Search
-
Recent Posts
- John le Carre, my 2020 and The Looking Glass War
- Parker on the screen #5: Payback Straight Up (2006)
- The long, dark legacy of William Hjorstberg’s supernatural neo noirs
- Projection Booth episode #495 :To Live and Die in L.A. (1985)
- Wanda (1970): Barbara Loden’s film as a noir
- The strange history of Mickey Spillane and New Zealand’s “Jukebox Killer”
- Book review: Blacktop Wasteland
- Parker on the screen #4: Slayground (1983)
- Parker on the screen #3: The Outfit (1973)
- “Every headlight’s a police car, every shadow is a cop”: Kiss the Blood Off My Hands (1948)
Categories
- 60s American crime films
- 70s American crime films
- 80s American crime films
- 90s American crime films
- Adrian McKinty
- Albert Dekker
- Andre De Toth
- Angela Savage
- Angie Dickinson
- Anthony Zerbe
- Asian noir
- Australian crime fiction
- Australian crime film
- Australian noir
- Australian popular culture
- Australian pulp fiction
- Australian television history
- Ava Gardner
- Beat culture
- Belmont Tower Books
- Ben Wheatley
- Bill Hunter
- Black pulp fiction
- Blaxsploitation
- Book cover design
- Book Reviews
- British crime cinema
- British pulp fiction
- Bryan Brown
- Burt Lancaster
- Carter Brown
- Charles Durning
- Charles Willeford
- Chester Himes
- Christopher G Moore
- Christopher Lee
- Cinema culture
- Coronet Books
- Crawford Productions
- Crime Factory
- Crime Factory Publications
- Crime fiction
- Crime fiction and film from Africa
- Crime fiction and film from Cambodia
- Crime fiction and film from China
- Crime fiction and film from India
- Crime fiction and film from Indonesia
- Crime fiction and film from Japan
- Crime fiction and film from Laos
- Crime fiction and film from Malaysia
- Crime fiction and film from Mexico
- Crime fiction and film from New Zealand
- Crime fiction and film from Scandinavia
- Crime fiction and film from Singapore
- Crime fiction and film from South Korea
- Crime fiction and film from Thailand
- Crime fiction and film from the Philippines
- Crime Fiction and film set in Vietnam
- Crime film
- David Goodis
- David Peace
- David Whish-Wilson
- Derek Raymond
- Dirk Bogarde
- Don Siegel
- Don Winslow
- Donald Westlake aka Richard Stark
- Dystopian cinema
- Emerging Writers' Festival
- Ernest Borgnine
- Eurocrime
- Fawcett Gold Medal Books
- Femme fatale
- Fernando Di Leo
- Filipino genre films
- Film Noir
- Forgotten Melbourne
- French cinema
- Garry Disher
- Gene Hackman
- George V Higgins
- Ghost Money
- Giallo cinema
- Gil Brewer
- Girl Gangs, Biker Boys and Real Cool Cats: Pulp Fiction & Youth Culture, 1950-1980
- Gloria Grahame
- Gold Star Publications
- Gregory Peck
- Gunshine State
- Heist films
- Horror
- Horwitz Publications
- Humphrey Bogart
- Ian Fleming
- Ignore your TBR pile
- Interviews
- Ira Levin
- James Caan
- James Crumley
- James Ellroy
- James Hadley Chase
- James Woods
- Jim Brown
- Jim Thompson
- Jo Nesbo
- Joel Edgerton
- Joseph Losey
- Karen Black
- Kerry Greenwood
- Kinji Fukasaku
- Larry Kent
- Lee Marvin
- Leigh Redhead
- Lindy Cameron
- M Emmet Walsh
- Mad Max
