As the fourth presentation in his Pulps in the Movies series, John Locke introduces us to a new wrinkle in the pulp sighting game. He’s already established spotting actual wood pulp fictionmags in old movies and even relatively modern movies.
But he adds, “There are also the rare audio sightings, where someone mentions a pulp in dialog, but you don’t see the book.”
Sightings — or hearings?
I thought, okay, it won’t be easy, but I ought to be able to paste in some live audio. I’ve done a few video clips over the years, notably the songs “Lee Van Cleef” by Primus and “The Continental Op” by Rory Gallagher.
John shelled out some good news on that front: “For the audio grabs, I didn’t actually capture the audio.
“I just added subtitles to the image, like this one from The Ghost Breakers (1940).”
And so, Bob Hope makes his Mean Streets debut!
Should have been some noir ref to My Favorite Brunette, but what the hell.
In addition to the audio bit, this offering presents yet another angle on the whole Pulps in the Movies theme: the fake pulp created for purposes of the flick.
Obviously Weird Tales is the pulp being referenced — even evoked. But to keep the comedy moving and not get bogged down in rights and permissions, Bob’s line read Weird Stories.
We all know what he’s talking about, though.
And Up Next Week:
