Pulp International
vintage and modern pulp fiction; noir, schlock and exploitation films; scandals, swindles and news
- Vintage Pulp
Anthony Quinn and Yaphet Kotto give their all and then some in hard luck crime thriller.
Across 110th Street premiered today in 1972, which makes it one of the early arrivals in the blaxploitation wave that was sweeping American b-cinema. With its ample budget and its well established headliner in Anthony Quinn, you could make the case that it isn’t fully part of the genre, but we think it fits, even if it’s atypical. Outlier or not, you’ll see several faces in this that would soon become well known in blaxploitation, and you’ll also see Burt Young, later of Rocky and Chinatown.
Plotwise, the movie centers on odd couple cops—old school racist Quinn and college educated reformist Yaphet Kotto—thrown together àla In the Heat of the Night to solve an NYC murder/robbery. As familiar as this oil vs. water dynamic may be, the movie still comes together in exciting fashion thanks to the way it tracks the robbers’ storylines. They’re a trio of amateurs who ripped off the Mafia for $300,000 and now are being hunted by both crooks and cops. Quinn and Kotto must find these thieves before the Mafia turns Harlem into a war zone.
When the film was released it was criticized for its violence and bitter racial subtext, but upsetting the herd is one of the things it tries to achieve. And while it may not appeal to people’s better angels, it’s quite interesting, with the grit of Wally Ferris’s otherwise radically altered source novel left intact, and the central metaphor embodied in the title—that of which lines will be crossed and what the consequences will be—deftly observed. Across 110th Street is rough stuff, but well worth a watch.
New York City, Harlem, Across 110th Street, Anthony Quinn, Yaphet Kotto, Anthony Franciosa, Antonio Fargas, Paul Benjamin, Richard Ward, Wally Ferris, Burt Young, poster art, cinema, blaxploitation, movie review
- Femmes Fatales
A Gloria’s embodiment of summer.
Here’s a great shot of American actress Gloria Hendry, who made this promo image when she appeared in the James Bond movie Live and Let Die.She was also in the blaxploitation films Across 110th Street, Black Caesar, Hell Up in Harlem, and Black Belt Jones.She’s seen here rocking one of history’s greatest afros, 1973.See another shot from the same session in this post.
Live and Let Die, Across 110th Street, Black Caesar, Hell Up in Harlem, Black Belt Jones, Gloria Hendry, blaxploitation, cinema
ABOUT
LEGAL
- CATEGORIES
- VINTAGE PULP
- MODERN PULP
- FEMMES FATALES
- HOLLYWOODLAND
- INTL. NOTEBOOK
- MONDO BIZARRO
- Musiquarium
- SEX FILES
- The Naked City
SEARCH PULP INTERNATIONAL
PULP INTL.
HISTORY REWIND
The headlines that mattered yesteryear.
1995—Mickey Mantle Dies
New York Yankees outfielder Mickey Mantle dies of complications from cancer, after receiving a liver transplant. He was one of the greatest baseball players ever, but he was also an alcoholic and played drunk, hungover, and unprepared. He once said about himself, “Sometimes I think if I had the same body and the same natural ability and someone else’s brain, who knows how good a player I might have been.”
1943—Philadelphia Experiment Allegedly Takes Place
The U.S. government is believed by some to have attempted to create a cloak of invisibility around the Navy ship USS Eldridge. The top secret event is known as the Philadelphia Experiment and, according to believers, ultimately leads to the accidental teleportation of an entire vessel.
1953—Soviets Detonate Deliverable Nuke
The Soviet Union detonates a nuclear weapon codenamed Reaktivnyi Dvigatel Stalina, aka Stalin’s Jet Engine. In the U.S. the bomb is codenamed Joe 4. It is a small yield fission bomb rather than a multi-stage fusion weapon, but it makes up for its relative weakness by being fully deployable, meaning it can be dropped from a bomber.
1945—Nagasaki Destroyed
The United States detonates a nuclear bomb codenamed Fat Man over the city of Nagasaki. It is the second atomic bomb dropped on Japan. 40,000 to 75,000 people are killed immediately, with tens of thousands more sickening and dying later due to radiation poisoning. The U.S. had plans to drop as many as seven more bombs on Japan, but the nation surrendered days later.
- FEATUREd PULP
1,000 TO 1 SHOT
This awesome cover art is by Tommy Shoemaker, a new talent to us, but not to more experienced paperback illustration aficionados.
WRITTEN IN THE STARS
Ten covers from the popular French thriller series Les aventures de Zodiaque.
THE KING OF SWING
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer poster for Johnny Weissmuller's 1934 lost world epic Tarzan the Ape Man.