, poster art, cinema, sexploitation, movie review

Vintage Pulp

November 12 2019

MUTHERLY LOVE

They don't have much in the way of maternal instinct but they make up for it with eagerness to please.

In the nudie flick The Muthers, which opened this month in 1968, two groups of people located somewhere in Southern California between No Budget and No Inhibitions spend an inordinate amount of time putting the ’60s ethos of free love to the test. You have the teens, who party and get laid, and the mothers, who do the same, but with more skill. The movie is just a lighthearted little softcore romp, quaint by today’s standards, but notable for the fun attitude it brings to the proceedings. The plot, such as it is, eventually coalesces around one teen’s feelings of neglect and tendency toward self-destruction, and the title derives from the fact that for some reason she can’t spell “mother” properly.

But don’t let our suggestion that there’s a plot scare you—this flick is just one long sex scene after another. None of it is explicit, or even frontal for that matter. Mainly the performers just grind and wiggle. But it’s still pretty stimulating because one of the moms is Virginia Gordon. For those unfamiliar, Gordon was an in-demand nude model, who, like a fine reposado tequila, just got more golden and more potent as time went by. She’s in her thirty-second year in this film, and her body makes every other performer, including those twelve years younger than her, look like walking cookie dough. Safe to say your muther—or mother, even—never looked like that.

I know—you can’t take your eyes off them, can you?

Grinding is how I keep my muscle tone. Three-hundred fifty reps to go.

The Muthers, Marsha Jordan, Kathy Williams, Virginia Gordon, poster art, cinema, nudity, sexploitation, movie review

Vintage Pulp

October 6 2018

FLASHY GORDON

Cats always get in the way at the worst moments.

The above cover from the Milan based publishers Longanesi & Co. features U.S. glamour model Virginia Gordon fronting a 1959 translation of Ed McBain’s The Pusher. McBain is basically a legend, but is it a stretch to call Gordon legendary too? We don’t think so. She was Playboy magazine’s January 1959 Playmate of the Month, and because of that her photos are highly collectible and expensive. You’d see two important reasons why if not for a mischievous cat, but you can outmaneuver him by clicking here or here.

Below we have a few more fronts from Longanesi, including Jonathan Craig’s Case of the Village Tramp, which also has Gordon on the cover, and John Jakes’ detective novel Johnny Havoc, featuring Carol Baker giving a nice over-the-shoulder glance. Like Australia’s Horwitz Publications and several other non-U.S. companies, Longanesi used (probably) unlicensed images of Hollywood starlets and glamor models as a matter of habit. We’ll show you more examples of those a bit later.

Italy, Milan, Longanesi & Co., Virginia Gordon, Ed McBain, Evan Hunter, Jonathan Craig, John Jakes, Henry Kane, John McPartland, Adam Knight, Carol Baker, cover art, literature, cover collection

Vintage Pulp

August 3 2017

IT’S CURTAINS FOR HER

Funny, when I ordered these I actually thought they'd give me a bit more privacy.

We haven’t had Virginia Gordon around these parts since we posted a spectacular record sleeve starring her in 2014, so here she is today on a nice Technicolor lithograph entitled “Baubles and Beads” that dates from 1958. See the earlier image here.

Technicolor pin-up, Virginia Gordon, nudity

Musiquarium

October 1 2014

MUSIC TO THE EYES

She'll make you feel like singing.

Above is a beautiful Japanese album cover featuring 1950s/1960s glamour model Virginia Gordon, who’s fronting a collection of latin jazz piano pieces by various artists. The image is taken from a session she did for the men’s magazine Rogue that appeared in its June 1961 issue. We’ve also provided a close-up and a third image showing a fuller frame from that sitting. Just because. And If you want to see another spectacular image of Miss Gordon we posted a couple of years ago click here.

Japan, Rogue Magazine, Virginia Gordon, album art, nudity

Femmes Fatales

April 3 2012

VIRGINIA SLIM

A million dollar profile.

We were going to upload a Facebook profile for Pulp Intl. today, but then we decided you’d probably rather look at this profile instead. Pictured is Virginia Gordon, who started in 1958 as a nude model, and later appeared in b-films such as The Muthers (the 1968 sexploitation flick, not the 1976 blaxploitation flick), Hot Spur, and Francis Ford Coppola’s nudie western Tonight for Sure. Her movies were mostly forgettable, but her modeling remains precisely the opposite. Probably 1962 on this.

