Previously in Bad Pulp, we looked at some of the artistic failures in pulp art, either of execution or of theme. In this instalment, we will look at innuendo in pulp art.

Ugly Pulp: Deliberate Innuendo

Pulp is best remembered for its contribution to noirish crime and science fiction but it infiltrated all genres, including high literature. One of the genres that tends to get neglected is erotic fiction. Pulp was most at home in the genres that thrived on high turnover and little regard to quality materials. Erotica was a natural. Of course, there were constraints on what could be published. It is relatively easy to track down a printing press if the police take a mind to do so and it has really only been with the advent of the Internet that erotica and pornography could be produced with near zero risk of being traced. As such, pulp erotica tends to be rather coy. The cover has to identify its particular fetish immediately without announcing itself overtly. Unmistakeable suggestiveness is an art in itself, and the publishers and readers developed their own code words.

A marvellous example of how the artist (Norman Saunders in this case) overcomes a difficult brief. How to get across the fact that a trio of underdressed vixens, the “Volksturm Nymph Squad” no less, are Nazis? Answer: stick ‘em in hot pants, bikini tops, and a plunging leather jumpsuit, then pop on swastika armbands and a German officer’s hat.

Love the blurb. “Pettit’s Work ‘is a Small Landmark in the History of American Sophistication.’” Doesn’t it just make you want to reach out and buy it? And just look at that cover. Doesn’t it scream “American Sophistication”?

Lesbian fiction was a separate category to lesbian erotica. Many lesbians in the 1950s found the only outlet for their sexuality was in the pages of books such as The Price of Salt, from 1953. (Justine Larbalestier pointed out to me that Claire Morgan was a nom de plume of Patricia Highsmith, of The Talented Mr Ripley) The cover shows almost nothing to indicate the subject matter directly. Even the blurb walks around the topic, calling the book “The novel of a love society forbids.”

Other popular books for lesbians were written by Ann Bannon. Because of the social opprobrium attached to lesbianism, the earlier lesbian novels had covers heavy with inference. This cover blurb reads, “Lost, lonely, boyishly appealing — this is Beebo Brinker — who never really knew what she wanted — until she came to Greenwich Village and found the love that smoulders in the shadows of the twilight world.” But check out the detail. To a browsing reader it would probably pass completely unnoticed, but to a repressed young woman it would be perfectly clear what the story was about.

The publishers soon discovered that the main market for lesbian fiction was among readers, most of them male, who were interested in erotica rather than drama. This cover changed dramatically from 1959′s novel of “love in the shadow world of the third sex” to 1967′s “the sight of another beautiful girl set her heart throbbing with desire.”

One of the distinguishing features of lesbian drama as opposed to erotica was that the lesbians in the erotica were portrayed as victims of a tragic love, whereas in the dramas the outcomes were more rounded and even if they did end in tragedy, it was a sympathetic tragedy. Again Justine Larbalestier, who knows a great deal about Patricia Highsmith, informed me that The Price of Salt contains the only happy ending she ever wrote. Erotica almost invariably ends in disaster for the lesbian relationship, usually with the more sympathetic of the lesbians finding happiness with a man — in other words, having given their male readers the requisite dose of titillation, they end by reassuring him of the enduring power of heterosexuality. It was only in the dramas that lesbian lovers could live together or, as in the case of Ann Bannon’s novels, flee to a safe heterosexual marriage only to have it fall apart under the strain of self-repression.

Party Time (1964) carries a subheader that would make the London Sun proud: “Beautiful and bored she threw a hen party that started with topless bathing suits and ended in bottomless depravity.” Meanwhile, the publisher of Trap of Lesbos (1970) reveals a great deal about the mindset of its target reader as it “probes the bold question: Are perverts born that way — or taught by experts?”

Ugly Pulp: Accidental Innuendo

Mistaken innuendo is the slapstick of verbal humour. Like physical slapstick, the best examples are those where the victim picks himself up after the banana peel and continues on unaware of the next pratfall. Stoic resignation in the face of outrageous physical situations is what sets apart the great physical comedians from the Keystone Kops. Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin worked like crazy to make their routines look natural an unforced. But of course, nothing can beat genuinely accidental humour. Early blooper shows, especially those from the BBC, were among the funniest shows ever put on television. What a good humorist can provide that mistakes can’t is consistency. Keaton and Chaplin could keep audiences rivetted during routines that lasted twenty minutes. Stitch four or five such routines together with a decent story and you had a full movie. To fill out the hour, the early BBC blooper shows had to cobble together a few seconds of material from hundreds of different shows over decades of broadcasting history. So while true accidental humour is very rare, it is a very fine treat.

“Please God No! Send a car! It’s John Hopoate!”

What the hell is that thing? Surely it couldn’t be Albert Speer and Beatrix Potter’s conceptual draft for the Hustler office headquarters? Let’s take a closer look. Why, yes. Yes it is.

Ugly Pulp: Cryptic Innuendo

It is not always possible to know if accidental innuendo is really as accidental as it appears. Just as Chaplin and Keaton slaved like demons to make their pratfalls look spontaneous, many cover artists snuck jokes past their obtuse publishers. Going back to the TV blooper shows for a moment: for lack of material, the blooper shows quickly degenerated into faked bloopers, practical jokes, and endless takes of reporters mucking their lines up and retaking the shot. The BBC stopped making blooper shows after the first few because the material wasn’t there to support the effort, but several American broadcasters kept the format going in a sickening example of keeping the patient alive long after all dignity has gone. These faux-blooper shows make excruciating viewing. Cryptic innuendo, though, is not faux-accidental. It survives because we can’t be absolutely sure that the artist intended the outcome, and even if the artist was aware of the joke, the publisher wasn’t. For the joke to work, someone in the chain of publication had to be blithely unaware of the subtext. As the bishop said to the actress.

“Down. Left. A little bit up. That’s it! There! Ahhhhhhh.”

My God. What is she? Like ten, maybe? The cover story is “Pleasure Bent.” Indeed, indeed. For sure, they had different standards in 1925, but this is hard to exculpate by any stretch of cultural sensitivity. Unless, that is, you’re talking about Mohammed and Aisha in which case the above image would be inoffensive. Actually no, on second thoughts it would be offensive. You can see his face.

And finally, where no comment is needed…

Next instalment: Good Pulp