Vintage Pulp

September 1 2022

SCHOOL FOR BAD GIRLS

Reiko strikes down upon her enemies with great vengeance and Furyo anger.

More Reiko as soon as that? Why yes. Above you see her on a promo poster for her pinky violence flick Kyofu joshikôkô: Furyo monzetsu guruupu, known in English as Terrifying Girls’ High School: Delinquent Convulsion Group. We shared this art as part of a collection ten years ago but didn’t discuss the film. Reiko and Yûko Kanô star, and as the title suggests, it’s about the rough and tumble lives of female juvenile delinquents. Reiko’s high school is run by the Red Rose Clan. Things go very right when she’s elected head of the gang, then very wrong when her father dies in a brutal auto accident, she’s transferred to the outcast class for non-payment of tuition, the Red Rose tosses her overboard, and she finds out her mother is indulging in sexual extracurriculars. Talk about a run of bad luck.

But you can’t keep Reiko down. She fights her way into the good graces of a group of girls that hang out in a local bar. They decide to form a new gang called the Union Clan to fight the Red Rose and take control of the school, which is beginning to descend into anarchy. Soon after forming her new gang, Reiko learns that her father’s accident was orchestrated. Like any devoted daughter, she vows revenge. It won’t be easy, but once a girl has dealt with the evils of high school, a cabal of heavily armed international drug dealers is a cakewalk. As required by the pinky violence genre, what follows are clouds of cordite and showers of sparks. Doesn’t that sound fun? Reiko never disappoints. Kyofu joshikôkô: Furyo monzetsu guruupu premiered today in 1973.

Japan, Toei Company, Kyofu joshikôkô: Furyo monzetsu guruupu, Terrifying Girls' High School: Delinquent Convulsion Group, Reiko Ike, Yûko Kanô, Yôko Mihara, poster art, cinema, pinky violence, pinku, movie review

Vintage Pulp

January 3 2022

TRAFFIC STOPPER

Sugawara gives the red light to wartime slavery.

This blazingly colorful promo poster was made for the action movie Onna dorei-sen, known in English as Female Slave Ship, which is set during World War II and follows the adventures of a navy lieutenant played by Bunta Sugawara. The tale begins with him sent on a secret mission to obtain radar schematics to help salvage Japan’s waning war fortunes, but unfortunately his plane is shot full of holes by a squadron of American F4Fs and he ends up in the drink. He’s picked up by a Shanghai bound China boat, or slave ship, carrying twelve women meant to be auctioned to a gathering of Epsteins. Eleven of the women are prostitutes, but Rumiko, played by the lovely Utako Mitsuya, was tricked onto the boat. Naturally, she and Sugawara form an instant connection. Can he save her? You can be sure he’ll try his best.

But just when you think Female Slave Ship is a straightforward white-knight-saves-damsel tale, the slave ship is attacked by pirates, and the women and Sugawara are suddenly at the mercy of the most ruthless band of unbathed thugs ever to steam the East China Sea. After some onboard drama the vessel lands, not in Shanghai but on a rocky Chinese coast where traffickers plan to brand and sell the women. This obviously can’t stand, which means Buntawara must somehow throw sand in the gears. Why he’s even alive at this point is a question. He’s been nothing but trouble to the pirates, and the simplest solution would have been to toss him to the sharks. Failing to do that will be a costly and contusion making error.

We wanted to get away from Nikkatsu Studios’ misogynistic roman pornos for a while and this effort from Shintoho Film fulfilled the requirement. Well, mostly. While generally tame, you’ll rarely see so many women slapped around. But the treatment is meant to outrage. Mission accomplished. You will hate these traffickers. As for the movie overall, we suspect you’ll like-not-love it. It’s done in broad strokes, but as a sort of surf-to-turf soap opera it mostly works fine. Sugawara, who was soon to become a cinematic icon, has a charisma befitting his burgeoning status. And Yôko Mihara, already a big star at this point, is enjoyable playing a slippery slaver whose allegiances shift with the tides. She and Sugawara are worth seeing. Female Slave Ship premiered in Japan today in 1960.

Japan, Malaya, Shanghai, World War II, Shintoho Film Distribution, Onna dorei-sen, Female Slave Ship, Bunta Sugawara, Tetsurô Tanba, Yôko Mihara, Utako Mitsuya, poster art, cinema, movie review

Vintage Pulp

July 27 2020

CRAVING SEA FOOD

Count yourself lucky if your girlfriend only gets grumpy when she's hungry.

We never considered the possibility that the bizarre Girl Diver of Spook Mansion wasn’t the only weird ama movie made, but we’re fast learning that these films—an ama is basically female pearl diver—were used as templates for all sorts of bizarre plots. Above you see two posters for Hitokui ama, which is known in English as Cannibal Ama, or sometimes Underwater Murder, and occasionally Man-Eating Girl Diver. It starred Yoko Mihara, and like her earlier outing in Spook Mansion, is currently unavailable to us. In fact, we don’t think the movie has been released on DVD anywhere outside Japan. It’s too bad, because the whole cannibal idea has us greatly intrigued, but sadly this is one we’ll have to wait for. Hitokui ama premiered in Japan today in 1958.

Japan, Shintoho Film Distribution, Hitokui Ama, Cannibal Ama, Man-Eating Girl Diver, Underwater Murder, Yôko Mihara, poster art, cinema

Vintage Pulp

July 4 2019

AMA BELIEVER

Yôko Mihara dives into a family mystery.

This poster was made for the Shintoho Film Co. genre mash-up Ama no bakemono yashiki. What genres were mashed? The English title should answer that for you—Girl Diver of Spook Mansion. Yes, it’s a mixture of an ama flick and— Wait, should we define that for you? We’ve talked about this a lot, but in case you weren’t around for those discussions, ama films deal with female divers who scoured Japan’s bay bottoms for pearls, abalone, et al, and, according to strict tradition, did so topless. Look here, quickly. So that idea was combined with a ghost story. We gather that the ama genre was so popular that injecting novelty into it was a can’t miss proposition. And in fact, most of the reviews we checked were favorable.

The movie is about an ama, played by Yôko Mihara, living in a creepy old house and being haunted by her younger sister’s ghost, which nobody else can see. Though others are skeptical at first, Mihara manages to secure help in the form of Bunta Sugawara. Sounds like a winner to us. Hopefully we’ll confirm that later, since this film is actually out there to be seen, but at the moment isn’t available to us. At least we found this rare poster. There are a couple of scans of it online, but the version above is better quality than those. We also found a few promo images, and they appear below. Ama no bakemono yashiki, aka Girl Diver of Spook Mansion (another aka was Haunted Cave) premiered in Japan today in 1959.

Japan, Shintoho Film Distribution, Ama no bakemono yashiki, Girl Diver of Spook Mansion, Yôko Mihara, Bunta Sugawara, Reiko Seto, poster art, cinema

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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.