Pulp Friday: The Brides of Dracula

Posted on October 23, 2015 by Andrew Nette| Leave a comment

Brides of dracula Monach 1960Halloween is almost upon us and to mark the occasion I’m going to be featuring a few horror themed offerings as part of my regular Pulp Friday posts.

Historically in Australia we don’t celebrate Halloween, and I’ve always been a bit iffy about what I consider to be an American cultural imposition. But Halloween actually originated with the Celts in parts of Europe. Specifically, it dates back to Celtic Festival of Samhain, which took place to mark the end of summer and the beginning of a long cold winter. The Celts believed on that night before the new year the boundary between the world of the living and the dead blurred.

Also, any excuse will do to post some horror themed pulp.

Anyway, a small Pulp Friday offering today, the 1960 paperback tie-in to the film released the same year, The Brides of Dracula. It starred Peter Cushing, David Peel, Martita Hunt and Yvonne Monlaur and was directed by Terence Fisher. The plot of The Brides of Dracula involves vampire hunter Van Helsing returning to Transylvania to destroy handsome bloodsucker Baron Meinster, who is conducted a reign of evil terror over the nearest village. I’ve re-watched it recently and think it is one of the better vampire films produced by Hammer.… Read more

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Posted in Horror, Monarch Books, Pulp Friday, Pulp paperback cover art, Vintage pulp paperback covers

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Book review: a triple shot of Australian crime writing

Posted on October 20, 2015 by Andrew Nette| 3 Comments

Resurrection BayIt’s been a while between fiction reviews on my site. But that doesn’t mean I haven’t been busy reading. Even found the time to read some debut Australian books, three of which I want to talk a bit about here.

Resurrection Bay, Emma Viskic

Resurrection Bay is one of several new publications to hit shelves recently from Echo Publishing, a new subsidiary of Melbourne-based Five Mile Press.

Private detective Caleb Zelic responds to a text message from his childhood friend Gary, asking for help. By the time Caleb arrives Gary is dead. Gary was a cop. He also moonlighted for Zelic on occasion. The latest case they were working on involved a series of robberies from a warehouse complex. Is Gary’s death related to that investigation and, if so, is Zelic next? And who is ‘Scott’, ‘the Boxer’ and ‘Grey Man’.

Zelic is a great character. He is not particularly likeable and a human disaster area when it comes to relationships. He is also profoundly deaf. Viskic apparently learnt sign language as part of writing the book and Zelic’s disability is something she uses to great effect in this novel. As for Gary, well, he might have been a bit bent, but so is nearly everyone else in this novel, including Zelic ex-junkie brother and his 57 year old, acerbic ex-cop, alcoholic partner.… Read more

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Posted in Australian crime fiction, Australian noir, True crime

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Empty beaches: In search of Australia’s fictional private eyes

Posted on October 16, 2015 by Andrew Nette| Leave a comment

Empty BeachSeptember 12 marked the 30th anniversary of the release of a little-known Australian crime movie, The Empty Beach. The film fared poorly upon release and is still unavailable on DVD — you’d have to track down a rare second-hand VHS edition to view it.

Nonetheless, the film is something of an obsession of mine and I have been wanting to write about it in detail for a while now. This is partly because I am a huge Bryan Brown as well as always being fascinated with movies that I thinks are good but which have, for whatever reason, sunk into obscurity.

Also The Empty Beach and its source material, the third book in what has become a long-running series by Sydney writer Peter Corris, feature something largely absent from Australian crime fiction and film: the bone fide, card-carrying, full-time private investigator for hire.

I finally got around to writing a piece on the film and its source book for the Los Angeles Review of Books. You can read the essay, ‘Empty Beaches: In Search of Australia’s Fictional Private Eyes’ in full here.

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Posted in Adrian McKinty, Australian crime fiction, Australian crime film, Australian noir, Bryan Brown

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The Big Nowhere: The best film noir you have never heard of

Posted on October 14, 2015 by Andrew Nette| 2 Comments

Martha 1As regular Pulp Curry readers will be aware, one of my great cinema loves in film noir. Everyone can name their favourite films noirs, usually the big name, famous ones, like Double Indemnity (1944), the 1946 version of The Killers or Orson Welles’ Touch of Evil (1958). But one of the things I love about the canon of cinema known as film noir is how broad and deep it is. So many fantastic films noirs were made that are relatively unknown to many people.

For a while now, I’ve been thinking it would be great to do a series of posts on the best unknown noirs and what they tell us about what film noir. I was going to do this for Pulp Curry, but a meeting during the recent Melbourne International Film Festival with Conor Bateman, who runs the great Sydney-based film site, 4:3, made me think they might be a better location for the posts.

So over the next few months, I’m am going to be doing a series of columns on 4:3, each one focusing on a different film noir that I think is particularly good and unknown, and posting links to them on this site.

The criteria are simple. That the film be little known, good, American and released during 1945 – 1960. … Read more

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Posted in Film Noir

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Pulp Friday: The Laughing Policeman

Posted on October 9, 2015 by Andrew Nette| 1 Comment

The Laughing Policeman Bantam 1974The Laughing Policeman is probably better known as the title of a book than a film, but both are the subject of today’s Pulp Friday offering.

Originally published in 1968, The Laughing Policeman was fourth in a series of ten books featuring the bad tempered police detective, Martin Beck, by Swedish crime writing duo, Maj Sjowell and Per Wahloo. The book was adapted into a film, directed by Stuart Rosenburg, and released in 1973.

The covers in today’s post include both the original novel and the paperback-tie in for the film. The one above is the 1974 Bantam edition. In order those below are: the back cover to the 1974 Bantam edition, the cover of the 1977 Vintage edition, and the 1974 UK paperback tie-in for the movie, published by Sphere. The film appeared under that title in the UK.

The series is very famous and I don’t think I have to go into detail about it here. The plot of the original The Laughing Policeman novel concerns a gunman who shoots passengers on a public bus, killing eight people and wounding one. Beck and his team believe the murders are a disguise for the murder of a police detective who was engaged in an out of hour’s investigation into the murder of a 16-year-old Portuguese sex worker.… Read more

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Posted in 1960s American crime films, 1970s American crime films, Anthony Zerbe, Pulp fiction, Pulp fiction in the 70s and 80s, Pulp Friday, Pulp paperback cover art, Stuart Rosenberg, Vintage pulp paperback covers