vintage and modern pulp fiction; noir, schlock and exploitation films; scandals, swindles and news
Let’s circle back to Jan Sterling, shall we? As you know, she’s become a favorite actress of ours, and since she has a number of excellent promo images we might as well run through a few. This one was made for her 1955 drama Women’s Prison, in which her co-stars were Ida Lupino, Audrey Totter, and Cleo Moore. Think we’ll be watching that? Well, with three great film noir icons in the cast, along with Sterling herself as one of the most elegant felons ever, you can bet on it.
And we couldn’t go with just one femme fatale. We have so many scanned at this point we may never get to them all. So let’s double up. Here’s a beautiful shot of Natsuko Yashiro, who appeared in such fare as Inzetsu ama: Uzuku, Shikijô ama midare tsubo, aka Lusty Ama: Stirred-Up Pot, Onna keimusho, aka Women’s Prison, Okasu!, Hirusagari no onna: chohatsu! aka Woman of the Afternoon: Incite!, and about twenty other flicks. For someone with such an extensive filmography, we don’t get the impression she was ever a top star, but we could wrong about that. This dates from 1974.
Above: a nice poster with Erina Miyai and Natsuko Yashiro for Onna keimusho, aka Women’s Prison, about a woman whose fiancée strays on their wedding day, prompting her to attack her romantic rival, leading to her being sentenced to a stint in the big house. Friends and enemies are made, sex and sexual assault occurs, and an escape leads to a showdown with the fiancée whose wandering dick started the whole mess in the first place. The photos below show Miyai and Yashiro in happier times, before they became hardened felons. Onna keimusho premiered in Japan today in 1978.
These two gorgeous promo photos of Jan Sterling, née Jane Sterling Adriance, were shot for her role in Columbia Pictures’ drama Women’s Prison. Sterling also appeared in Johnny Belinda, Mystery Street, Appointment with Danger, and was Academy Award nominated for her role in The High and the Mighty. Women’s Prison was released in 1955, and these images date from the year before.
American journalist, playwright, and author Richard Harding Davis dies of a heart attack at home in Philadelphia. Not widely known now, Davis was one of the most important and influential war correspondents ever, establishing his reputation by reporting on the Spanish-American War, the Second Boer War, and World War I, as well as his general travels to exotic lands.
In Mexico, revolutionary leader Emiliano Zapata is shot dead by government forces in the state of Morelos, after a carefully planned ambush. Following the killing, Zapata’s revolutionary movement and his Liberation Army of the South slowly fall apart, but his political influence lasts in Mexico to the present day.
F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel The Great Gatsby is published in New York City by Charles Scribner’s Sons. Though Gatsby is Fitzgerald’s best known book today, it was not a success upon publication, and at the time of his death in 1940, Fitzgerald was mostly forgotten as a writer and considered himself to be a failure.
American clergyman and civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr., is buried five days after being shot dead on a Memphis, Tennessee motel balcony. April 7th had been declared a national day of mourning by President Lyndon B. Johnson, and King’s funeral on the 9th is attended by thousands of supporters, and Vice President Hubert Humphrey.
In Kenya, Jomo Kenyatta is sentenced to seven years in prison by the nation’s British rulers for being a member of the Mau Mau Society, an anti-colonial movement. Kenyatta would a decade later become independent Kenya’s first prime minister, and still later its first president.
Major League Baseball player Hank Aaron hits his 715th career home run, surpassing Babe Ruth’s 39-year-old record. The record-breaking homer is hit off Al Downing of the Los Angeles Dodgers, and with that swing Aaron puts an exclamation mark on a twenty-four year journey that had begun with the Indianapolis Clowns of the Negro League, and would end with his selection to Major League Baseball’s Hall of Fame.
