Despite Shelton's takedown of two highly respected medical figures, there has been surprisingly little resistance to his assertions so far. Researchers of the 1700s usually obtained medical specimens from hospitals or morgues, and were known to employ graverobbers as well. But such specimens would have been diseased, aged, or physically damaged, whereas Hunter and Smellie would have needed young, physically fit subjects. According to Shelton, this prompted them to employ henchmen who most likely supplied bodies via “burking,” a technique named after serial killer William Burke, in which a person is slowly suffocated, thus leaving no damage to the cadaver and no detectable signs of foul play to alert police. Shelton's exhaustively researched study allegedly proves that no other method could have produced the steady stream of healthy mothers-to-be Hunter and Smellie desired. When interviewed about his claims by England’s Guardian newspaper, Shelton admitted they were shocking, but quoted Sherlock Holmes: “When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, is the truth.”     

Promo shot of iconic English actress and singer Jane Birkin from the French film Catherine et cie, aka Catherine & Co.,1975. 

I filibustieri della Martinica, aka Marie of the Isles isn’t really a pulp style movie. It’s a swashbuckler set in 1635, with pirates and swords and elaborate hats. However it has this killer poster, made for its January 1960 release, and it stars British actress Belinda Lee, she of the famously sculpted cheekbones and hawk eyebrows. Lee took European cinema by storm in the late 1950s, but like James Dean and Soledad Miranda, her career and life ended abruptly in an automobile accident. It happened in March 1961 during a trip from Las Vegas to Los Angeles, when a car in which she was a passenger blew a tire and flipped on a winding road near San Bernadino. Lee was thrown from the vehicle and was alive when the highway patrol arrived, but with a fractured skull and broken neck, she didn’t last long. She died in the arms of a California police officer who said she was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen. She was twenty-seven. 

The thing about Midnight is that they didn’t need much to build an issue. A couple of phony, sex-oriented stories, some outraged letters to the editor, their monthly “Hollywood Confidential” column, a bunch of sleazy little ads for the back pages, and they were good to go. In this issue from forty-three years ago today we learn that a UC Berkeley co-ed is earning enough credits to graduate by performing a “first hand” survey of American sex practices. For that, she needs volunteers. Lots of them. Another story, written by Element J. Pussypimple (seriously) discusses a Sheffield, England sex school that teaches teens to get it on without getting pregnant. But the real gem in each issue of Midnight was John Wilson’s column “Hollywood Confidential,” which was as libelous an effort as ever appeared in an American tabloid. In this issue alone, Wilson claims Elvis Presley placed an emergency call to his plastic surgeon because his new nose was sagging, Chris Noel ditched her date Richard Boone at the Whiskey-a-Go-Go and ran out the back door with Tom Tryon, Jack Lemmon hit a man over the head with a brass ashtray, and Barbara Stanwyck resorted to paying tabloids to arrange trysts for her with young men. Wow! Spinning a web of lies that vast is no easy feat, but it's go big or go home at Midnight. Check out more issues by clicking keyword "Midnight" below. See you Monday. 

Publicity still of English actress Diana Dors. Her real last name was Fluck, and she joked about that unfortunate fact, famously quipping, “They asked me to change my name. I suppose they were afraid that if my real name Diana Fluck was in lights and one of the lights blew...” 

The National Gallery in London has just opened a new art exhibit based on one of our favorite cities—Amsterdam. The exhibit is stirring up quite a controversy because of its explicit content, which critics describe as tasteless and “designed to shock.” The artists responsible, Ed and Nancy Kienholz, created partial versions of some of Amsterdam’s famous brothels back in 1983. Their new installation, “The Hoerengracht,” or the Whore Canal, features these pieces arranged to replicate a realistic walk through Amsterdam’s famous De Wallen red light district, complete with mannequins dressed as prostitutes and garish neon lights. These were among the final pieces worked on by Ed Kienholz, who died in 1994. By that time he had achieved widespread acclaim, but even so, this is perhaps the first time his and his wife’s work has been featured in a venue as conventional and respected as the National Gallery. It is the venue’s break from its traditional roots that has generated both criticism and publicity. Now that the exhibit is open, it’s the public’s turn to decide. “The Hoerengracht”—the closest thing to Amsterdam without going there—runs through February 2010.

Above we have Australian actress Trisha Noble on the German pamphlet art for Diese frau ist Gefährlich, which was a 1966 spy film originally released as Death Is a Woman. For some reason, the movie was retitled to Love Is a Woman for its American run, and you see that art below. But perhaps wanting to provide audiences with a three-dimensional portrait of the subject matter, the film also bore the title internationally of—you guessed it—Sex Is a Woman. We couldn’t find the Sex Is a Woman art, so the promo photo after which the German and American posters were based will have to do. Although she isn’t well known now, Trisha Noble is actually one of those people that has been in show business her entire life. As a teenager she released six hit albums in Australia as Patsy Ann Noble, then turned to acting. If you’re old enough, you may remember her from the American television series Strike Force, with Robert Stack. And if you’re young enough, you may recognize her as Padmé Amidala’s mother in Star Wars II: Attack of the Clones, and Star Wars III: Revenge of the Sith. And if you remember none of that, check her out here getting groovy to her hit single “Accidents Can Happen” and you’ll never forget her again.

