Yes...in her time off, Bettie Page was a serious opera fan! She appears on the legendary "Acorn Recording" of Carmen by Georges Bizet. In the opera, a looser is seduced by a super hot Gypsy woman, who I am going to suspect the suits at Acorn decided had bangs. Yes, it IS "stereo-fonic" if you purists want to hear it as if you were front row center! (They wanted you to be sure of that...they spelled stereophonic two different ways on the jacket.) Acorn had serious spelling problems, and you can see from the "accordeon favorites" they offered as well. (Actually, is it correct to spell accordion any way you like...just don't make me listen.) You won't find Bettie Page on a POLKA record, after all.
Acorn tried to avoid dating their records, as they were destined to sit in the bin a LONG time, and they wanted you to think it just arrived. Needless to say, this was done in the late 1950s, and not last week for some punk band. So all you rockabilly chicks who take your inspiration from Ms. Page? Listen to some opera instead of those rockin' hillbilly dudes you have been dancing too. Check it out...Cyril Green, noted conductor of the above, put a hot babe on the cover of his William Tell Overture too! There is a copy of the Bettie Page album for sale on ebay (a safe bet whether you read this post now or 50 years from now) and the particular copy has "no ringworm" according to the seller, so go ahead and bid! When it arrives, don't use those horrible "ear buds" Apple is shilling which will rob you of your hearing. Use Dad's old HUGE woofer and tweeter Hi-Fi, so you don't miss a single scratch. BOOKS AND EBOOKS BY JIM LINDERMAN HERE
Presumably, TV here refers to television, although you would have never seen Bettie Page there. It CAN'T be what the common vernacular for TV is NOW, as she never dressed in men's clothes. Heck, she never dressed in clothes period! But yes, it is Miss Bettie Mae Page on the cover of TV Girls and Gags.
See, when television came along, the rest of the media was TERRIFIED! It was going to replace all other forms of entertainment, including the newspaper, the movies, and even that lawsuit riddled trampoline entertainment center where the mall is now (where you could watch your kids work of their energy while breaking bones.) So any tie in, ANY tie in, with television was a good idea.
Like the pathetic attempts for radio hosts and the television news industry and the internet today. The tag line for a show used to be "see you next week" but now it is "follow us on twitter and Facebook" in a desperate plea to be relevant and to grab the hip, young demographic who buys toothpaste and soap.
Believe it or not, TV Girls and Gags came out of Atlanta Georgia! Not really the place one thinks of smut during the 1950s. They still put the thing together in New York city.
No, Girls and Gags didn't have program listings. There was only one channel! They did have bad jokes and bad women.
A good share of the cartoons had a television theme. They went out of their way to cover prominent television personalities of the day. Steve Allen (creep who thought he was a genius) Groucho Marx (Genius) and Ed Murrow (honest reporter when the news business meant something other than a shill for the "entertainment" side of the network.) It being ostensibly a "southern" magazine, they also covered Jimmy Dean, now dead sausage producer, but back then a down home "aw shucks" bad singer and hick.
Of course, since they had the audacity to show women in bikinis. they came under fire from the censors. Banned for importation to South Africa. Forbidden in Quebec! Seem silly now? It isn't. It is censorship, it is (and was) wrong and it shouldn't happen. Ever.
EVER. NO one has the right to tell you what to read, laugh at or dream about people frolicking for the camera.
Oh well. "TV" Bettie Page above is looking splendid as a cover girl. So are the others. Enjoy TV Girls and Gags. They favored groin shots on the cover for some reason. I assume a predilection of the photo editor, if they had one. (They didn't…they had an "ART director and it was a woman!)
Looks like a lovely issue, but I haven't read it. Not because it comes from Belgium, but because I don't have it yet. Notable for the lovely cover, of course, but the picture of June Wilkinson made me pull the paypal trigger. I do know if she walked around in the Belgium sun over there for long, but if so she got some crazy tan patterns on her legs. Pinups Belamie Date forthcoming. BOOKS by Jim Linderman (and ebooks $5.99 each) are available for preview or purchase HERE
Precursor to the Swinging Sixties, the Strip Darts game which has been heavily copied. Too bad the inventor didn't register it with the patent office under the "Games Using Tangible Projectile" category. To wit:
"Any projector device or implement (other than one which
is operated by explosive means) which is used for a game or
sporting purpose and which is specifically adapted and
intended to project a game projectile so that it travels upon
a playing surface substantially at all times (i.e., the
projectile is in contact with and moving over the playing
surface either upon or immediately after projection) is, per
se, included herein"
Which in layman's terms means "come on down to the basement and get nekkid."
