 Jungle orphan grows from little duckling into beautiful Swan.    
Above are four Italian posters for Gungala la pantera nuda, aka Gungala the Black Panther Girl, starring Swedish actress Kitty Swan, née Kirsten Svanholm. Four posters? This must be a good movie, right? Well, not really. But the lost world concept was incredibly popular in international cinema during the 1960s, and in landing Swan for the title role, Summa Cinematografica and director Roger Rockfeller (Ruggero Deodato) knew they had something special on their hands. Tasked with making the most of an exceptionally beautiful star, they dutifully take care of the nuda aspect in the opening credits, and keep Swan lightly clothed throughout a movie that's basically Tarzan re-gendered—i.e. a young heiress survives a plane crash in the jungle, is taught by tribespeople to survive in a hostile environment, but has her idyllic existence of running hither and yon in slow motion ruined when folk from the civilized world come searching for her. And when these modern interlopers bring greed, guns, interpersonal dysfunction, and inheritance law to Swan's paradise, it looks like perhaps it's they who are uncivilized, not the primitive panther girl... We've seen it all before, but at least this iteration has Swan to keep the yawning at bay. Gungala la pantera nuda premiered today in 1968.     
 Think globally, eat locally.  
What you’re looking at are two pieces of Japanese promo art for the Italian shocker Cannibal Holocaust. Released in 1980, the film was so disturbing that it was banned by several countries, and resulted in director Ruggero Deodato being dragged before authorities who were seriously intent on jailing him for the rest of his life. In order to avoid that fate, he had to prove that his actors had not been killed during filming, and in particular, he had to show that the scene of an indigenous Amazonian girl impaled on a pole was just a special effect. But even knowing the impalement, a castration, a disembowelment, a beheading, and the cannibalism are all fake doesn’t make the film any easier to stomach, mainly because it features some real atrocities, such as a three-foot long turtle being de-shelled, a pig being shot to death, and a monkey having its face cut off with a machete. On the plus side, the Brazilian scenery is beautiful. Cannibal Holocaust’s central premise of lost film footage being found and reviewed in order to determine the fate of the foolhardy foreigners who shot it sets up like familiar horror, but in all other respects the film pushes the envelope so far it’s on the outside looking in. Think you’re tough? Give this one a try. Cannibal Holocaust premiered in Tokyo in January 1983.
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The headlines that mattered yesteryear.
2003—Hope Dies
Film legend Bob Hope dies of pneumonia two months after celebrating his 100th birthday. 1945—Churchill Given the Sack
In spite of admiring Winston Churchill as a great wartime leader, Britons elect
Clement Attlee the nation's new prime minister in a sweeping victory for the Labour Party over the Conservatives. 1952—Evita Peron Dies
Eva Duarte de Peron, aka Evita, wife of the president of the Argentine Republic, dies from cancer at age 33. Evita had brought the working classes into a position of political power never witnessed before, but was hated by the nation's powerful military class. She is lain to rest in Milan, Italy in a secret grave under a nun's name, but is eventually returned to Argentina for reburial beside her husband in 1974. 1943—Mussolini Calls It Quits
Italian dictator Benito Mussolini steps down as head of the armed forces and the government. It soon becomes clear that Il Duce did not relinquish power voluntarily, but was forced to resign after former Fascist colleagues turned against him. He is later installed by Germany as leader of the Italian Social Republic in the north of the country, but is killed by partisans in 1945.
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