Pulp International

vintage and modern pulp fiction; noir, schlock and exploitation films; scandals, swindles and news

WHEN LOSE SITUATION

Actually, I say it all the time. In fact I just did. They just don't listen.

Who never says when? Probably women, if Peter Cheyney’s franchise detective Slim Callaghan’s bafflement over them is any indication here in his sixth outing in the Callaghan series. We think his feelings are adequately conveyed by this: Women, he thought, were extremely difficult propositions. When they were beautiful they were even more difficult. A natural process, he supposed. It’s played for laughs, because Callaghan can handle any situation with men but is often thrown for a loop when interacting with women.

After a tough case has concluded he decides to vacation and drink. And as will happen in fiction, trouble comes right to his hotel when he’s asked to recover a stolen corona, or crown, for its rightful owner, only to find that the person who asked him to acquire this valuable item is not who she claimed to be. All of it seems to revolve around an unhappy marriage and a battle over who will come away with what communal property, but when murder results Callaghan realizes there’s more than just martial animus behind it all.

Throughout, he opines about beautiful women, which is a case of him pondering his own addiction:

She asked, “Are all your clients as beautiful? It must be very interesting being a private detective.”

Callaghan said: “It is sometimes. We haven’t had an ugly client for years. Plain women seldom get into trouble.”

We don’t think that’s true, but we never have to find out in this book because all four women caught up in this scenario are attractive, even the one who’s “kind of ugly,” and Callaghan wants them all. This bit is Cheyney, we assume, having fun with a convention of the detective genre, being almost meta, in current parlance, by having his main character comment on the absurdity of his unlikely circumstances. Might there be there some external power throwing all these beauties in front of him? Yes—the author.

Callaghan has to unravel a mystery in which various characters are cleverly maneuvering to achieve their ends. He sorts out the moving pieces and, with the help of his partner Windemere Nikolls and secretary Effie Thompson, plays the various parties against each other through deceptions of his own, and sometimes outright lies. It’s very interesting how he alone decides who will be punished for their crimes, though everyone involved has broken some law or other. We suppose he’s a big picture guy. He just wants to catch the trophy fish.

Even though Cheyney wrote most of his books before the end of World War II and his style falls on the more orthodox side in terms of plot construction and levels of action, his writing is involving for modern readers, and often humorous. He was considered a genius within the crime fiction form and remains respected. Our edition of They Never Say When carries a copyright of 1957, but the book was originally published in 1944. As far as the brilliant and beautiful art goes, it isn’t credited but we don’t think there’s a doubt it’s by John Rose. Check here for a comparison.

Britain, HarperCollins, Fontana Books, Peter Cheyney, John Rose, cover art, literature

THE HILLS HAVE EYES

There's nothing like a good rifle and high ground.

The lovely Camilla Sparv, who hailed from Sweden, made this promo image for her 1969 western MacKenna’s Gold, in which she co-starred with Gregory Peck, Telly Savalas, and Omar Sharif. She acccumlated about thirty acting credits, more than half of those on television shows such as The Rockford Files and Hawaii Five-O. While her cinematic output was scant, she was a world class beauty. See for yourself here.

Sweden, MacKenna's Gold, The Rockford Files, Hawaii Five-O, Camilla Sparv, Gregory Peck, Telly Savalas, Omar Sharif, television

GOT HIS BACK

All you have to do to solve a problem is take a stab at it.

David Dodge is a colorful writer whose fiction and non-fiction often ranges from country to country, but in 1950’s The Red Tassel, third and last in his Al Colby series after The Long Escape and Plunder of the Sun, he confines his story mainly to a mining village in the high Andes of Bolivia. A woman named Pancha Porter has inherited a mine and hired Colby to find out why it’s failing. Villagers think a local mystic has laid a curse, but Colby isn’t particularly credulous when it comes to witch doctoring. There’s been sabotage, and his experience tells him that in such cases only mundane reasons like money or revenge can be behind it.

In telling this story, Dodge avoids most of the worst excesses writers commit portraying indigenous cultures, and makes his confined, almost claustrophobic narrative, with its cramped tunnels and taciturn Indians, work extremely well. His characters are diverse in motivation and temperament, and the conspiracy he weaves is easy to believe. His next novel would be To Catch a Thief, so The Red Tassel pales by comparison, but just the same it’s good. Dodge always gets you hither and yon with alacrity. The Red Tassel is engrossing, educational, occasionally amusing, and quite thrilling.

Bolivia, Dell Publications, David Dodge, Robert Stanley, cover art, literature

SLIT PERSONALITY

Say, “people afflicted by schizoaffective disorder.” They get really angry when you call them “schizoids.”

