 We have a couple of juicy parts for you. And afterward we'll give you a role. 
Above is a cover for Willis T. Ballard's novel The Package Deal, and we can hear you groaning out there, but really, what are we to do with a cover like this other than make the most obvious tasteless joke possible? The predatory Hollywood producer is an archetypal character in mid-century literature and—as has been documented of late—in real life too. But for the purposes of this website, we're only interested in fiction, and here you get a story about a producer trying to rekindle his career in television after serving in the military during World War II. He struggles to make a show called Mr. Detective a hit. It stars an ambitious actress named Marianne Delaine, and she comes attached to a problematic financial backer. Ballard worked in television for years on shows like Dick Tracy and Cowboy G-Men, so the hook here is that he gives you an insider depiction of that realm. This was originally published in 1956, and the above edition from Bantam came a year later, with uncredited cover art.
 Even if the folklore is untrue, you have to give it credit for staying power. 
The rumor about John Dillinger’s enormous penis has been debunked often enough that we don’t need to bother, but the interesting question remaining is how the rumor got started in the first place. Nobody knows, but this Tijuana bible entitled A Hasty Exit may be the first depiction of Dillinger with an oversized member. Tijuana bibles often starred famous and infamous people, and all the men had enormous rods, because what’s the point of a dirty book otherwise? But still, this is a curious artifact, considering the folklore surrounding Big John’s dilly of a pickle. It doesn’t have a copyright, but it has for many years been grouped with other bibles dating from the 1930s. We’re putting it at 1934 or after because the Evelyn character here probably is supposed to be Dillinger’s girlfriend Evelyn Frechette, who was unknown to the wider public until her April 1934 arrest. The Captain Tracy character is, of course Dick Tracy. Dilly and Dick get freaky, below. See more Tijuana bibles by clicking here, here, or here.        
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The headlines that mattered yesteryear.
1944—D-Day Begins
The Battle of Normandy, aka D-Day, begins with the landing of 155,000 Allied troops on the beaches of northern France in an event codenamed Operation Overlord. The German army by this time is already seriously depleted after their long but unsuccessful struggle to conquer Russia in the East, thus Allied soldiers quickly break through the Nazi defensive positions and push inland in the largest amphibious military operation in history. 1963—John Profumo Resigns
British Secretary of State for War John Profumo resigns after the revelation that he had been sexually involved with a showgirl and sometime prostitute named Christine Keeler. Among Keeler's close acquaintances was a senior Soviet naval attaché, thus in addition to Profumo committing adultery then lying about it before the House of Commons, authorities pressed for his resignation because they also feared he had been plied for state secrets. 1939—Journey of the St. Louis
The German passenger liner MS St. Louis, carrying 963 Jewish refugees, is denied permission to land in Florida, United States, after already being turned away from Cuba. Forced to return to Europe, many of its passengers later die in Nazi concentration camps. The event becomes the subject of a 1974 book, Voyage of the Damned, by Gordon Thomas and Max Morgan-Witts, and is later adapted into a film with the same title, released in 1976.
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