What a strange country. I was arrested for baring my breasts but called a hero for carrying a gun. Bersaglio a 5 was published in 1968 by E.P.I./Ottimo as entry fifty in their series Agente Segreto. The title means “Target 5,” and the art by Benedetto Caroselli hits the target too.
This is a mean old world, baby, to live in all by yourself. Above, the cover of Gli Amante Perduti, which means “the lost lover,” published 1962 by Grandi Edizioni Internazionali. The author, Horace Robinson, was in reality the prolific Maria Luisa Piazza, and the evocative cover art, showing a woman distressed and alone against a backdrop of blackness, is by the incomparable Benedetto Caroselli.
All roads lead to Renato. Today we have yet another excellent cover from Benedetto Caroselli—Anima e corpo, aka Body and Soul, written by Lucien Le Bossu for Edizioni Periodici Italiani’s I Capolavori della Serie KKK Classici dell’Orrore, 1965. Le Bossu, perhaps unsurprisingly, was one of about twenty literary pseudonyms belonging to Renato Carocci. In fact, Carocci even wrote under the name Tom Ewell, who was a well-known American actor of the period. How he got away with that we don’t know. Anyway, you can find out a bit more about Carocci here, and see more art from Caroselli by clicking his keywords below.
Murder by any other name. As long as we’re on Italy today (see below), here’s another top effort from the Italian genius Benedetto Caroselli. Il suo nome era omicidio, aka His Name Was Murder was written by Mary Steel, who is in reality a pseudonym of author and editor Laura Toscano, and it appeared in 1971. See more amazing Caroselli covers by clicking his keywords below.
You can eat an apple a day but it won’t keep this doctor away. Above is I Capolavori della Serie KKK Classici dell’Orrore number 127, entitled Gli esperimenti del Dott. Hass, aka The Monster, published in 1969, written by Patty North, who was really Franco Marotta. And of course the brilliant art is by Benedetto Caroselli, whose work you probably recognize by now. Marotta also wrote Il robotto maledetto, which means so far he’s written about an evil doctor and an evil robot. The book also has a short story beginning on page 121 called “Violenza,” which was penned by Roland Greaves, who was really Renato Carocci. That’s a lot of entertainment for just a few euros, and well worth it.
He’s everything a man is, except he turns on only when you want him to. Above, Edizioni Periodici Italiani’s Il robot maledetto, 159 in the I Capolavori della Serie KKK Classici dell'Orrore, written by Dyana Evan, a psuedonym of Franco Marotta, 1971. The art featuring a lingerie clad woman and a phallic robot is more suggestive of romance or sleaze than horror, but it’s great work by Benedetto Caroselli, who you can see more of here.
Then the minister said, Speak now or forever hold your peace, and it’s been chaos in there since.
This cover by Benedetto Caroselli for Dammi la tua ecco la mia (“give me yours, here is mine”) features a lovely bride in a sheer mini-wedding dress. This is a reception we'd love to go to, and the line to dance with the bride forms behind us. Anyway, we’ve shown you pulped out versions of classic literature before, and this is another example. Matteo Bandello might be obscure to some, but he was famous enough in his time to have been an influence on William Shakespeare. As far as we know he never wrote a story with this title, but I Grandi Narratori often retitled classics. Oh, and by the way, a person speaks one’s “piece”, but holds one’s “peace”. At least that’s what Merriam–Webster says.
A tongue is worth a thousand words. Is it time for another Caroselli? Of course it is. So above we have his art fronting Grandi Edizioni Internazionali’s 1971 book Troppe donne per Casa… which means Too Many Women for Casa… Casa is of course the adventurer Giacomo Casanova, and he always had time for women, especially ones like these that get all Miley Cyrus with their wandering tongues. You know, we had forgotten how much we appreciate a blatantly visible female tongue until she reminded us. So we owe her thanks for that. But we still want every piece of music she’s ever made to be rocketed into the center of a quasar. Historical note: Casanova trysted with a mere one-hundred-twenty-two women during his life. Wilt Chamberlain probably did that in a slow year. But it’s all about quality, not quantity, right? See another Caroselli/Casanova pairing here.
When the wolf is on the prowl. Above, the cover of Ken Atkins’ 1965 werewolf novel Belva nella notte, aka The Wolf in the Night. This was published for Edizioni Periodici Italiani’s I Capolavori della Serie KKK Classici dell’Orrore, and Atkins was a pseudonym owned by Domenico Dubbini, who also wrote as John Durbin, John Lane, Hassan Mills, Perry Rock, and other names. The art is by Benedetto Caroselli, who we knew nothing about until a couple of years ago, but who we’re now obsessed by, as evidenced by our posts here, here, and here. We have even more to share from Benedetto, so stay tuned.
Oscar Wilde was an okay writer and all, but you know what his fiction really needed? Women in catsuits. Believe it or not, this book entitled Il vizio che brucia (translation: “The Vice that Burns”) is Oscar Wilde’s macabre classic The Picture of Dorian Gray, sexed up for the Italian reading market. Who is this supposed to be on the cover? Sybil Vane, the innocent young actress? The country girl Hetty Merton? Neither, we suppose, since they didn’t wear backless catsuits, as far as we remember. But even if this pulpification of Wilde’s classic has no relationship to the actual text, the Benedetto Caroselli art makes it collectible. The edition was published by Grandi Edizioni Internazionali as part of their I Romanzi Diabolici series and appeared in 1964. See more Caroselli here.
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The headlines that mattered yesteryear.
1921—Chanel No. 5 Debuts
Gabrielle Bonheur "Coco" Chanel, the pioneering French fashion designer whose modernist philosophy, menswear-inspired styles, and pursuit of expensive simplicity made her an important figure in 20th-century fashion, introduces the perfume Chanel No. 5, which to this day remains one of the world's most legendary and best selling fragrances. 1961—First American Reaches Space
Three weeks after Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first human to fly into space, U.S. astronaut Alan Shepard completes a sub-orbit of fifteen minutes, returns to Earth, and is rescued from his Mercury 3 capsule in the Atlantic Ocean. Shepard made several more trips into space, even commanding a mission at age 47, and was eventually awarded the Congressional Space Medal of Honor. 1953—Hemingway Wins Pulitzer
American author Ernest Hemingway, who had already written such literary classics as The Sun Also Rises, A Farewell to Arms, and For Whom the Bell Tolls, is awarded the Pulitzer Prize for fiction for his novella The Old Man and the Sea, the story of an aging Cuban fisherman who struggles with a giant marlin far out in the Gulf Stream. 1970—Mass Shooting at Kent State
In the U.S., Ohio National Guard troops, who had been sent to Kent State University after disturbances in the city of Kent the weekend before, open fire on a group of unarmed students, killing four and wounding nine. Some of the students had been protesting the United States' invasion of Cambodia, but others had been walking nearby or observing from a distance. The incident triggered a mass protest of four million college students nationwide, and eight of the guardsmen were indicted by a grand jury, but charges against all of them were eventually dismissed. 2003—Suzy Parker Dies
American model and actress Suzy Parker, who appeared the films Funny Face and Kiss Them for Me, was the first model to earn more than $100,000 a year, and who was a favorite target of the mid-century tabloids, dies at home in Montecito, California, surrounded by family friends, after electing to discontinue dialysis treatments.
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