The Muthers, Hot Spur, Tonight for Sure, Virginia Gordon, cinema, nudity

Vintage Pulp

October 25 2011

FRANCIS BAKIN’

Coppola brings the heat in his first credited production.

Here is a true rarity. And we’ve done a thorough search around the internet and we’re 99% sure this is its first appearance online. It’s a Japanese poster for Francis Ford Coppola’s Tonight for Sure, a hot little nudie western that had only twelve minutes of Coppola-directed footage, yet, through a complicated set of circumstances, earned him full directorial credit.

What happened was that some people approached Coppola with a short nudie film called Wide Open Spaces about a man who kept hallucinating naked women whenever he looked at cows. The film was so bad that they asked Coppola to fix it, which he did by intercutting his short nudie The Peeper and adding a bit of footage to bridge the pieces. Coppola called the final result Tonight for Sure and gave himself full directorial credit.

The movie went nowhere—except to Japan, apparently, where it showed in 1963. Remember, this would have been before Coppola had achieved any semblance of fame, so there was no reason for the movie to earn an overseas release. We can only assume that the copious nudity made it sellable and Tokyo was buying.

As a side note, Virginia Gordon, who was one of the most famous nude models of the ’60s, made an appearance and we found an on set photo, which we’ve posted below along with some publicity shots from the magazine Naked Films. Tonight for Sure—or some part of Tonight for Sure—was at some point going to be called Lake Girls, and you can discern that for yourself by lowering your eyes from Gordon’s breasts to the slate underneath. But only if you want to. Whatever you call the movie, it premiered in the U.S. today in 1962.

Japan, Tonight for Sure, Naked Films, Francis Ford Coppola, Virginia Gordon, nudity, poster art, cinema

Vintage Pulp

May 12 2011

ANGER MISMANAGEMENT

Breaking out the good china.

For your enjoyment today we have eighteen images from Australia’s Adam, published May 1963, with an unusual cover of a guy going berserk on the cups and saucers. For boxing fans, we also have shots of Mickey MacDonald, Mike Rhuman, Sugar Ray Robinson, and Jack Dempsey. Oh, and that’s Playboy model Virginia Gordon in panel two, just below. You can see many more issues of Adam magazine by clicking keyword “Adam” at the bottom of the post.

Australia, Adam Magazine, Mickey MacDonald, Mike Rhuman, Sugar Ray Robinson, Jack Dempsey, Virginia Gordon, nudie mags, magazine art

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HISTORY REWIND

The headlines that mattered yesteryear.

November 13

1940—Fantasia Premieres

Walt Disney’s animated film Fantasia, which features eight animated segments set to classical music, is first seen by the public in New York City at the Broadway Theatre. Though appreciated by critics, the movie fails to make a profit due to World War II cutting off European revenues. However it remains popular and is re-released several times, including in 1963 when, with the approval of Walt Disney himself, certain racially insulting scenes were removed. Today Fantasia is considered one of Disney’s greatest achievements and an essential experience for movie lovers.

November 12

1912—Missing Explorer Robert Scott Found

British explorer Robert Falcon Scott and his men are found frozen to death on the Ross Ice Shelf in Antarctica, where they had been pinned down and immobilized by bad weather, hunger and fatigue. Scott’s expedition, known as the Terra Nova expedition, had attempted to be the first to reach the South Pole only to be devastated upon finding that Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen had beaten them there by five weeks. Scott wrote in his diary: “The worst has happened. All the day dreams must go. Great God! This is an awful place.”

November 12

1933—Nessie Spotted for First Time

Hugh Gray takes the first known photos of the Loch Ness Monster while walking back from church along the shore of the Loch near the town of Foyers. Only one photo came out, but of all the images of the monster, this one is considered by believers to be the most authentic.

November 12

1969—My Lai Massacre Revealed

Investigative journalist Seymour Hersh breaks the story of the My Lai massacre, which had occurred in Vietnam more than a year-and-a-half earlier but been covered up by military officials. That day, U.S. soldiers killed between 350 and 500 unarmed civilians, including women, the elderly, and infants. The event devastated America’s image internationally and galvanized the U.S. anti-war movement. For Hersh’s efforts he received a Pulitzer Prize.

November 11

1918—The Great War Ends

Germany signs an armistice agreement with the Allies in a railroad car outside of Compiègne, France, ending The Great War, later to be called World War I. About ten million people died, and many millions more were wounded. The conflict officially stops at 11:00 a.m., and today the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month is annually honored in some European nations with two minutes of silence.