- Mafia
- Malla Nunn
- Martin Limon
- Megan Abbott
- Melbourne International Film Festival
- Melbourne Writers Festival
- Men's Adventure Magazines
- Michael Caine
- Michael Fassbender
- Mickey Spillane
- Monarch Books
- Ned Kelly Awards
- Neo Noir
- New English Library
- Newton Thornburg
- Noir Con
- Noir fiction
- Non-crime reviews
- Oren Moverman
- Ozsploitation
- Pan Books
- Parker
- Paul Newman
- Peter Boyle
- Peter Corris
- Peter Strickland
- Peter Yates
- Pulp fiction
- Pulp fiction in the 70s and 80s
- Pulp fiction set in Asia
- Pulp Friday
- Pulp paperback cover art
- Qui Xiaolong
- Raymond Chandler
- Red Eagle (Insee Daeng)
- Richard Conte
- Robert Aldrich
- Robert Mitchum
- Robert Ryan
- Robert Stone
- Rock Hudson
- Roger Smith
- Rollerball
- Roy Scheider
- Rural noir
- Sam Hawken
- Sam Peckinpah
- Samuel Fuller
- Science fiction and fantasy
- Scripts Publications
- Sidney Lumet
- Sidney Poitier
- Simon Harvester
- Snowtown
- Snubnose Press
- Spies
- Stanley Baker
- Sterling Hayden
- Steve McQueen
- Sticking it the the Man Revolution and Counter Culture in Pulp and Popular Fiction 1950 1980
- Stuart Rosenberg
- Sydney Lumet
- Tandem Books
- Tart noir
- Tartan Noir
- Ted Lewis
- Toni Johnson Woods
- True crime
- Vicki Hendricks
- Victor Mature
- Vintage mug shots
- Vintage pulp paperback covers
- Wallace Stroby
- War film
- Westerns
- Woody Strode
- Yakuza films
- Yaphet Kotto
Nothing but noir
Recommended reading
The lurid world of pulp
- American Pulps
- Bear Alley
- Bloody, Spicy, Books
- Comics Down Under
- Everything second hand
- Existential Ennui
- Greenleaf Classic Books
- Killer Covers
- Lost Classics of Teen Lit 1939-1989
- Men's Pulp Mags
- Mporcius Fiction Log
- Paperback Warrior
- Pop Sensation
- Pulp artists
- Pulp Covers
- Pulp Crazy
- Pulp Flakes
- Pulp International
- Pulp Magazines Project
- Pulp Serenade
- Realms of the Night
- Rough Edges
- Sin Street Sleaze
- Spy Guys and Gals
- The department of Afro American Research Arts & Culture
- The Dusty Bookcase
- The Haunted World of Richard Sala
- The Moon Lens
- The Nick Carter & Carter Brown Blog
- The Pulp & Paperback Fiction Reader
- Too Much Horror Fiction
- True Pulp Fiction
- Vault of Horror
- Vintage Nurse Romance Novels
- Vintage Romance Novels
- Welcome to the Pan Paperback
- Yellow and Creased
Category Archives: Pulp fiction in the 70s and 80s
Pulp Friday: No Orchids for Miss Blandish

‘In 1939, amidst violence and wartime shortages, one hardboiled noir took the nation by storm, provoked moral outrage, and inspired legions of imitators.’
My latest piece for the CrimeReads site is a look at the popularity and controversy around James Hadley Chase’s 1939 blockbuster, No Orchids for Miss Blandish. You can read my story in full at the CrimeReads site here.
The article is a sequel of sorts to a story I did back in April on the popularity of mid-century faux American crime fiction in Australia and the career of one of the country’s least known most successful crime writers, Alan Yates, who wrote under the pseudonym, Carter Brown. A link to the full piece is here.
