| Femmes Fatales | Sep 12 2016 |
It takes more than 100 degree heat to make her wilt.
We swear we don't have any special affinity for Marilyn Chambers. We've never even seen one of her movies, aside from the horror flick Rabid. But we keep bringing her back because we keep running into killer promo shots of her we've never seen before. This particularly beautiful example, which we just couldn't pass up, shows her posing with a Joshua tree in the Mojave Desert of California circa 1980.
Update: some enterprising capitalist has taken this scan and placed it for sale on Ebay. We're not surprised—it's happened before with some of our other uploads, including one of Christina Lindberg. What we wonder is whether anyone actually buys them. Well, we hope any interested parties think to search around online a bit and that they find the images here before they pay for something thay can have for free.
| Mondo Bizarro | Sep 5 2016 |
Sightings of bizarrely garbed figures have South Carolina residents baffled and worried.
A rash of scary clown sightings have occurred in the U.S. in the last week in the state of South Carolina, mainly in Greenville and Spartanburg counties. The encounters have varied from clowns attempting to lure children into the woods, to a pair of citizens chasing two clowns into a waiting car driven by a third clown. The photo above is an actual shot made by a man in Greenville, which he posted to Twitter with the caption, “Just spotted a major freak behind Fleetwood Apts.” The building happens to be ground zero for some of the clown sightings.
The favored explanation online for all this weirdness is that it's a publicity stunt for the new Rob Zombie horror movie 31. If that's the case, we've done our part for Rob by sharing the promotional poster just below. But assuming these sightings are publicity stunts, doesn't that seem like a very serious risk to take? American cops are trigger happy, and it isn't glitter and confetti that comes out of their guns. Let's say instead of a clown getting ventilated, though, he was arrested. For what, we aren't sure, since it isn't illegal to offer kids candy, which is what reports say one of the clowns did—but whatever, clown gets arrested. All the suspect would have to say is, “I'm a clown, it's true, but not that clown.”
Absent fingerprints (“No prints, sir, he must have worn gloves.”), shoe prints (“The casts are finished, sir—he wore size 37.”) or DNA (best not to think about that), only an admission of guilt could connect the arrested clown to the previous clowns. Or maybe police could stage a line-up. Of clowns. Bring in a tearful witness. “Yes, officer it was the one on the far left. I'm sure of it. I'll never forget *sob* his big red nose.” Our guess is that these sightings are one of those instances of bizarro cultural programming, like the one that causes UFO or Bigfoot sightings. Rogue clowns have been reported lately not just in South Carolina, but in Ohio, Wisconsin, California, and even jolly old England. For our part, we hope the sightings simply stop. We don't need to get to the bottom of them. If they're real, we don't want to know who (doubtless one or more smug white guys, though) figured it was a perfectly fine idea to dress in a weird costume and terrify bystanders—this in a country where people wearing nothing more than dark skin end up shot for jaywalking. Which raises the question: if a clown were to be shot, would it be tragic, tragicomic, or just plain comical? Guess it depends on how you feel about them.
| Femmes Fatales | Sep 4 2016 |
And life flows along with a smile and a sarong.
American actress Dorothy Lamour, who we shared a nice promo photo of back in 2011, changed onscreen fashion with a constant array of sarongs that caused her to be dubbed "The Sarong Queen.” She first wore one in 1936's The Jungle Princess, and from there donned the distinctive garment for Her Jungle Love, Road to Singapore, and a score of other movies. This shot was made while she was filming the John Ford adventure Hurricane. Parts of the production took place on Tutuila Island in American Samoa, which is why some sources say the photo was made there, but it was really shot on Santa Catalina, in the Channel Islands off California. It dates from from 1937.
American SamoaCaliforniaTutuilaSanta CatalinaHurricaneHer Jungle LoveRoad to SingaporeThe Jungle PrincessJohn FordDorothy Lamourcinema
| Vintage Pulp | Aug 4 2016 |
I'll get mine, yours, and everyone else's I can lay my little hands on too.
Set initially at San Quentin Prison, then in the wider environs of Oakland, California, I'll Get Mine follows a do-gooder prison shrink down the rabbit hole of Latino gang culture, where he becomes involved in a murder mystery and takes on the role of potential savior to a beautiful druggie ensnared in Pachuco culture. It was originally published in 1951 as Cure It with Honey, which you see at right.Thurston Scott was a pseudonym for the team of Jody Scott and George Thurston Leite, and what they put together was racy stuff for the time, with hetero sex achieved, gay sex alluded to, various flavors of drugs inhaled and injected, and some violence. The mix of elements worked well—the novel was nominated for an Edgar Award. The 1952 Popular Library edition at top was illustrated by A. Leslie Ross, and its resemblance to a cover we shared last month puts us in mind of assembling a collection of women leaning against lamp posts and street signs. Stay tuned.
CaliforniaOaklandSan Quentin State PrisonEdgar AwardEdgar Allen Poe AwardPopular LibraryThurston ScottA. Leslie Rosscover artliterature
| Femmes Fatales | Jul 9 2016 |
She's an accident waiting to happen.
This photo shows American actress and iconic beauty Martha Vickers, who had been named Miss Danger Signal by the Motor Vehicle Bureau of California in order to publicize its anti-accident campaign. She was chosen because, apparently, she had never had a traffic mishap. At least until it was time to climb down off this traffic signal, we imagine. The shot was made in 1946.
| Vintage Pulp | Apr 24 2016 |
Anything for a thrill.
Awesome pulp style poster for Juvenile Jungle, with Corey Allen, Rebecca Welles and a brief appearance from Playboy playmate Yvette Vickers. The movie premiered today in 1958 and is one of the rare U.S. films we've been unable to find. But reviews are copious, and they'll inform you this revolves around a gang that kidnaps a store owner's daughter in order to extort his payroll, and how the plan goes awry when the gang leader and the captive fall for each other. Stockholm Syndrome in Southern California's beachside, leather-jacketed delinquent culture, filmed in the widescreen process Republic Pictures called Naturama.
Republic PicturesCaliforniaJuvenile JunglePlayboyCorey AllenRebecca WellesYvette Vickersposter artcinema
| The Naked City | Apr 24 2016 |
Yeah, I'm drunk. And I'm just old enough not to give a fuck.
You plan to weave your car quietly home from the bar and not only do you get stopped and arrested, but immortalized by the press. This image, another from the University of Southern California archive, was shot by a Los Angeles Herald photographer and shows motorist Edna Benton failing a field sobriety test administered by highway patrolman M.G. Gaskell. Herald photographers were often on the scene after murders and suicides, but this image shows just how quickly they could be on the scene to shame even the most unimportant of people. We're curious when this type of photo-journalism went out of style. In this case the shame aspect didn't work, as Benton's smile in image two shows. These date from today in 1951.
| The Naked City | Apr 9 2016 |
Don't worry, baby. What we have'll last forever.
The above image from the University of Southern California collection of Los Angeles Herald photos dates from 1952 and shows sixteen-year-old Marlene Eason visiting her jailbird boyfriend, nineteen-year-old Eddie Christianelli, who was under arrest for robbery. In response to Christianelli's marriage proposal Eason agreed to wed him in jail. At that moment somewhere across town Eason's father swooned, and when his wife asked what was wrong he said, “I felt a great disturbance in the force, as if all our daughter's hopes and dreams were suddenly ruined.” Young love. Whaddaya gonna do?
| The Naked City | Feb 16 2016 |
Embarrassing family scandal ends in murder.
The above crime scene drawing shows murder victim Ned Doheny, Jr. in the bedroom of his Los Angeles mansion after being killed by a gunshot to the head, along with a superimposition of where police imagine he was just before he was shot. From the above angle the event looks clinical, but a reverse view reveals an unholy mess, with Doheny's face and robe drenched in blood, and a dark pool spread across the carpet.Out of sight in the hall leading to the bedroom is the body of Hugh Plunkett, Doheny's presumed murderer, dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. For a time this was the most famous crime in L.A. history. Doheny was the son of oil tycoon E.L Doheny, who was in trouble for passing bribes to U.S. Secretary of the Interior Albert Fall. The investigation and legal circus, known as the Teapot Dome scandal, had ensnared not just the senior Doheny but Doheny Jr. and Plunkett. They had both been indicted for conveying the dirty money from Doheny Sr. to Secretary Fall.
Realistically speaking, there was no serious threat of the Dohenys going to jail. But working class Hugh Plunkett was not a tycoon nor a tycoon's son, which meant for him the possibility of incarceration was real. When Jr. was offered immunity and Plunkett was not, their close friendship began to fray. Plunkett's growing instability spawned attempts to get him into a mental facility—whether to save his mind or save him from testifying remains a subject of debate—but it never happend. Today
in 1929 he visited the Doheny mansion to talk with his pal Ned and hours later the result is what you see in the crime scene photos.
in 1929 he visited the Doheny mansion to talk with his pal Ned and hours later the result is what you see in the crime scene photos.There's much more to the case—rumors of a sexual relationship between Doheny Jr. and Plunkett, rumors that Doheny Sr. pulled the trigger on both men, etc.—but we'll leave all that aside. The truly interested can find at least a dozen websites that dig into every aspect of the case. We just wanted to show you the photo-illustration, which is yet another police photo from the University of Southern California digital archive.
Los AngelesTeapot Dome scandalUniversity of Southern CaliforniaNed Doheny Jr.E.L. DohenyHugh PlunkettAlbert Fallmurdersuicide
| Vintage Pulp | Aug 1 2015 |
Diane Webber brings a bit of warmth to winter in Baltimore.
Today’s Technicolor lithograph features a recognizable figure for once—the much adored Diane Webber, a California born model, dancer, and actress who was also known as Marguerite Empey and became one of the most important fixtures of the 1950s and 1960s nudist magazine scene. You can see a few examples of those here. Webber was also a two-time Playboy centerfold under her Empey persona, in May 1955 and February 1956. We’ve mentioned before that the blank spaces at the tops of these Technicolor prints were made for the insertion of advertising, and at right you see how that worked with a calendar for a Baltimore, Maryland establishment called Stanley’s Drive-In. The original image came from the A. Scheer Company, was called Exclusively Yours, and appeared in 1955. The calendar came out in the winter of 1958.
MarylandCaliforniaBaltimorePlayboyA. Scheer Co.Technicolor pin-upDiane WebberMarguerite Empeynuditynudism
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