(Note: Not approved by the Consumer Safety Department. Use only rubber darts. Aim carefully and do not puncture the posterior of any player. Use under adult supervision. Posed by professional model.) Strip Darts are a novelty item not to be used in public places (such as church, downtown in a public place or outside of a bachelor's man den.
The Beauty of Bare Bare Digest The Naked Truth Magazine
Falling under the category of "Magazines ain't what they used to be" are the little Bare Digests. All from 1953 to 1955, Bare was one of the "vest pocket" men's magazines small enough to sneak home. They were also small enough to steal, which may be one reason they didn't last too long in the stores…but they packed a punch far larger than their size. It takes a big blast of color to make a magazine the size of a postcard stand out on the rack…in fact it took a rack like Tempest Storm's rack to stand out on the rack. They were smaller than the size of a Kindle screen.
Part scandal, part pin up, part taboo…a pocket size TMZ for a quarter.
Bare came out of the West Coast by way of D & L Publishing Company in sunny San Diego. It was cheap to transport them all the way across the country to the East Coast pop-eyes…several hundred would fit in a shoe box.
They are surprisingly good and surprisingly hot for the times. They are also, today, quite scarce unfortunately. I'll usually go a few bucks for one at a flea market, but crisp mint ones from dealers will set you back quite a bit more. The hardest to find is the Bettie Page cover.
Their byline was "The Naked Truth" which was, of course, a lie. The women inside were neither bare or naked. The stories were made up too.
Great Cover, but otherwise totally useless piece of trash from Ken Publishing, a sleaze operation doing business on Ventura Blvd in Studio City. They survived, though not for long, but taking ads from Parliament (when it was run by sleazeball Milton Luros) and Sun Era, a producer of nudist magazines from North Hollywood. The color centerfold has a model on an air mattress in the middle of a swimming pool in her stockings. A magic brew of skunk beer. Witch Magazine (No Date) Ken Publishing Collection Victor Minx
Google up the name of Vera Molnar, and you will receive a full page of super-modern art generated by pioneering computer by artist Vera Molnar, and one forlorn black and white photo of forgotten German beauty Vera Molnar.
We are, of course, concerned here with the latter.
German / Austrian born beauty Vera Molnar could have made it big. She had her supporters…note the over lavish production below. You don't get a stair full of dancers unless someone is convinced you are a money-maker.
Molnar was really Vera Kmet, a word I am not quite sure how to pronounce. She was born early enough (in Austria) to live through the horrors of war, but survived only to be arrested for helping to run a black market sugar scheme (!) for which she served 16 months in prison. Sentenced for dealing sugar! Over here, we should sentence those who put it in everything we eat.
She pursued a drama career after her release, and her stunning beauty attracted the attention of film bigwigs…including director Geze von Cziffra, a name I am not quite certain how to pronounce. He drives her to a film location but crashes the auto, and Vera ends up with facial lacerations, a fractured jaw, and her pet poodle "Bumpi" killed. Remarkably, later the same year she records a song which enters the German charts and continues filming various German vehicles.
Vera commences having affairs and living with a director or two when the big break comes. An offer from America to appear in an RKO production! Guess what? She is denied a visa by immigration officials for her criminal past. The sugar bust comes back to haunt her!
Vera eventually made it to the states, but not until several years after that big opportunity drifts away.
So does she. In the mid 1950s she putters along in flicks here and there (including a part in a Rossellini film HERE but I'm not going to watch the whole thing to find her, even though she may be in a bathing suit scuba diving (true) but finally marries a wealthy businessman, takes up painting and disappears.
She passes away in 1986. I can't find any of her paintings.
IMDB has two entries HERE and HERE. Uncredited publicity photographs from Night and Day June 1952 Books and eBooks by the author are available HERE
The recent auction of original Irving Klaw material at Guernsey's MAY have contained few surprises, but as I didn't go and don't have a catalog, we'll have to see if anything trickles out. They did have, it turns out, a pretty expensive pair of shoes. They sold for like ten grand, but it appears only a few blogs and Fox news TV stations reported it. Google News lets me down. I keep finding broken links. You gotta do something about that, Google. However, "The Internet's Most Popular Collectables Newsletter" reports the price went over ten grand. The other links are broken because today old news is yesterday's old shoes.
