 Diamonds are forever, but Connery wasn’t. 
Sean Connery made as many appearances in sixties and seventies tabloids as just about any celeb of his time period, so here he is again in an article promoting his role in Diamonds Are Forever, which would premiere just a couple of weeks after this December 1971 National Police Gazette hit newsstands. we talked a bit about the source novel for the film, and author Ian Fleming's troubles with his publishers. It's interesting, so check here if you wish. In Gazette, Connery speaks of his futile struggle to portray James Bond as a balding hero, and quips about making his stylist thin his wigs so there was almost no point in wearing them at all. Connery said about Bond’s aging, “No one is immortal—not me, not you, and not James Bond.” It was a commendable sentiment, but naïve. Seems as though Connery didn’t realize United Artists had already branded Bond well beyond the point where the character was tethered to any concept of aging. The studio proved that when it brought the much younger Roger Moore on the scene for 1973’s Live and Let Die. Moore would later give way to Dalton, who gave way to Brosnan, who gave way to Craig, as Bond himself remained eternally forty-ish through the passing years. Elsewhere in the Gazette you get a report on the hash capital of the world, the world’s greatest racing systems, and the usual assortment of random beauties in bathing suits. All that, plus hashish toasted cheese, below.
       
 Sinatra and company swarm Las Vegas and try to escape with the cheese. 
Above: an alternate poster for Colpo Grosso, aka Ocean's Eleven, to stand alongside the version we showed you last year. This, like the previous effort, was painted by Averado Ciriello. We talked about the movie and, long story short, it doesn't live up to the legend of its stars, but in the end you can't really knock the Rat Pack. They were ahead of their time.
 I find it fascinating that today's paper says nothing about you, but by tomorrow you're all it will talk about. 
Above: Lizabeth Scott looking like she means serious business in a promo photo made for her 1948 film noir Pitfall. Scott was an a-list actress and a noir stalwart, so her movies are usually safe bets. Pitfall isn't her best, but it's certainly worth watching.
 Rise by the camera, fall by the camera. 
Above is a promo poster for the 1950 drama Shakedown made for the Italian market, where it was called Jack il ricattatore, or “Jack the blackmailer.” It stars Howard Duff as a photographer whose ambition pushes him across the line into criminality. We talked about it a while back. The poster is signed by an artist we can't identify—it looks like “e-pic.” We've seen other work by this person, but we don't have a real name or any other biographical info. This is a nice effort, so we'll an eye out.
 Palmer demonstrates proper usage of the most important bad girl accessory. 
Femmes fatales (that's how the French spell it, and they should know) need a lot of accessories. Among the most important are eyes that smolder, a walk that slinks, dresses that cling, a mouthful of lies, a small pistol, and a strong liver, but is there any accessory more important than the cigarette? We don't think so. German actress Lilli Palmer makes the most of a cigarette in this striking promo image that's undated but probably from the early 1940s. Neither of us have ever smoked, nor seriously dated a woman who did, but there's no denying it looks good on Lilli.
 You never know what you'll find if you go far enough up the Amazon.  
Written, produced, and directed by Curt Siodmak, who was behind numerous monster features, including Bride of the Gorilla and Curucu, the tropical adventure Love Slaves of the Amazon, which premiered today in 1957, is a full color production about the search for a lost realm of warrior women and their priceless treasures. In order for the expedition to take place, semi-crazy Eduardo Ciannelli must convince staid Don Taylor that the Amazons exist. He reveals a golden statue as proof, which he'd obtained on a previous foray into the jungle, and after some back and forth, sufficient funds for the journey are obtained. Unfortunately, rumors of gold and diamonds have piqued the interest of local ruffians, who plan to hijack the expedition.
Are there actually Amazons? You bet. French actress Anna Maria Nabuco is their queen. Are there love slaves? Yup, one poor exhausted one, anyway, and Taylor looks ripe as a replacement as far as Nabuco is concerned. And is there treasure? There's that too. The movie's plusses include a pitched battle between the expedition and the hijackers while both their boats are mired in river mud, and various exteriors actually shot in Manaus, Brazil and the nearby rain forest. Additionally, the poster art by Reynold Brown is tops. On the minus side, we felt that intermittent veerings into comedy were pointless and unfunny. But on the whole, Love Slaves of the Amazons was better than we expected. Does that mean it was good? Define “good.”
              
 The fundamental things apply. 
Here’s something nice we ran across on an auction site. It’s a piece of sheet music for “As Time Goes By”, which is a song written by German composer Herman Hupfeld and sung by Dooley Wilson’s character Sam in 1942’s Casablanca. The tune is inextricably identified with the film, but it was actually written for the 1931 Broadway show Everybody’s Welcome, where, in its complete form, it becomes clear the song is just as much about stress as about romance. You wouldn’t know that of course, because you don’t know the lyrics—really, who does? But today’s your lucky Monday—you can brush up on the words here. Just remember these two music fundamentals: if you sing, please do so from the diaphragm; and if you sing badly, blame it on booze.
 When people say the town is dying they mean it literally. 
Oliver Brabbins teamed with Graphic Books to provide beautiful cover art once again, this time for The Corpse Next Door by John Farris. Before we get into the fiction let's take a few moments to appreciate how good this art is. Brabbins has created multiple levels of perception in this piece. The cop outside on the street at a call box sees the woman in the foreground, and via her direct gaze, she sees you. Whatever nefarious deed she's up to, you're in it as well. Brabbins nailed the close-up perspective of the blinds, where the angle becomes edge-on in the middle of the scene, allowing the cop to be visible. Assorted impressionistic street details form the background, and daubs of gold at the woman's ears and neck complete this top tier effort. With art like this, the book better be good.