Posted in 70s American crime films, Australian crime fiction, Australian pulp fiction, British crime cinema, British pulp fiction, Crime fiction, Film Noir, James Hadley Chase, Pulp fiction, Pulp fiction in the 70s and 80s, Pulp Friday, Pulp paperback cover art, Vintage pulp paperback covers
Tagged British crime fiction, faux American crime fiction, hardboiled crimefiction, I the Jury (1947), James Hadley Chase, Mickey Spillane, mid-century crime fiction, No Orchids for Miss Blandish, Rene Lodge Brabazon Raymond
Cover reveal: Dangerous Visions and New Worlds – Radical Science Fiction 1950 to 1985

Here’s the cover for the upcoming book I have co-edited with my friend, Iain McIntyre for PM Press, Dangerous Visions and New Worlds: Radical Science Fiction 1950-1985. It follows on from Sticking it to the Man: Revolution and Counterculture in Pulp and Popular fiction l950 to 1980, and Girl Gangs, Biker Boys and Real Cool Cats: Pulp Fictions and Youth Culture, 1950 to 1980. Dangerous Visions and New Worlds contains some terrific writing and a heap of great SF cover art. Some of the authors covered in the book you will know. Others, I hope, won’t be so familiar. The book will around mid-2021, by which time my main concern is that the fiction featured in it will not appear nearly as dystopian the real world around us. More information as I get it. … Read more
Posted in Book cover design, Book Reviews, Dystopian cinema, Pulp fiction, Pulp fiction in the 70s and 80s, Pulp fiction set in Asia, Pulp paperback cover art, Science fiction and fantasy
Tagged Dangerous Visions and New Worlds Radical Science Fiction 1950 to 1980, Iain McIntyre, PM Press, radical science fiction, science fiction
Pulp Friday: memoirs of a cover girl

So much of the allure of pulp fiction, whether it was in magazine or paperback format, revolved around the cover art. It was designed to impart a gamut of sensations, from the simply outré and thrilling, to downright lurid and shocking. And the central design aspect of the majority of this material was a woman, usually provocatively posed and scantily clad, depicted ‘in media res’, Latin for ‘in the middle of’ things. Publishers hoped that this would generate interest from the passing buyer, who they believed was usually male and, looking at the cover, would start to fill in the mental blanks and purchase said print material to read and discover for themselves if they were right (how disappointed they often must have been).
We know virtually nothing about the women who were the cover model subjects for these covers. This is what makes Eva: men’s adventure supermodel a vital book. It is the first work I can think of that actually provides the inside story of one of the women who worked in the pulp fiction industry, told by the woman herself.
The individual concerned, Eva Lynd, was born in Sweden in 1937 as Eva Margareta von Fielitz. She arrived in New York in 1950 at the age of 12, eventually started to do theatre and by the second half of the 1950s was appearing in small roles in television and film.… Read more
Posted in Men's Adventure Magazines, Pulp fiction, Pulp fiction in the 70s and 80s, Pulp Friday, Pulp paperback cover art
Tagged Al Rossi, Eva Lynd, James Bama, magazine culture, Men's adventure magazines, midcentury magazine, Midcentury pulp fiction, Norm Eastman, Peter Brasch, pulp cover model, Steve Holland
Pulp Friday: Australian pulp’s Spanish Connection

One of the tasks I set myself over the Christmas/New Year period was to start putting my pulp paperback collection into plastic bags. It is amazing that these fragile constructions of cheap paper, glue and card, never meant to last more than one read, have survived for almost half a century, and for a while now I’ve been thinking I should treat them with far more care.
Among my collection are a number of Larry Kent novels, which are incredibly hard to find in the wild nowadays. Most of these were purchased as a single lot on a random visit to a second-hand bookshop in the New South Wales coastal town of Ballina (better known as the home of the Big Prawn statue) during a beach holiday many years ago.
In the process of bagging these books I took the chance to do a little digging into Larry Kent’s little-known Spanish connection, which this post will examine, as well as being a long overdue coda to Cleveland Publications, until it closed early last year the last remaining player in the once large and boisterous post-war pulp publishing industry in Australia.
Cleveland was founded by Jack Atkins in Sydney in 1953. New Zealand born, Atkins was an entrepreneur and horse lover. For a time, he was also the secretary of the NSW branch of the conservative Democratic Labor Party, which split from the Labor Party over its links to communist influenced trade unions in 1955.… Read more
Posted in Australian crime fiction, Australian popular culture, Australian pulp fiction, Crime fiction, Pulp fiction, Pulp fiction in the 70s and 80s, Pulp fiction set in Asia, Pulp Friday, Pulp paperback cover art, Vintage pulp paperback covers
Tagged 1970s Australian crime fiction, Anthony Veitch, Australian pulp fiction, Cleveland Publications, Des Dunn, Don haring, Enrich Torres, faux American crime fiction, Larry Kent, Manfred Sommer, Rafael Cortiella, Spanish pulp art