Hang Fire Books

Sin Planner

noreply@blogger.com (William Smith) — Wed, 28 Sep 2011 22:27:00 +0000

Title: Sin Planner (Saber SA-152)
Author: Drew Palmer
Artist: Unknown
Year: 1969

Categories: 1960s GGA, Sleaze

Immorality in Three Dimensions

noreply@blogger.com (William Smith) — Wed, 28 Sep 2011 22:23:00 +0000

Title: Immorality in Three Dimensions (Saber SA-90)
Author: Drew Palmer
Artist: Unknown
Year: 1965

"Marcie's planned seduction of young Harry was working perfectly. His view of her nearly exposed breasts and her bare legs was more than enough bait."

Categories: 1960s GGA, Sleaze

Sex-Girl Friday

noreply@blogger.com (William Smith) — Wed, 28 Sep 2011 22:18:00 +0000

Title: Sex-Girl Friday (Herald Reader HR 104)
Author: Claude Richards
Artist: Unknown
Year: 1964

"They gave their love freely...to men and to each other."

Categories: 1960s GGA, Lesbians and Lesbiana, Sleaze

Passion Ready

noreply@blogger.com (William Smith) — Wed, 28 Sep 2011 22:13:00 +0000

Title: Passion Ready (Mask Reader MR 103)
Author: Art Danglon
Artist: Unknown
Year: 1964

"Lust fools and wild chicks..."

Categories: 1960s GGA, Sleaze

Orgy Club

noreply@blogger.com (William Smith) — Wed, 28 Sep 2011 22:08:00 +0000

Title: Orgy Club (Pillar PB 8336)
Author: Tony Calvano
Artist: Robert Bonfils (?) [Shop]
Year: 1964

"Perverted kicks could be obtained at the cost of her total submission to all the cruelty hell itself could devise."

Categories: 1960s GGA, Sleaze

Executive Stud Sinners

noreply@blogger.com (William Smith) — Wed, 28 Sep 2011 22:03:00 +0000

Title: Executive Stud Sinners (Dragon Edition DE 120)
Author: Monte Rappe
Artist: Unknown
Year: 1966

"High level executives taste of low level perversions....By day she was an untouchable lady executive, by night the lust fires of her voluptuous desirable body could not be controlled."

Categories: 1960s GGA, Sleaze

Nightmare Alley

noreply@blogger.com (William Smith) — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 03:25:00 +0000

Title: Nightmare Alley (Signet 738)
Author: William Lindsay Gresham
Artist: James Avati [Shop]
Year: 1949

"A shocking revelation of passion and evil."

Categories: 1940s GGA, Mystery and Thrillers

The Leather Pushers

noreply@blogger.com (William Smith) — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 03:18:00 +0000

Title: The Leather Pushers (Popular Library 288)
Author: H.C. Witwer
Artist: Earle Bergey [Shop]
Year: 1950

"He was a pushover for a dame."

Categories: 1950s GGA, Sports

Hooked

noreply@blogger.com (William Smith) — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 03:10:00 +0000

Title: Hooked (Popular Library 528)
Originally published as: Narcotics: America's Peril
Author: Will Oursler
Artist: Rafael DeSoto [Shop]
Year: 1953

"The brutal truth about dope and crime."

Categories: 1950s GGA, Drug Use, Hot Rods and Delinquents

The Previously Viewed Podcast

noreply@blogger.com (William Smith) — Wed, 21 Sep 2011 04:41:00 +0000

Please check out the first episode of a long gestating project that I've been working on with a friend:

The Previously Viewed Podcast
Untimely film chat from the bottom of the bargain bin.

It's a spoiler-filled, longish and a bit rambly discussion of cult / obscure films, and the changing ways we watch them.

Please write a review if the spirit moves you (maybe give it a few eps before pouring down the hatred) and leave comments on the blog (under construction but functional).

We have three in the can already, so you're guaranteed at least a month before we burn out. but it will be a bit before we get to any feedback or suggestions.

Pleasure Bound

noreply@blogger.com (William Smith) — Tue, 20 Sep 2011 15:30:00 +0000

Title: Pleasure Bound (After Hours AH 115)
Author: Ron Horton
Artist: Eric Stanton [Shop]
Year: 1966

"A crew of perverts, a female captain who delights in dominating virile men and seducing young girls...Female mastery on the open seas."