Under-appreciated Italian artist Mario Ferrari, aka Mafé, produced two posters for the Italian release of the U.S.-made Schizoid, both making use of scissors as a motif. These are great, especially the top one in which the female figure’s face is subtly warped. Is the movie warped too? It’s a giallo slasher flick with Klaus Kinski top billed, who it must be said was quite a man. He was accused by his daughter Pola of raping her, was described by his other daughter Nastassja as touching her in a sexual way, left female co-stars bruised and traumatized, and was clinically diagnosed with antisocial personality disorder—i.e. he was a psychopath. We usually don’t drag up the personal failings, vicious politics, or past crimes of actors or authors, but there’s a limit. And now you know.

Plotwise, Marianna Hill plays an advice columnist who attends group therapy, and is horrified when she learns that one of the members has been murdered. Hill has been getting weird, threatening letters, and intuits a possible connection. Since the police are useless (of course), she decides to engage with the letter writer/possible killer using her column—and you just know that’s going to turn out to be a bad decision. Hill has gotten involved with her group’s therapist Kinski, which naturally makes him a prime suspect. Nevertheless, there are other possibilities: her estranged husband, the doctor’s strange daughter, and her strange building superintendent. In typical giallo fashion there’s too much misdirection to deduce who the trench-coated killer is, but no worries—a late reveal will sort that out.

Schizoid has problems owing largely to the music and co-star Craig Wasson’s awful acting as Hill’s ex. In addition, Kinski was possibly cast specifically because he looks so creepy, in order for him to be a walking red herring. Okay, but he’s also miscast in the sense that he’s implausible in the role of a therapist. There’s simply nothing calming about him. Because he succeeded in some very tough, even epic, roles during his career you’d never think he couldn’t ace the part of a simple head doctor, but he doesn’t. Even so, Hill does well as a woman constantly unnerved by the men around her. She should be unnerved—they’re deplorable. After premiering in the U.S. in 1980 Schizoid opened in Italy today in 1981.

Italy, Schizoid, Klaus Kinski, Marianna Hill, Donna Wilkes, Craig Wasson, Christopher Lloyd, Mario Ferrari, Mafé, poster art, cinema, horror, giallo, movie review

THE REPEAL OF PROHIBITION

Let your body be free no matter what anyone says.

Since we’re on the subject of top notch but lesser known Italian artists today, we’ve brought back Sandro Symeoni, the genius behind pieces like this and this, who painted the above promo for the striptease flick Sexy proibito. It’s typically great work from him, juxtaposing undraped classical statuary with modern stripping in the top poster, then moving into bondage themes in the second.

The movie was the directorial debut of Osvaldo Civirani, who would go on to helm Il figlio di Django, aka Return of Django, and Il diavolo a sette facce, aka The Devil with Seven Faces. In Sexy proibito he offers up striptease vignettes discussing what was customary and allowed throughout recorded history, but also goes on flights of fancy ranging from the Stone Age to outer space. Sounds fun, but it isn’t available to watch. We’ll keep hoping. It premiered today in 1963.

Italy, Sexy proibito, Il figlio di Django, Return of Django, Il diavolo a sette facce, The Devil with Seven Faces, Osvaldo Civirani, Sandro Symeoni, poster art, cinema, burlesque, bdsm

EYE SPY

It's a totally counterproductive concealment technique but at least it unnerves the hell out of whoever he's following.

Here’s more work from artist Jacques Thibésart, this time for Bevis Winter’s 1953 Éditions le Trotteur thriller C’est pour le 15, referred to on the rear as C’est pour le quinze, which means, “It’s for the 15th.”

If someone followed you around this way it wouldn’t be long before you simply bolted in terror. He must have been trained by this guy. When tailing someone, if you can’t be invisible, at least look murderous.

The last Thibésart we shared from Trotteur showed his idea of what a guy being brutally pistol whipped might look like, and it’s a favorite cover of ours. He painted for seemingly every imprint in France. Besides that beatdown cover, a couple of other favorites are here and here. Thibésart will be back.

France, Éditions le Trotteur, Bevis Winter, Jacques Thibésart, Mik, cover art, literature

SUPER DUPEREY

In photography some people have a good side and a bad side. Some people.

This nice shot shows French actress Anny Duperey, who has nearly one hundred credits to her name, and accomplished many other feats (see here). Some of her films include Un éléphant ça trompe énormément, aka Pardon mon affaire, the Formula 1 drama Bobby Deerfield, and L’homme qui valait des milliards, aka The Man Who Was Worth Millions. We think Duperey is worth millions. This image dates from 1968.

France, Un éléphant ça trompe énormément, Pardon mon affaire, Bobby Deerfield, L'homme qui valait des milliards, The Man Who Was Worth Millions, Anny Duperey

A LITTLE SHADY

You know what? I suddenly realize I'm out of white paint. Just go ahead and take that thing off.