One thing I do know, and I know damn well, is that Irving Klaw never used or heard John Lee Hooker while filming Betty do her thing. I believe the ONLY thing the two have in common is that both worked in the 1950s, and more importantly, at least for this intrepid fake reporter, is that the track and the film have no copyright. But wait...maybe the John Lee material DOES have a copyright…it is a version of the old Blind Lemon Jefferson song "Black Snake Moan" jumbled up with "Crawling King Snake" taken from Big Joe Williams, sorta, which was adapted by Mr. Hooker into "I Need Lovin'" (the title credited on the YouTube post) which the auction house cribbed and played on their website. Actually, even the title of the song used may be an error, as the most complete discography I know of the artist (1,000 plus recordings) compiled by the magnificent Thomas Jarlvik doesn't list a track named I Need Lovin'. We all need lovin' of course. But I think the song may have another "official" title.
Interestingly, if you listen carefully, you can hear John Lee Hooker's OWN shoes on the track! (John had no drummer at the time and used his feet to keep the curious "time" only he understood.) Ask ZZ Top.(Of course, THEY had a drummer...the guy named Beard who is the only guy in the band without a beard.)
The song used (and by Guernsey's on their pitch for the auction still HERE) was recorded in 1954 and originally released by Speciality on an LP. I think. It might be another date. I'm not sure. Back when there were effing LINER NOTES I could find out.
If the song DOES have a copyright, and I certainly do not know the answer (1) because I am not a lawyer and (2) anyone trying to figure out the legality of ANY John Lee Hooker track is in for trouble... it is certainly FAR from the first time he has been ripped off. The video on YouTube offers the purchase of the track for 99 cents. Gee…How much of THAT will go to John Lee Hooker's estate? Umm. Furthermore, the track has been listened to (as of yesterday) 56,000 times. Who is monitoring the airplay for royalties, should any be forthcoming? Umm.
Speciality (whoever owns THEM now) IS selling the track on Amazon. But then so is "Roslin Records" whoever that is, and I don't know if Speciality, or Sony, or anyone knows that except whoever is behind Roslin Records.
Eh…John Lee was used to this crap. He used it to his advantage by ignoring contracts he had signed and recording under like a dozen names. (I reckon that bluesman was smarter than you thought…record label suit guys) and he usually performed for cash. Among the names John Lee Hooker recorded under was Texas Slim, Birmingham Sam, Johnny Williams…and once each by John Lee Booker and John Lee Cooker! Rock on John. You passed on in dignity with your ten pseudonyms, even if the folks who recorded you didn't.
If John Lee did indeed record a song titled "I Need Lovin'" at least one of them was removed from YouTube by a legal scrubber. I guess Sony thinks they own John Lee, but they missed the one helping Bettie get dressed.
As you can see, Sony (and their interlocking conglomerates) is really sorry about that. But are they really sorry about removing a song which is actually in the public domain because it was recorded in 1954 and the person who recorded it never took the time to renew his copyright, so it should be available to all? Again...I'm no lawyer and I don't know.
Personally, if I were going to load up a Bettie Page film, I would leave it silent like Klaw did rather than purloin (likely, alleged, maybe) a John Lee Hooker song in the background. John Lee never met Bettie Page, and I know he didn't sit in the corner of Klaw's dingy studio and keep time while Bettie Page modeled shoes.
Here is the video on YouTube. HERE is the Video on Guernsy's Site promoting the auction.
I'm posting it because I can't get enough of John Lee Hooker. BOOKS AND EBOOKS BY JIM LINDERMAN ARE AVAILABLE ON BLURB HERE.
It is "Hello, Oscar?" as the award winning series Vintage Sleaze on Film brings you yet another classic from the glory days of smut. Presenting "Advertising Specialties Mfg. Co of Brooklyn, NY "We Will Put Your Advertising in This Space" 250 copies for $30.00 a 1949 classic!
Jayne Mansfield shows Argentinians she measures up the American way, and not in centimeters. We do our numbers the right way, in inches, dammit.
Chapa Chapa was indeed a magazine from Argentina, apparently they loved busty blondes, as they put her on the cover as often as then could do the Chapa Chapa! (Actually, i think chapa means "plate" but I have no idea who would purchase a magazine titled "Plate Plate" unless it had Jayne Mansfield on the cover. You can too! There are a few left on ebay!