Categories: 1960s GGA, Sleaze

Camp For Sinners

noreply@blogger.com (William Smith) — Tue, 20 Sep 2011 15:22:00 +0000

Title: Camp For Sinners (First Niter FN 107)
Author: Jon Parker
Artist: Eric Stanton [Shop]
Year: 1966

"Reverse passions in Twilight Camp..."

Categories: 1960s GGA, Lesbians and Lesbiana, Sleaze

Bizarre

noreply@blogger.com (William Smith) — Tue, 20 Sep 2011 15:12:00 +0000

Title: Bizarre (First Niter FN 109)
Author: Ivan Tarpoff
Artist: Eric Stanton [Shop]
Year: 1964

"Invitation to a 'Tea' party in notorious Greenwich Village where passions run wild, where men love men, and women love women, where leather heels and velvet clothes hold a special appeal."

Categories: 1960s GGA, Drug Use, Lesbians and Lesbiana, Sleaze

Vixens Delight

noreply@blogger.com (William Smith) — Tue, 20 Sep 2011 15:00:00 +0000

Title: Vixens Delight (After Hours AH 110)
Author: Ivan Tarpoff
Artist: Eric Stanton [Shop]
Year: 1965

"MALE RAPE, cries George as he wants to escape this punishing domination, but he is a helpless slave of domineering women in leather, silk and satin."

Categories: 1960s GGA, Hot Rods and Delinquents, Lesbians and Lesbiana, Sleaze

Passion Pool

noreply@blogger.com (William Smith) — Mon, 19 Sep 2011 21:49:00 +0000

Title: Passion Pool (Nightstand NB 1732)
Author: Clyde Allison (pseudonym of William Knoles)
Artist: Robert Bonfils (?) [Shop]
Year: 1965

"Their sinful bodies met in this PASSION POOL."

Categories: 1960s GGA, Sleaze

The Price Was Perversity

noreply@blogger.com (William Smith) — Mon, 19 Sep 2011 21:41:00 +0000

Title: The Price Was Perversity (Beacon B557)
Author: Paul Gregory
Artist: Paul Rader (?) [Shop]
Year: 1962

"A woman's hungry ambition drove her into the waiting arms of another woman!...Belle struck a bargain that changed her mode of living--and loving."

Categories: 1960s GGA, Lesbians and Lesbiana, Sleaze

Women's Barracks

noreply@blogger.com (William Smith) — Mon, 19 Sep 2011 21:28:00 +0000

Title: Women's Barracks (Gold Medal 132)
Author: Tereska Torres
Artist: Barye Phillips [Shop]
Year: 1950

"The frank autobiography of a French girl soldier."

Categories: 1950s GGA, Lesbians and Lesbiana

I Prefer Girls

noreply@blogger.com (William Smith) — Fri, 16 Sep 2011 20:59:00 +0000

Title: I Prefer Girls (Monarch 381)
Author: Jessie Dumont
Artist: Robert Maguire [Shop]
Year: 1963

"A strange story of twilight love, jealousy and hatred... My name is Penny Stewart and I'm a lesbian. I didn't know that's what I was until I moved to Greenwich Village..."

Categories: 1960s GGA, Lesbians and Lesbiana

The Love Pirate

noreply@blogger.com (William Smith) — Fri, 16 Sep 2011 20:50:00 +0000

Title: The Love Pirate (Midwood 32-455)
Author: Alix York
Artist: Paul Rader [Shop]
Year: 1965

"She used her body for bait...and she had all four of them on the hook!"

Categories: 1960s GGA, Sleaze

Satan Was My Pimp

noreply@blogger.com (William Smith) — Fri, 16 Sep 2011 20:31:00 +0000

Title: Satan Was My Pimp (Playtime 660)
Author: Joe Castro
Artist: Robert Bonfils [Shop]
Year: 1964

"Women let themselves be sold to the highest bidder of either sex, for whatever erotic ritual evil could devise."

Categories: 1960s GGA, Sleaze

Paperback Review: The Real Cool Killers and The Hustler

noreply@blogger.com (William Smith) — Fri, 09 Sep 2011 21:31:00 +0000

A few months back I reviewed The King in Yellow and promised to add a vintage paperback review every few weeks. I had the best of intentions but my next two installments were both read over vacation, and then backburnered as I caught up with work. At this point my memory of the books is fairly hazy but better a couple of short, impressionistic reviews than nothing at all.

