Hollywood Detective

Hollywood Detective, of which this is the March 1950 issue, had an interesting history.  It started life back in 1942 as a 'hero pulp'.  Titled Dan Turner, Hollywood Detective, it focused on the adventures of the eponymous character, promising a 'Bookful of Dan Turner Stories' on every cover.  Published by 'Speed Publications' in this incarnation, it reprinted most of its 'Dan Turner' stories from sister publication Spicy Stories.  From September 1943, though, 'Dan Turner' was dropped from the title and the magazine started publishing non-'Dan Turner' stories by other authors.  I'm guessing that the story 'Any Number Can Slay' featured on the cover of this issue is a 'Dan Turner' story as it is attributed to Robert Leslie Bellam, the series' regular author.  Interestingly, from December 1948, the magazine started featuring a comics section, (something that became popular in pulp magazines post-war, as they tried to broaden their audience in the face of competition from comic books).  The main strip featured in this section was, unsurprisingly, 'Dan Turner, Hollywood Detective', which adapted existing stories into comic strip format.

The cover painting's style is, for the period, somewhat outdated, but consistent with the overall style adopted by the magazine from its inception.  Although relatively crude and lacking in detail, it has an undoubted pulpy vigour and its use of bold colours would have made it stand out on the news stands.  Hollywood Detective, in both of its formats, had a somewhat erratic publication schedule but nonetheless notched up 59 episodes before staggering to a halt with the October 1950 issue, )which also modified the title to Hollywood Detective Magazine).  Its peak years were 1943-45, when it maintained a near monthly schedule, before slipping to almost bimonthly, then roughly quarterly.  In 1950, however, it enjoyed a resurgence, briefly moving back to a monthly schedule for the first half of the year, before finally expiring.  In common with many pulp titles of the era, it also had a UK edition, which published seven issues in 1950, mixing and matching covers and contents from various US issues.