Just another cover for our always growing collection featuring artists and models, which are scattered around the site, but the bulk of which are here. To give you an idea where Carl Branch’s 1968 novel All Shades of Gay sits in the hopes of vintage booksellers, it’s on right now for $449. Yeah. We’d rather fly to some island with that money. And having resisted the purchase, maybe we will.

Greenleaf Classics, Carl Branch, Robert Bonfils, cover art, literature, lgbt

THE RIVER’S EDGE

The cold creeps in bit by bit, and eats you up bite by bite.

The Los Angeles Examiner takes us in a grim direction with a photo showing a body later identified as Mary Emily Saunders, who died beside the north fork of the San Gabriel River in eastern Los Angeles County. If you take a look at the zoom you’ll notice—because Saunders stiffened into the position in which she died—that she was curled up trying to conserve heat. She’s been placed on a stretcher, and it’s in this macabre state that she’ll arrive at the morgue. Rigor mortis is something you never see in movies or television—it’s way too real, so the corpses are always flat when they’re stretchered away. While the shot is credited to a photographer named Swaim, we doubt Examiner ever published it. As for Saunders, you can only feel sympathy. It happened today today in 1958.

Los Angeles, Los Angeles Examiner, University of Southern California, Mary Emily Saunders, deaths

THE DOOR’S GREATEST

Many passed through, but none quite like her.

This brilliant promo image of Marilyn Monroe was made for her hit 1955 comedy The Seven Year Itch. It isn’t a pulp style movie on the surface (though co-star Tom Ewell works for a pulp publisher), but Marilyn is a quintessential pulp style personality, so we wrote up the film a while back. If you’re one of the few who hasn’t seen it and are curious, check here.

The Seven Year Itch, Marilyn Monroe
Femme Fatale Image

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HISTORY REWIND

The headlines that mattered yesteryear.

1945—Flag Raised on Iwo Jima

Four days after landing on the Japanese-held island of Iwo Jima, American soldiers of the 28th Regiment, 5th Marine Division take Mount Suribachi and raise an American flag. A photograph of the moment shot by Joe Rosenthal becomes one of the most famous images of WWII, and wins him the Pulitzer Prize later that year.

1987—Andy Warhol Dies

American pop artist Andy Warhol, whose creations have sold for as much as 100 million dollars, dies of cardiac arrhythmia following gallbladder surgery in New York City. Warhol, who already suffered lingering physical problems from a 1968 shooting, requested in his will for all but a tiny fraction of his considerable estate to go toward the creation of a foundation dedicated to the advancement of the visual arts.

1947—Edwin Land Unveils His New Camera

In New York City, scientist and inventor Edwin Land demonstrates the first instant camera, the Polaroid Land Camera, at a meeting of the Optical Society of America. The camera, which contains a special film that self-develops prints in a minute, goes on sale the next year to the public and is an immediate sensation.

1965—Malcolm X Is Assassinated

American minister and human rights activist Malcolm X is assassinated at the Audubon Ballroom in New York City by members of the Nation of Islam, who shotgun him in the chest, then shoot him sixteen additional times with handguns. Though three men are eventually convicted of the killing, two always maintained their innocence, and all were later paroled.

1935—Caroline Mikkelsen Reaches Antarctica

Norwegian explorer Caroline Mikkelsen, accompanying her husband Captain Klarius Mikkelsen on a maritime expedition, makes landfall at Vestfold Hills and becomes the first woman to set foot in Antarctica. Today, a mountain overlooking the southern extremity of Prydz Bay is named for her.

1972—Walter Winchell Dies

American newspaper and radio commentator Walter Winchell, who invented the gossip column while working at the New York Evening Graphic, dies of cancer. In his heyday from 1930 to the 1950s, his newspaper column was syndicated in over 2,000 newspapers worldwide, he was read by 50 million people a day, and his Sunday night radio broadcast was heard by another 20 million people.

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COSA FOR CONCERN

Benedetto Caroselli, the brush behind hundreds of Italian paperback covers, painted this example for Robert Bloch's La cosa, published by Grandi Edizioni Internazionali in 1964.

SEX AND VIOLENZA

Italian illustrator Franco Picchioni is yet another top artist from that country. He produced paperbacks and movie posters, and created this for Patrick Mc Roy's 1966 novel Violenza in nero.

EARLY DEPARTURE

Uncredited cover art for Day Keene’s 1952 novel Wake Up to Murder.

NO TELL HOTEL

Another uncredited artist produces another beautiful digest cover. This time it's for Norman Bligh's Waterfront Hotel, from Quarter Books.

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