First up: The Real Cool Killers

This is the second title I've read from Chester Himes but the first featuring his popular series characters Coffin Ed Johnson and Grave Digger Jones (the characters debuted in the earlier For Love of Imabelle aka: A Rage in Harlem).

The novel opens in a Harlem nightclub that is about to explode in violence. This is how Himes sets the scene:

Big Joe Turner was singing a rock-and-roll adaptation of Dink's Blues. The loud licking rhythm blasted from the jukebox with enough heat to melt bones.

A woman leapt from her seat in a booth as though the music had stuck her full of tacks. She was a lean black woman clad in a pink jersey dress and red silk stockings. She pulled up her skirt and began doing a shake dance as though trying to throw off the tacks one by one.

Her mood was contagious. Other women jumped down from their high stools and shook themselves into the act. The customers laughed and shouted and began shaking too. The aisle between the bar and the booths became stormy with shaking bodies.

Big Smiley, the giant-size bartender, began doing a flat-footed locomotive shuffle up and down behind the bar.

This passage--and the extremely chaotic violence that follows--immediately made me think of the Fleischer Brother's Betty Boop cartoons that were set to the music of Cab Calloway; the characters all bouncing in rhythm as one surreal event follows another.

Coffin Ed and Grave Digger Jones, named for their fearsome reps, are Mike Hammer brutal, with hair trigger tempers. Coffin Ed is the more methodic "good cop" (by a notch or two) while Grave Digger--rage-filled and paranoid after an earlier case left his face acid scarred--is likely to attack anyone around him, whether or not they're involved in the crime.

Himes' portrayel of 1950s Harlem, and his very pulpy characterizations, makes for a fun read but this wasn't at all what I expected after the sombre, realistic and semi-autobiographical If He Hollers. I'd like to read a biography before speculating, but I'm curious if Himes was deliberately writing these for the Mickey Spillane popular audience?

Next up an even less detailed review of The Hustler by Walter Tevis:

My main takeaway from the book is that the 1961 film starring Paul Newman and Jackie Gleason is a very fine adaptation indeed (which I need to rewatch immediately).

A few things from the book that didn't come across in the movie: the detailed, tactile descriptions of a pool hall in the early morning that make it sound like a cathedral. Also the side characters are fleshed out enough that you sense they've all tried to take down Minnesota Fats (or their own personal Fats) and the place they are now in life is exactly where they fell and will remain. Lastly the book ends on a much more ambiguous, Borgesian note than the film. Eddy has won but is tied to a vicious fixer and he's now a stationary target for every fast pool hustler who wants to destroy him. His triumph and his doom are cut from the same green cloth.

The Hustler was Dell 3940, a movie tie-in paperback from 1964 and Real Cool Killers was Berkley Medallion F1262 with a Harry Bennett cover from 1966.

Shriek with Pleasure

noreply@blogger.com (William Smith) — Wed, 24 Aug 2011 19:07:00 +0000

Title: Shriek with Pleasure (Signet 820)
Author: Toni Howard

Cover Artist: Mitchell Hooks [SHOP]

Year: 1950

"Her charms were her weapons..."

Categories: 1950s GGA

The Tyranny of Sex

noreply@blogger.com (William Smith) — Wed, 24 Aug 2011 18:05:00 +0000

Title: Tyranny of Sex (Signet 649)
Originally published as: The Case of Mr. Crump
Author: Ludwig Lewisohn
Cover Artist: "T.V."
Year: 1949 (Sixth Printing)

Categories: 1940s GGA

Twilight Lovers

noreply@blogger.com (William Smith) — Sat, 23 Jul 2011 04:02:00 +0000

Title: Twilight Lovers (Monarch 418)

Author: Marion Zimmer Bradley (writing as Miriam Gardner)

Cover Artist: Rafael DeSoto [SHOP]
Year: 1964

"They lived and loved in the off-beat world of lesbianism."

Categories: 1960s GGA, Lesbians and Lesbiana

All That Love Allows

noreply@blogger.com (William Smith) — Sat, 23 Jul 2011 02:00:00 +0000

Title: All That Love Allows (Popular Library 691)
Originally published as: The Beggars in the Sun

Author: Paul Darcy Boles

Cover Artist: Rafael DeSoto [SHOP]
Year: 1955

"He shared Ellen with her husband."

Categories: 1950s GGA