Elke Sommer speeds through Hollywood during the late hours in this promotional photo from a 1963 issue of the French magazine Stop. She was famous at this point, having appeared in films in Europe, but she wasn’t yet the global icon she would become. In less than a year the hit comedy A Shot in the Dark would make her one of Hollywood’s biggest stars.

In June we shared a Japanese poster for Elke Sommer’s 1966 comedy Boy Did I Get a Wrong Number and talked about the movie a bit. Today we have two even better Italian promos for the same film. In Italy it was succinctly retitled Un bikini per Didi, and the art is by yet another Italian talent, this time Tino Avelli, who we haven’t featured before. We’ll have more from him later.

It’s pretty much a bylaw around here to occasionally feature Elke Sommer on the site, so above we have a collection of German record sleeves from one of that country’s greatest exports. While her beauty is timeless, her music isn’t, but it certainly is on trend for the period—i.e. a bit cheesy, a bit camp, such as her 1962 western ballad “Georgie.” Not our cup of tea, but if you want to hear it for yourself follow this link. 

Well, that was fun. Berlin is an interesting city, dynamic, hectic and ultramodern, but also much greener than we expected. Certainly a recommendable destination, though we did encounter an €8 glass of white wine, which makes us happy to be back where the same pour costs exactly eight times less. We’re a bit tired today, so we’re just going to do a couple of brief shares, just so you know we’re still alive. Above is the cover from the West German celeb magazine Gondel (Gondola) featuring Elisa Mainardi. Inside you get shots of Teresa Velasquez, Lisa Gastoni and more, and on the rear cover you get goddess Elke Sommer. Most of the shots are unimaginative portraits that don’t do the subjects justice, but the images are rare, which makes them worth sharing. You can see more Gondel covers here. This issue came out in 1964. 

Sometimes we get a little lazy with our scanning. You already know that. A couple of years ago we shared the cover and two pages from an issue of The Lowdown and discussed the murder trial of Dr. Sam Sheppard. In that issue were some other interesting pages, particularly of German actress Elke Sommer. We had made her our very first femme fatale way back, so we always thought she was amazing, but we gained a new appreciation for her after watching her in Deadlier than the Male. Really, scientists should double-check that global warming didn’t start in 1967, because that’s how hot she is in that movie. Anyway, we realized The Lowdown’s photos of Sommer might not have appeared online before, so we decided to take care of that today. What are those naughty secrets about her, you ask? The Lowdown says she was a swinger before she got married.

And speaking of global warming, we also wanted to share a couple of pages in which The Lowdown tries to cast doubt on the cancer causing properties of cigarettes. Reading the article, we’d venture to say that the debate was at about the same place as that over global warming today. Here’s a choice line from the piece: “Air pollution by gasoline vehicles and industrial gasses are a more likely cause of lung cancer." Here'sanother one: “Blaming lung cancer on cigarettes may actually be retarding research into the real causes of the disease.” And what the heck, here’s one more: “Smoking shows no statistical link to the rates of still birth, abortion and birth complications.” So there you have it—conclusive proof. The alarmists were wrong then, and they’re wrong now.

Above, two amazing photos of German actress Elke Sommer fooling around in a spray of water by a swimming pool. Of the many great shots of an all-time cinematic beauty, these are is certainly two of the best. We don't have a date on them, but around 1970 is a good guess. 

Here’s a random little something we ran across at an auction site, a duotoned cover of Picture Show from today 1968 with Elke Sommer. No interiors, but we thought we’d share it anyway because Sommer has been on our minds since we watched her in Deadlier Than the Male a couple of weeks ago. She really has to be seen to be believed in that. More from Sommer later.

Update: Actually more from Sommer sooner, because we just realized there was another photo of her from the same shoot, which we've uploaded below.

Every time we see a cover of the Japanese celeb/cinema magazine Movie Information/Movie Pictorial we find ourselves thinking how cool they look. It’s a publication that goes all the way back to the early 1950s, and it had a few different periods, graphically speaking, but for some reason we always preferred these clean, colorful late-1960s early-1970s covers. So we thought we’d upload a few fronts and backs we’ve found over the years and see if you agree. As far as the name goes, we usually see the magazine referred to in English as Movie Pictorial, and in fact the back cover does say that, obviously. But the front cover writing definitely says “Movie Information.” So there you go. But we’ve actually turned screwing up these translations into a fine art, so we won’t be heartbroken if we’re wrong. Anyway, see below. And FYI, the girl in the scuba tank is Barbara Bouchet, so she’s on three covers. The scuba image is a promo shot from Voyage To the Bottom of the Sea. You can see two more front covers here and here.