This was the debut novel from Farris and came in 1956. In the story, Bill Randall, cop in the town of Cheyney, suspects murder and a frame-up in what had been officially closed as a jailhouse suicide. His belief that the official determination is wrong pits him against his own department, specifically his chief Sam Gulliver, who's stubborn, angry, physically imposing, and dangerous. As Randall digs, the murder seems connected to past crimes and the future political career of local chosen boy Nathan Fisher, who has a raft of problems that threaten to derail his lofty ambitions.
The narrative is gritty and the action is a cut above, particularly in a scene during a shootout where a character shoves a refrigerator down a flight of stairs at two gunmen. On the minus side there's an unlikely plot device in which a woman who's shot in the woods removes her bra before dying in order to impart to the police that they should seek a clue at a pawn shop called Brassier's. We let that bit pass and were rewarded with a stimulating climax, so on the whole the novel was a plus. Farris would go on to success in horror fiction, including with his 1976 novel The Fury, made into a 1978 film starring Kirk Douglas. The talent is clear in this first book. We'll keep a watch for more of him on the auction sites, and certainly for more of Brabbins.
 There's no better place to try something new. 
This is an interesting but uncredited Italian poster for the Alberto Cavallone directed and written Africasploitation flick Afrika (clever name, right?), which premiered in Italy today in 1973. By now you know exactly what to expect. What's amazing about these set-in-Africa movies, whether Italian, German, British, French, or what-have-you, is that they portray the continent as lawless and cruel (cue gratuitous shot of ox being decapitated) in a way that's bemusingly lacking in self-awareness coming from cultures that murdered one-hundred million inhabitants of those lands in the pursuit of profit.
On the lighter side, if we'd been customs agents anywhere in the tropics during the 1970s, we'd have taken aside every white arrival, looked over their paperwork, and said with a straight face, “It indicates here you boarded the flight with your usual inhibitions, but I notice you don't seem to have any with you now.” If only we had a time machine. With luck we'd have “processed” Anita Strindberg and Yanti Somer. At this point we accept whites-in-the-tropics movies as cinematic exercises in behavioural guardrail smashing. Sometimes those exercises are actually good, loaded with cliché though they may be. However Afrika, while suffering from the same old blind spot, attempts a serious story with a modicum of depth.
Set in Ethiopia, it's about a painter played by Ivano Staccioli who's tempted to stray from his wife when he meets a handsome gay college student played by Andrea Traglia. The studious and poetic Traglia is bullied in school, even raped at one point, and finds sympathy and understanding with Staccioli, and a job as his live-in secretary. This is not an easy household in which to live because its occupants are decadent and neurotic. Staccioli and Traglia's relationship is the sanest thing going on, but needless to say, it will lead to trouble and tragedy. This is all framed by a murder-or-suicide and police investigation, which means the central drama of a forbidden gay affair is told in flashback during interrogations.
We appreciated Cavallone taking a swing at a serious drama, and we enjoyed seeing Maria Pia Luzi, one of Italy's many exploitation stars (Women in Cell Block 7, White Slave Ship), given a chance to act rather than strip, but we can't call the movie good. It isn't the performances—everyone does pretty well in that department, considering the level of writing. It's just that the film is portentous and uninvolving. Take away the anti-Africa bias and it's a noble attempt at important subject matter, but in cinema you don't get points for trying. In our opinion you can give Afrika a pass.          
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The headlines that mattered yesteryear.
1962—Marilyn Monroe Sings to John F. Kennedy
A birthday salute to U.S. President John F. Kennedy takes place at Madison Square Garden, in New York City. The highlight is Marilyn Monroe's breathy rendition of "Happy Birthday," which does more to fuel speculation that the two were sexually involved than any actual evidence. 1926—Aimee Semple McPherson Disappears
In the U.S., Canadian born evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson disappears from Venice Beach, California in the middle of the afternoon. She is initially thought to have drowned, but on June 23, McPherson stumbles out of the desert in Agua Prieta, a Mexican town across the border from Douglas, Arizona, claiming to have been kidnapped, drugged, tortured and held for ransom in a shack by two people named Steve and Mexicali Rose. However, it soon becomes clear that McPherson's tale is fabricated, though to this day the reasons behind it remain unknown. 1964—Mods and Rockers Jailed After Riots
In Britain, scores of youths are jailed following a weekend of violent clashes between gangs of Mods and Rockers in Brighton and other south coast resorts. Mods listened to ska music and The Who, wore suits and rode Italian scooters, while Rockers listened to Elvis and Gene Vincent, and rode motorcycles. These differences triggered the violence. 1974—Police Raid SLA Headquarters
In the U.S., Los Angeles police raid the headquarters of the revolutionary group the Symbionese Liberation Army, resulting in the deaths of six members. The SLA had gained international notoriety by kidnapping nineteen-year old media heiress Patty Hearst from her Berkeley, California apartment, an act which precipitated her participation in an armed bank robbery. 1978—Charlie Chaplin's Missing Body Is Found
Eleven weeks after it was disinterred and stolen from a grave in Corsier near Lausanne, Switzerland, Charlie Chaplin's corpse is found by police. Two men—Roman Wardas, a 24-year-old Pole, and Gantscho Ganev, a 38-year-old Bulgarian—are convicted in December of stealing the coffin and trying to extort £400,000 from the Chaplin family.
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