 Uncensored turns its unique journalistic eye toward Anita Ekberg. 
There's nothing quite like tabloid writing, a fact once again amply demonstrated by Uncensored. This issue is from June 1963, and check out this short paragraph from its feature on Anita Ekberg: “This is the Uncensored story of how Prince Philip bagged a rare and exotic Scandinavian pouter pigeon. Though its native habitat is Sweden, this double-breasted dove prefers the warmer climate of Italy. It also migrates as far from home as London and Hollywood.”
Double-breasted dove? They don't write like that anymore, and a good thing too. It's sexist, of course, but the tabs were generally belittling of both females and males—though in different ways. Women were derided  for dating around, such as when Uncensored refers to Ekberg as “Sexberg,” whereas men were usually disparaged for not being manly enough. That typically involved either being rebuffed by women, not scoring with enough women, or sexually preferring men. You see this in the story on Marcello Mastroianni, who's called “lazy” for passing on Brigitte Bardot. And you see it in the story on the United Nations, which is referred to as the “U.N. pansy patch.”
From the perspective of 2017, the heteronormative insecurity is pretty obvious. Men are to be prowling wolves, and any failure to live up to the ideal prompts insults; women are to be readily available for action, but not to other men. The story on Ekberg treads the line of admiring her beauty, but being suspicious about the freeness of her affections. There's a photo of her dancing with a black G.I. in Rome, and while the caption is neutral, in the context of the story the meaning of the shot is clear: “Ekberg will even dance with a black man!”
We love the photo. Ekberg looks a bit baffled, as if the soldier is telling her, “We'd be in mortal danger for doing this in most of the United States, you know,” and Ekberg is saying, “What the hell are you talking about?” The photo also shows how tall Ekberg was, almost 5' 7”, probably 5' 10” in heels, which is towering for an actress who needed to star alongside all those mid-sized leading men. We think this is the first time this image has appeared online.
Other elements worth noting in this issue include French actress and Pulp Intl. femme fatale Dominque Boschero as a mermaid, Marlene Dietrich looking dapper in a tux, Jayne Mansfield and one of her famed toy poodles, and burlesque queen Blaze Starr sudsy in a bathtub. There are plenty of other great shots too, and you can see them all below in nearly forty scans. Uncensored will return.                                   
 They were so delirious they forgot their own names. 
Pornodelirio was originally made in France as Les grandes jouisseuses and premiered today in 1978. The title literally means “the great enjoyers,” but Pornodelirio is a lot snappier, don't you think? As usual with these Italian smut posters, the names are all pseudonyms made especially for the movie's run in Italy. We don't know why, but if if any of the stars ever needed to go there at least their hotels weren't overrun by adoring, pornodelirious fans. In any case, Annick Fougery, Anne Sand, Michele Perelo, and Pierre Forget are actually Brigitte Lahaie, Ursula White, Jean-Louis Vattier, and Dominique Aveline. It's weird that two of the pseudonyms are Fougery like “forgery” and Forget. And it's even weirder that Annick Fougery and Pierre Forget were actual French stars. But they certainly weren't in this movie. Did they ever know their names had been borrowed? Did Europe have trademark infringement laws in 1978? When they checked into hotels were they beseiged by pornodelirious fans? This is all a bit of a mystery, but the only name in which we're really interested is Mafé. He or she painted the promo poster you see above and it's another example of his/her great work on an x-rated promo, along with this, these, and these, one of which you'll notice is an alternate poster for Pornodelirio. We still have no idea who Mafé is/was, but as always, we'll keep up the research. Soon as our delirium subsides. You wanna watch the film? The English dubbed version (with correct credits) is online right here.
 Boys, there's no need to fight over me. I can be icy and unobtainable enough for both of you. 
A couple of months back we shared a cover from Spain's Ediciones G.P. for Franck Marchal's Natalia enciende la mecha, which we mentioned was part of a series written by French authors Pierre Aspetéguy and Monique Henry. Above is the first entry in that series, simply titled Natalia, featuring the 1959 debut of their part-time fashion model/full-time ass whipping super spy. We're sharing this today because we've dug up some new info on the series—we couldn't identify the cover artist on the previous example, but we we think this one may have been painted by a Spanish artist who called himself or herself Chaco. That's all the info we have, but we'll keep digging. Anyone out there know anything? Drop us a line.
 Dominique Troyes shows she's in perfect trim. 
Above is a very cool photo of French adult performer Marilyn Jess, who you may remember was one of the main attractions of the film Emmanuelle IV. We talked about the movie at length last month and thought Jess needed a return engagement. She appeared in Emmanuelle IV as Dominique Troyes, but used her Jess persona during her extensive x-rated career, which began in 1977 and lasted through the ’80s and beyond. She was famed for having an enormous bush, which she's trimmed by orders of magnitude for this photo. It dates from around 1982
 I call this game Project Runaway. A model—that's me—points one of these shotguns at a pest—that's you. Guess what you do next? 
Above, Natalia enciende la mecha, or Natalia Lights the Fuse, from Ediciones G.P. out of Barcelona, 1961. This was one of a series of books about Natalia, a French model who leads a double life as an international spy, with Marchal serving as the shared pen name of French authors Pierre Aspetéguy and Monique Henry. We first saw a front for this paperback over at the blog Spanish Book Covers way back, but this scan comes from a different copy, so we thought we'd share it here. Spanish Books Covers has been on hiatus a long while, but the site is still live and there are numerous interesting fronts there worth viewing. What we'd really like to know is who painted the cover art. Often with these European editions you get art reworked or copied from U.S. paperbacks, but in the case of Ediciones G.P. we think not. Put this one in the unknown file until further notice.
