Above: a shot of Italian actress Luciana Paoli, who appeared in a dozen motion pictures between 1954 and 1968, including Casanova 70 and Seven Golden Women Against Two 07: Treasure Hunt, but is also well known among comics fans as Dana, from the racy Italian fotostorie Killing.

The Donostia Zinemaldia, aka San Sebastian Film Festival, is becoming one of the better fests in the world. Its 59th edition ended this weekend in Donostia-San Sebastian, Spain, and for the third year in a row we were there, though not for the festival per se. But we’re posting on it because it was thoroughly pulp-worthy due to the out-of-competition screenings of contemporary American crime films. The subset was called “The American Way of Death” and was restricted to films made within the last thirty years, including Goodfellas, Wild at Heart, Miller’s Crossing, King of New York, New Jack City, One False Move, Silence of the Lambs, Reservoir Dogs, Menace II Society, Red Rock West, Heat, Summer of Sam, Memento, Seven, Fargo, and twenty-five more. In fact, it must be one of the most comprehensive collections of American crime cinema ever screened, and the only significant film from the period they missed, in our opinion, was To Live and Die in L.A. As for the Festival itself, some of the stars who attended included Clive Owen, Antonio Banderas, and Glenn Close,who received a lifetime achievement award. The top prize, called the Concha de Oro or Golden Shell, was won by Los Pasos Dobles—or The Double Steps—by Isaki Lacuesta, and Julie Delpy picked up a special prize for her new movie. If you ever find yourself in northern Spain in September, we recommend passing through Donostia-San Sebastian for the fest. You may not be able to get into the screenings, but the surfing, bars and events are just tremendous, so that should console you. 

This January 1967 issue of Whisper digs up dirt on Gina Lollobrigida, Eddie Fisher and Connie Stevens, and tells us why Uncle Sam wants to deport a topless dancer. The latter is actually an interesting story. The topless star in question is Iranian-born burlesque dancer Yvonne D’Angers, aka Yvonne Boreta, and the reason she was being deported was for obscenity.

D’Angers, who was also known by the nickname the Persian Lamb, had already been involved in a 1965 obscenity trial over the employment of topless waitresses and dancers by various San Francisco nightclubs and had gotten herself on the radar of political bluenoses scandalized by her act at the Off Broadway.

When the deportation order came, d’Angers waged a very public battle against it and finally, in 1967, chained herself to the Golden Gate Bridge in protest. The press turned out in droves for the bizarre spectacle, and all the publicity made her nationally famous. At that point she was able to make the leap into motion pictures, appearing in 1968’s Sappho Darling, 1970’s Move with Elliot Gould, and the 1971 Russ Meyer flick The Seven Minutes. And in the end d’Angers was never deported, so, in this case at least, protest paid. So there's a lesson for all of us.

Above, a copy of the Uruguayan cinema magazine Cine Radio Actualidad, with a cover image of Marilyn Monroe in her famous Seven Year Itch pose. But since she was colorized and composited on a weird new background, she doesn’t look like she’s flirting with Tom Ewell so much as cringing away from a hot nuclear wind. Was that what the designers were going for? We doubt it. But sometimes you get lucky and end up with a great image anyway. This one hit newsstands today in 1955. 

Above you see an extra vibrant February 1955 cover of The National Police Gazette starring Marilyn Monroe in a nice image re-enacting her famous skirt-blowing scene from The Seven Year Itch. This scene never happens in the film—there's a cutaway so you never see a full body shot. But Monroe later played the scene out as a publicity stunt for photographers, some of whom you can see in background of the second shot of the moment featured inside the magazine. Gazette readers were in luck this month, because as a bonus, editors offered a calendar page featuring Bettie Page. Monroe and Page: two great icons that go perfectly together.

German-Czech actress Barbara Bouchet as Kitty Wildenbrück in the Italian giallo classic, La dama rossa uccide sette volte, aka The Red Queen Kills Seven Times,  aka Blood Feast, aka several other titles,1972.     

A couple of days ago we were riffing on a movie called The Beyond, aka Spirit City of the Damned, aka Seven Doors of Death, and showed you the colorful Thai poster. By contrast, the sinister and almost monochromatic promo art you see above accompanied the film’s earlier Italian release as ...E tu vivrai nel terrore! L'aldilà. The story concerns a hotel perched atop an entrance to hell (hope that isn’t giving too much away), but of course when Catriona MacColl inherits the property she doesn’t know anything about that and thinks she’s actually getting a sweet deal. But the difficulties of maintaining a dead & breakfast soon prove overwhelming, not least because staff turnover in a place inhabited by demons can be pretty high (though heating bills are low). L'aldilà is a bit incoherent, truth told, and the fx are clunky even by 1981 standards, but it does possess unbridled exuberance thanks to the unflinching direction of Lucio Fulci. That’s all we’ll say about the film, except that there’s a character here named Joe the Plumber who meets a gory death, so depending on your political beliefs, this could be a must-see. L'aldilà premiered in Italy today in 1981.

There’s almost nothing not to love about this Thai poster, with its rich colors, baroque text, and gory overload of evil. It’s for an Italian horror flick called ...E tu viviaine terrore! L’aldilà. If your Italian is rusty, that translates to something like And You Will Live in Terror—The Beyond, which was changed for the German release to Die Geisterstadt der Zombies, which means Spirit City of the Zombies. It hit the Netherlands next and the title was changed again, this time to Hotel der Verdoemden. When the film reached American shores, it was edited down a bit and called Seven Doors of Death. So an evil which once encompassed the entire beyond saw its grip reduced to one measly spirit city, then to just a lowly hotel, and finally to a suite of rooms, where it watched a lot of pay-per-view porn and rarely showered. But, like economies, evil always bounces back—it earned a release in Thailand, where it was re-titled The Beyond, and it rejoiced mightily at regaining its former stature. There's a clear lesson about perseverance in this saga, and as our global economic crisis continues, we suggest you follow evil's example. On a factual note, we have no idea exactly what date the film premiered in Thailand, but even without that info we were going to post something Thai today, mainly because someone mentioned lemongrass soup earlier. So there you go—a little glimpse inside the editorial process here. Oh, and we actually did watch the movie. Look here.

Japanese one-sheets for David Fincher’s dark thriller Seven, starring Brad Pitt, Morgan Freeman, Kevin Spacey and Gwyneth Paltrow, and ingeniously scripted by Andrew Kevin Walker. It opened in Tokyo today in 1995.

In Brooklyn, New York, authorities have found actor John Costelloe dead from a self-inflicted gunshot to the head. Costelloe, who played the character Johnny Cakes on television’s Sopranos was found yesterday in his basement bedroom, but died days earlier. He had been appearing off-Broadway in playwright Jim Neu’s Gang of Seven, and was due on the big screen in Doubt opposite Meryl Streep and Philip Seymour Hoffman. Neu said he had noticed a change in Costelloe’s mood of late, and had queried the actor what was bothering him, but without success. “He didn’t seem like the kind of guy who would reach out,” Neu said. “There couldn’t have been a more supportive and friendly group. If he wanted to reach out to people, we were right in front of him. I wish he did.”