Above is a National Enquirer published today in 1965 with Italian actress and sex symbol Sophia Loren on the cover and her husband, film producer Carlo Ponti, in the upper left inset. Ponti claims he married the perfect female animal, which is interesting considering the marriage was not recognized in his home country. The problem was Ponti had married Giuliana Fiastri back in 1946, and divorce was illegal in Italy. Undeterred, he and Loren were married by proxy in Mexico in 1957 (i.e., two lawyers stood in for the couple, who were still back in Italy). When Pope John XXIII found out, he threatened Ponti and Loren with excommunication, eternal damnation, and so forth. This drama actually played out across the reigns of two Popes, because John XXIII exited from the scene via stomach cancer in 1963, giving way to Paul VI, who reiterated the whole excommunication/flaming pit/blood rain thing. In the end, Ponti and Loren became French citizens and—voilà—married in France. It was quite a lot of trouble to go through for a spouse, so you’d expect nothing less than for Ponti to call Loren a perfect female. But was she? Well, we only have visual evidence. See below and decide for yourself. 

Sex, celebs, and swindles make up the bulk of this Inside Story from October 1958 with Swedish bombshell Anita Ekberg starring on the cover. All tabloids had a snappy slogan. Inside Story’s is “Tells the facts about people, the news, and the world we live in.” Doesn’t exactly send chills down the spine, does it? Maybe that’s why Inside Story was always strictly a middle of the pack tab, never achieving the rarefied heights of Confidential or Police Gazette. But on to the stories. In this issue readers are told that a relationship with Anita Ekberg comes at a high cost—not in money, but in frayed nerves due to her demanding behavior, alleged examples of which are detailed from London (caught by police having sex in a parked car) to Rio de Janeiro (abandoned her boyfriend and flew back to Sweden without a goodbye). Inside Story also expounds on Marlon Brando and Anna Kashfi, as well as Gloria de Haven and the unnamed Central American dictator’s son (Ramfis Trujillo, discussed last year) who was so struck by her beauty that he spent a fortune in time and money trying to get her into bed. Errol Flynn's supposedly inflated reputation as a lover also takes a hit, and both the horse racing industry and restaurant business provide material for insider horror stories. All in all, it’s a nice slate of articles, well worth the twenty-five cent asking price. We have twenty pages of all this for your enjoyment below, including a large scan of Diana Dors, because, well, she’s Diana Dors. 

Above, a promo shot of Italian actress and 1946 Miss Italy runner-up Sylvana Pampanini. Not well known today, during the 1950s and 1960s she became an international star but was relegated to secondary status when Sophia Loren and Gina Lollobrigida arrived on the scene. Even so, she eventually appeared in around sixty films. Oh, and about that Miss Italy contest—from what we understand she actually garnered the most votes, but was bumped to second place by the pageant jury because they felt she was just a bit too sensual. Perhaps they had a good point. This boudoir shot of Pampanini in see-through lingerie probably dates from around 1950. 

The other day we realized that nearly all of our femmes fatales released records at some point, so we have a megapost of sleeves below 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. 

Anyway, the leering tone of Vice Squad’s text (along with censored pix) was designed to inflame the magazine’s mainly conservative readers while giving them involuntary stirrings in the pants. Imagine thousands of Archie Bunkers getting heated up over the magazine’s scandalous contents, slamming it down in disgust, then sneaking a closer look after the missus had gone to bed. The same formula is at work in the stories about beauty queens, the “mink and champagne girl,” and Sophia Loren, who is pictured here in her film Leri, oggi, domani, aka, Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow. Loren was always dogged by rumors that she turned to prostitution briefly during the dismal post-war years in Naples, when she was a teenager. The Vice Squad story, while not going that far, certainly suggests that Loren was a bit of a wild child. We can’t say if she was ever a member of the world’s oldest profession, but we can definitely say Vice Squad editors were experts at another ancient endeavor—spreading vicious rumors. That said, if any proof exists that the great Sophia Loren was a lady of the night, we’d pay to see it. How does fifty bucks sound?

Italian actress Sophia Loren gets a leg up in this photo from an unknown Russian film magazine. 

Here’s a colorful October 1961 issue of Top Secret, featuring cover star Sophia Loren, with text hinting that Anthony Perkins had a little thing for her. Perhaps, but Perkins was famously nervous around women, and was usually involved with men, including Rock Hudson and Rudolph Nureyev. He rebuffed advances from both Jane Fonda and Brigitte Bardot, before finally losing his heterosexual virginity to Victoria Principal and going on to marry photographer Berry Berenson. You also see a blurb on Yuri Gagarin, who we mentioned a few days ago. Top Secret claims the Soviets didn’t have the technical know-how to send Gagarin on a revolution of the Earth. Yet somehow, they believed the Soviets did have the know-how to send missiles raining down on American cities. You ever get the feeling they just made this stuff up?     

As long as we’re on the subject of Stanley Donen, here are two one-sheets for his 1966 caper Arabesque, starring Gregory Peck and the great Sophia Loren. Donen was trying to capture the mod magic of his earlier feature Charade, which had starred Audrey Hepburn and Cary Grant. We can’t say he fully succeeded there, but he did make an adventure romance full of joie de vivre that’s well worth seeing. The two posters differ in one fascinating aspect—Gregory Peck’s lower body has been transplanted in the bottom version. We know the dancing pose at top was the original, but we think the upright stance in the re-do is an improvement, as is the cool magenta background. It’s killer art for a killer flick, and we recommend you check it out.

La Ciociara aka Two Women is another film that isn’t pulp or noir, but whose poster art is everything pulp aficionados love. It would fit perfectly on the cover of a Carter Brown book. If you’re a film lover you know director Vittorio de Sica made The Bicycle Thief, which makes this WWII drama based on a novel by Alberto Moravia well worth a screening. Sophia Loren and Jean-Paul Belmondo starred, and it opened today in Italy in 1960.