 Once again Brazil brings the freak out of an unsuspecting visitor.  
This chirashi mini-poster, of which you see both sides above, was made to promote the Japanese release today in 1984 of the softcore epic Emmanuelle IV, spawn of a franchise that just gave and gave and gave, to the tune of seven direct theatrical sequels, plus dozens of television films and at least thirty other cinematic excursions of close or distant relation. This one will really make you wonder what happened to the big budget softcore movie. It's fun, engaging, highly budgeted, and a consistent turn-on.  Since Emmanuelle's original portrayor Sylvia Kristel was by now deemed too old to be the title ingénue, the writers decided to send her away to Brazil for rejuvenating surgery. She opens the film, gets on a plane, and when she emerges from her full body treatment, she looks like twenty-four-year-old Swedish actress Mia Nygren. Wanting to test out this new chassis, Nygren runs amok in Rio de Janiero and environs, as Brazil's tropical heat and wanton ways wreak havoc on a yet another white girl's psyche. By the end of the second reel she's a full-on nympho.
Emmanuelle IV is a cut above regular sexploitation—it's brilliantly shot in city and jungle, competently acted, and absolutely chock full of lithe hot bodies. Besides Kristel and Nygren, the parade of world-class beauties include Deborah Power, Sophie Berger, Dominique Troyes aka Marilyn Jess, and Sonja Martin. There was no porn in the original release, but x-rated scenes were shot and did appear in the French DVD version. But of the red hot goddesses mentioned above, only Jess went all the way, which is just as well—in a film as elegant as this, it would be a shame to see hairy-assed dudes climbing all over the entire female cast like monkeys. Or maybe that's just us. We have some images below, and should explain, their sheer number reflect our love for this movie. We first saw it on cable in our youth and it stayed with us. Whenever asked why we live abroad, we always credit high-brow literature and cultural curiosity and everything to do with the brain. But when we're truthful we have to admit stuff like Emmanuelle IV had an influence too. Even if people in exotic lands didn't act that crazy, the places existed. We felt that we had to see them. And you know what we learned? People do act that crazy.                                                    
 When girl meets girl sparks fly. 
Above and below is a small percentage of some of the thousands of lesbian themed paperback covers that appeared during the mid-century period, with art by Paul Rader, Fred Fixler, Harry Schaare, Rudy Nappi, Charles Copeland, and others, as well as a few interesting photographed fronts. The collection ends with the classic Satan Was a Lesbian, which you’ve probably seen before, but which no collection like this is complete without. Hopefully most of the others will be new to you. Needless to say, almost all were written by men, and in that sense are really hetero books reflecting hetero fantasies (fueled by hetero misconceptions and slander). You can see plenty more in this vein on the website Strange Sisters.                                              
 Mid-century tabloid hits all the familiar tabloid notes. 
Lowdown makes the rounds in this issue published in May 1965. Inside, Ann-Margret claims she doesn't want to be a tease (fail), editors ask if women are more immoral than men (which they really are, once you take war, genocide, faithlessness, and generally violent tendencies off the table), and June Wilkinson's photo is among those used in a story about women supposedly receiving insurance covered breast implants from Britain's National Health Service. Probably the most interesting story concerns Swedish actress Inger Stevens disappearing for a week. Lowdown hints at an alcohol binge, which is nothing special (hell, we do those) but while there are plenty of sources citing a 1960 suicide attempt, we found no other mention anywhere of Lowdown's missing week. The story is notable because Stevens would die at age thirty-five of a drug overdose. Elsewhere you get nude skiing in Austria, Richard Chamberlain and his hit television show Dr. Kildare, the sex powers of mandrake root, and Belgian born actress and dancer Monique Van Vooren endorsing regular exercise. Scans below—oh, and sorry about the quality. Lowdown's printing process caused scanner problems. It's never happened before, so hopefully we won't encounter the issue again.
 Midnight proves that sexual desire sells. 
Above, a cover of Midnight from today in 1962 with French actress Véronique Vendell telling readers she wants to be wicked. If you've seen Midnight before you know this was its modus operandi—pair a model or actress on the cover with a quote about her sexual availability. Examples: Were any of these quotes truthful? Doubtful, but they must have worked to attract readers, because Midnight was around for a long while.
 Something about Paris just makes you want to dance. 
This issue of Cancans de Paris, which is number 10, hit newsstands this month in 1966 featuring cover star Virginia Litz, someone we saw a while back in Folies de Paris et de Hollywood, but modeling under the pseudonym Arabelle. Turns out Litz may be a pseudonym too, as we've determined she's also known—and better known—as Christine Aarons. She pops up inside Cancans along with Gloria Paul, Dany Carrel, Sylvia Sorrente, and Uta Levka, as well as Sean Connery and Claudine Auger, who were starring together in Thunderball. We have Virginia Litz/Christine Aarons on at least one other mid-century magazine, which we'll post a bit later. In the meantime below are assorted scans from today's issue.                          
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The headlines that mattered yesteryear.
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. 1918—U.S. Congress Passes the Sedition Act
In the U.S., Congress passes a set of amendments to the Espionage Act called the Sedition Act, which makes "disloyal, profane, scurrilous, or abusive language" about the United States government, its flag, or its armed forces, as well as language that causes foreigners to view the American government or its institutions with contempt, an imprisonable offense. The Act specifically applies only during times of war, but later is pushed by politicians as a possible peacetime law, specifically to prevent political uprisings in African-American communities. But the Act is never extended and is repealed entirely in 1920.
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