You’d think a film entitled Countess Dracula is a vampire movie, but it isn’t—at least not in the traditional sense. Rather it’s about real-life figure Erzebet Bathory, a noblewoman who killed three-hundred virgins in medieval Hungary and bathed in their blood to reverse the effects of aging. The Countess is portrayed by Ingrid Pitt, who does what any post-menopausal woman would do when made young again—gets laid. Actually, since this is the Middle Ages she has to get wooed first, which involves constantly performing the ritual in order to play the role of an available young woman. But these rituals from dusty old books always have side effects. Some are relatively benign—dizziness, headaches, erections lasting more than four hours—while others are more serious. In this case the problem is each period of youthfulness granted is shorter and the Countess’s aged visage, when it returns, is ever more witchlike and hideous. Nevertheless, the supply of nubile village virgins lasts long enough for the Countess to marry the man of her dreams. But then comes the wedding night, when the new husband is bitterly disappointed, and completely taken aback by his bride’s total change in attitude and appearance—and this is all before the spell even wears off. Badabing. Seriously, though, this is Hammer Studios horror and we recommend the film for that reason alone. It isn’t Hammer’s best, but it’s still got that ineffable British style. Countess Dracula premiered in the U.S. today in 1971.     

One hundred twenty-one years ago today, residents of London began to understand that a serial killer was stalking the dark streets of Whitechapel and London. Jack the Ripper had killed before—he had murdered Mary Ann Nichols in late August, and Annie Chapman the second week of September. But when two more women died in the same night Londoners flew into a panic. A malevolent entity had beset their city and suddenly it was clear his thirst would not easily be slaked. The two murders were called “The Double Event.” While some historians feel they were unconnected, Ripper orthodoxy holds that the second murder occurred because the first was unconsummated. Which is to say, the Ripper was robbed of a chance to inflict his signature mutilation on the first victim because he was interrupted by a passerby, so he immediately went out and found a second victim to kill in the intricate method his compulsion demanded. 

Less than an hour later Jack the Ripper found the privacy he sought—and another victim. Catherine Eddowes had spent the night of September 29 in the drunk tank at Bishopgate police station. The cops let her go just about the time Elizabeth Stride was being murdered not far away in Whitechapel. At 1:35 a.m. Eddowes was seen by three witnesses having a conversation with an unidentified male. Her body was found at 1:45, so police of the time and historians of today agree she was talking with the Ripper. In those ten minutes he walked with Eddowes to secluded Mitre Square, justinside the London city limits, then killed her, mutilated her, and removed her kidney. The kidney—or part of it—resurfaced along with a letter addressed to George Lusk, head of the Whitechapel Vigilance Committee. The letter bore a header “From Hell,” and the text boasted of how nice the missing piece of kidney tasted fried. The letter was signed: “Catch me when you can.” But neither Lusk nor anyone else managed it. And the killings continued.

From previous episodes pretty much everyone in the world knows that New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady is not one of those guys who enjoys the attention that comes with fame—unless the attention is coming from Brazilian models. Two photographers found out firsthand just how camera shy Brady is, and the mess that resulted led to them suing Brady and his wife Gisele Bundchen yesterday. The court papers read like a chapter from an Ian Fleming novel, complete with the leafy tropical hideaway, menacing bodyguards, and lethal gunfire. The alleged incident occurred in Costa Rica in early April, when AFP photographer Yuri Cortez and colleague Rolando Aviles of the daily newspaper Al Dia tried to photograph Brady and Bundchen at a party being thrown on private property. The photogs had gotten permission to venture onto a neighboring property, from which they shot photographs of the party occurring next door. So far so good for the shutterbugs.

However, according to the court papers, when the two were returning to their rented SUV, bodyguards hired by Brady and Bundchen appeared, demanding their cameras and memory cards. Aviles immediately booked for the car, leaving Cortez to deal with the bruisers. Cortez claims one bodyguard twisted his arm behind his back and told him the Brady-Bundchen family wanted to have a chat. Aviles was still with the SUV at this point, and the confrontation moved in that direction. At some point the photographers claim they spotted a gun in the hands of one bodyguard and decided to drive away. That bodyguard or another then fired at the SUV, the bullet shattering the rear window and ricocheting off the windshield. Asked for comment Brady’s lawyer said he had not seen the court papers yet, and Bundchen’s people said they had no comment. But we have a comment. If the charges are true, we wonder if the NFL’s zero tolerance conduct policy will apply to Brady. We doubt it. New York Giants receiver Plaxico Burress just got two years for accidentally shooting himself in the leg in a Manhattan nightclub and will face a league suspension even after he gets out of jail, but we think employing bodyguards who shoot at two fleeing men is equally disturbing. Just saying—and no we aren’t Jets fans.