Above, a nice Japanese poster for the 1967 crime thriller Deadlier Than the Male, with Elke Sommer and Sylva Koscina. We uploaded a couple of promo shots from this production a long while ago, and you can see them here and here.

High was one of seemingly a thousand men’s magazines that came into being during the 1950s, making the scene in 1958, funded by the Ohio-based publishing company Periodical House. Basically, it's indistinguishable from countless other publications of its ilk, but sometimes these otherwise unremarkable mags contain photos of someone who later became a star. In this November 1959 issue that star-to-be happens to be German bombshell Elke Sommer, referred to as Elke Sommers. Sommer appeared in five European films in 1959, but probably none had been seen in the U.S. when High printed her photos, which we suspect were shot a year previously. That would have made her eighteen when she posed, and she looks exactly that young, a pure ingenue unknowingly on the precipice of lasting international fame. See below.

The above issue of the venerable National Police Gazette from July 1969 stars German bombshell Elke Sommer, who is described as “Hollywood’s No.1 Nudie.” In the interview, Sommer reveals that when she paints on a hilltop outside her Beverly Hills house she does so naked. The reason? "It's the best way to get a tan all over." She also states that she thinks film nudity is fine as long as it isn’t done for purely erotic purposes.

Very interesting, considering she had already posed—purely erotically in our opinion—for Playboy magazine, and would appear nude in men's magazines several more times. The photos in panel two (at top) are from Sommer's 1963 war drama The Victors, and as happened often in those days, even though she did not appear completely nude in the finished film, she performed the scenes that way. Which of course means the excised frames ended up in various people's pockets, and soon became public. Whether this was an accident or a publicity technique is impossible to say, but we suspect the latter.

In any case, it's clear Gazette editors had an uncensored shot. Back then they had to cover Sommer's naughty bits, but we don't, and you can see the uncovered version, along with another image from the same scene, just below. Elsewhere in this issue you get Aristotle Onassis, Jake LaMotta, Denny McLain, the hidden sex problems of American husbands, and more.

Above is German actress Elke Sommer, looking her stunning best in two scans from Belgium’s Ciné-Revue that we stumbled across in an online forum. The issue was published forty years ago today, during a period when the magazine was upping its skin quotient. In this case, they wisely chose photos by Angelo Frontoni, who was one of the foremost glamour photographers of the day. Ciné-Revue still exists, more or less, as Ciné-Télé-Revue. We’ve been meaning to do an entire feature on the publication, because it has a tangled history we haven’t quite puzzled out yet. It definitely began in Belgium during the mid-1940s, but also published in France for a time. Also, there was another Ciné-Revue published in France back in the 1920s, but we aren’t sure if it has the same provenance as the one above. We’ll figure all that out later, now that these great images have reminded us to do so. 

Below, five covers of the Mexican humor and celebrity magazine Ja-Ja circa 1960s, and featuring the lovely Virna Lisi (not Lissy), Tongolele, Elke Sommer, Eugenia San Martin, and Senta (not Santa) Berger.

The other day we realized that nearly all of our femmes fatales released records at some point, so we have a megapost of sleeves today representing a fraction of these multi-talented women’s musical output. We’ve heard most of the music, believe it or not, and while its quality varies, we do suggest you check out both Marilyn Chambers and Reiko Ike—their simulated orgasms are quite pleasing to the, er, ears.

Five Screen covers with, top to bottom, the always wonderful Ann-Margret, followed by Jane Fonda, Urusula Weiss, Elke Sommer, and lastly, someone we don't recognize. Concerning Miss Weiss, we found no references to her anywhere online, but we did find two actresses named Ursula—not Urusula—Weiss. One acted in the 1950s, so she’s out as a possibility, and one acted in a film in 2000, which would make her an egg when this 1977 cover came out. We’ll keep looking. Not knowing won’t keep us up nights, but it’s always good to fill in these blanks. If you know anything, feel free to drop us a line.

German actress Elke Sommer in her up-do on the cover of New York News Sunday magazine, forty-six years ago today.     

Assorted covers of the whimsical Japanese nudie magazine B&B, circa 1968 and 1969, with German actress Elke Sommer in the top panel. The Sommer photo is actually a production still from her film Deadlier than the Male, part of this session in which she wears the same distinctive plaid bikini. You can see lots more Japanese nudie mag covers at this amazing Japanese blog.     

German actress Elke Sommer, born today in 1940, shown here in Universal Pictures' campy 1967 thriller Deadlier than the Male. We'll be getting back to Sommer later on—multiple times.