I don't know if Jayne ever visited Argentina, but her films did. Even in 1960, our greatest export was culture. Top Issue Chapa Chapa circa 1960 Collection Victor Minx BROWSE AND ORDER BOOKS AND EBOOKS ($5.99) BY JIM LINDERMAN HERE
Top Ten Things you didn't know about VAMPIRA 1. She was Blonde. I guess... 2. She won an Emmy. 3. Her name was Maila Nurmi. 4. She took her look from Cartoonist Charles Adams. 5. Her show ran 50 episodes. 6. She refused to sell-out to ABC. 7. Elvira copied her. 8. James Dean appeared in one show uncredited. 9. She performed a show in Vegas with Liberace. 10. She was paid $75 per episode.
The grandson of master photographer Keith Bernard wrote in requesting information on his grandfather. What I know was written about a year ago (in the series "Unsung Hero of Photography" on the blog HERE. Interestingly, Keith Davis is also a photographer! So far much of what he has learned in his research is that Mr. Bernard was a rogue!
Anyone with pictures, reminiscences or photographs of Keith Bernard (who took many of those incredible photographs of Betty Brosmer) is encouraged to write Mr. Davis at kdavis@ssoelectricwb.com or contact his through his photography website HERE
Bilbrew and Stanton draw Fashion for Leonard Burtman and Burmel
It may have helped that Leonard Burtman ran his "fashion" business in a major urban city, as in the 1950s there weren't too many suburban stay-at-home moms in this gear...but then, there are secrets in many closets. Who really knows?
Actually, how many were made to sell is questionable. Burtman was more about charging considerable coin for his catalog than he was selling duds. Note Gene Bilbrew, his cartoon genius "designer" was depicting "future fashions" and I guess he was right. Over fifty years after the Burmel catalog came out, you'll see things like this on dreadful auto-tuned "pop stars" all the time, even at the last Superbowl! Eric Stanton provides the equally spicy (or dicey) cover depending on your sense of fashion adventure. In Manhattan, there was a tradition of tiny little shops catering to "theatrical and masquerade" clients. Unless they have all been pushed out by rents only Starbucks can afford, a few may still remain. They were patronized by theater folk, yes...but also all manner of proclivities...and not just at showtime or Halloween. Needless, Mr. Burtman, who sold this 16-page catalog for a few bucks, was hardly equipped for retail sales of anything other than fantasy. The few which DID get made were used over and over in his photo lay outs. Burmel Publishing Company Catalog C-4 Circa 1955 Collection Victor Minx Cover by Eric Stanton, other illustrations by Eugene Bilbrew
Robert Bonfils is legendary and a legend to a small but devoted group of collectors. Redundancy is fine when writing about the visual arts or music. Words are inadequate to describe any other senses really…so if a word does apply, use it. Bonfils is legendary.
Good or Bad, Bonfils, to those familiar with his work (increasingly, I fear, a shrinking crowd I hope to remedy at least a bit here) is THE artist who evokes the swinging sixties. The most original of all paperback illustrators (to this day) and a PAINTER more than a designer. He was so good, I tend to avoid him…he isn't funny enough for my taste. But he was major, major creative.
Depending on your viewpoint, the "Agent 008" series (yes, a cheap attempt to cash in on President Kennedy's favorite fictional spy) are either among the best or the worst of Robert Bonfils work. They have been called parodies, and I suppose they are, but they were purchased for the same reason guys bought Ian Fleming…the love scenes.
Some of the images here were lifted from the VINTAGE PAPERBACKS & DIGESTS site I have managed to avoid cribbing from until now. I can't afford either the time or the money to buy these myself, and the site is magnificent. Not that they are too expensive, but others have beat me to it, and this post allows me to share the work of a few paperback scholars. The page devoted to "Bonfils Wants" will give you an idea of the artist's scope. Go there.
The best biography of author Clyde Allison, a pseudonym used by a fascinating beatnik who committed suicide is HERE by Micheal Hemmingson on Those Sexy Vintage Sleaze Books, a site anyone with the slightest interest in popular culture should read, link to and enjoy.
A further indication of the regard for Bonfils among paperback collectors is that his work dominated the essential Sin-A-Rama: Sex Sleaze Paperbacks of the Sixties edited by a few of my heroes.
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