vintage and modern pulp fiction; noir, schlock and exploitation films; scandals, swindles and news
Above is another poster for Zoku Imokinchaku, aka Sea Anemone Girl Continued, starring Mari Atsumi. We shared the tatekan sized promo earlier this year, and this is the hansai promo, which we tend to call merely standard sized. The movie premiered in Japan today in 1970, and you can see the other poster here.
Zoku Imokinchaku*, for which you see the poster above and which premiered in Japan today in 1970, was the sequel to the previous year’s Imokinchaku, but shot in color. Atsumi plays a high school girl named Hamako who tries to save enough money to buy her family’s ancestral land. Her plan to obtain it through work seems sound enough, but trouble in finances and love, including the theft of her money and a doomed infatuation with a dreamboat who happens to be gay, present serious obstacles. Of course, if the previous film taught Mari anything it was to persevere, and she makes forays into nude modeling and singing in efforts to cobble together a sufficiently large nest egg to buy the land. Do any of these schemes actually work? You’ll have to add this one to your queue if you want to find out.
On a related note, we learned that Daiei Co. released an Atsumi record in conjunction with this film, and that it also engineered the publication of a photo book. Cross promotion of pinku films was a common tactic back then. In fact, many stars performed live in cinemas between double features, either singing, dancing, or reenacting bits from the films. Japanese law was strict about nudity onscreen, but we’ve been told these live performances sometimes featured full nudity, which is interesting to contemplate. Atsumi made a lot of public appearances. Below, for example, she’s in Shimizu Park in Chiba, where a gaggle of photographers shot pictures of her in her undies. We have images from another Atsumi public appearance we’ll share later.
*We can’t find a romanized title for this film anywhere, but Zoku Imokinchaku is probably right. It’s at least close. If anyone wants to correct us feel free. The official title is 続・いそぎんちゃく.
A B-52 Stratofortress carrying two H-bombs experiences trouble during a refueling operation, and in the midst of an emergency descent breaks up in mid-air over Goldsboro, North Carolina. Five of the six arming devices on one of the bombs somehow activate before it lands via parachute in a wooded region where it is later recovered. The other bomb does not deploy its chute and crashes into muddy ground at 700 mph, disintegrating while driving its radioactive core fifty feet into the earth.
The International Opium Convention is signed at The Hague, Netherlands, and is the first international drug control treaty. The agreement was signed by Germany, the U.S., China, France, the UK, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, Persia, Portugal, Russia, and Siam.
U.S. president Harry S. Truman establishes the Central Intelligence Group or CIG, an interim authority that lasts until the Central Intelligence Agency is established in September of 1947.
The New York City “Mad Bomber,” a man named George P. Metesky, is arrested in Waterbury, Connecticut and charged with planting more than 30 bombs. Metesky was angry about events surrounding a workplace injury suffered years earlier. Of the thirty-three known bombs he planted, twenty-two exploded, injuring fifteen people. He was apprehended based on an early use of offender profiling and because of clues given in letters he wrote to a newspaper. At trial he was found legally insane and committed to a state mental hospital.
American lawyer Alger Hiss is convicted of perjury in connection with an investigation by the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), at which he was questioned about being a Soviet spy. Hiss served forty-four months in prison, but maintained his innocence and fought his perjury conviction until his death in 1996 at age 92.
U.S. President Jimmy Carter pardons nearly all of the country’s Vietnam War draft evaders, many of whom had emigrated to Canada. He had made the pardon pledge during his election campaign, and he fulfilled his promise the day after he took office.
