Last week we shared a few images from a new bondage collection called Strictly Bondage created by Berlin-based publishers Goliath, and mentioned that the book we received was one of two. Above you see the cover of the second collection—Kinky Bondage Obsession. How different can two bondage books be? You’d be surprised. Shot by Jim Weathers, Kinky Bondage Obsession is of course about the restraints, but more so than Strictly Bondage, it’s about color and texture. Weathers’ models are beautifully garbed—clad in metallic purples and shimmering crimsons, sheathed in skin hugging vinyl and nylon. Rubber, faux fur, PVC, and patent leather abound. The action takes place in opulent, suede-walled salons appointed with wooden accessories. In fact, the book could double as a catalog for expensive bondage outfits and shabby chic home decorations.

The press material references David Lynch and that’s easy to see. Weathers has made Blue Velvet with the lights turned up a notch, before Dennis Hopper barged in, screamed amyl nitrate-fueled filth and ruined the party. An all female party, by the way, which is another contrast to Strictly Bondage. The lack of men in this thick book may seem to bring the threat level down, but on the other hand, since most of the four-hundred-plus shots are solo—that is, they feature only a bound woman—you have to wonder who exactly is doing the restraining. Possibly it's you, you kinky devil. But some scenes do feature a dominator, always another woman, and the implicit question presented in those deals with gender expectations. Beyond the technicolor outfits and opulent interiors, do you see pure domination, mutual consent, or mere artifice?  The answer may reveal your attitudes about women and power. You can read more about Kinky Bondage Obsession at the Goliath website.

Below are the covers of some promotional brochures made by Illustrierte Film-Bühne for movies released in West Germany during the 1950s and 1960s. The examples here, some of which have killer designs, feature Elizabeth Taylor, Marisa Mell, Cary Grant, Virna Lisi, Sophia Loren, Doris Day, Tony Curtis, et.al. IFB was founded in 1946 in Munich by Paul Franke, and over the years produced thousands of these pamphlets. We’ll share more later.

This provocative shot features German adult actress Brigitte Maier from the Dutch magazine Chick, sometimes referred to as Chick Amsterdam. Back in October we featured a poster, which you can have a look at here, from Maier’s famous 1975 X-rated hit Sensations. This image was made the previous year.

Elizabeth Taylor nude! Those sneaks at Whisper raised the hopes of millions of readers who bought this March 1965 issue, but inside revealed that the whited-out silhouette on the cover with Richard Burton is in reality a wooden statue of Taylor made to promote her role in The Sandpiper. It was to be unveiled at a party aboard the Queen Mary, but producer Joseph E. Levine connived a way for the sculpture to be stowed below decks so his star Carroll Baker wouldn’t be upstaged. In the end, nobody at the party saw the Taylor statue and Carroll Baker—once again wearing that amazing dress, by the way—ruled the day.

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, a very cool polka-dotted cover of the French weekly Point de Vue, published 3 March 1956, with Marilyn Monroe. An interesting detail about the magazine is that it launched in March 1945, while World War II was still raging, and less than a month (if we have our history right) after the last of the German army had been driven from French territory. Maybe that level of advance planning explains why the magazine is still around today.

This February 1966 National Police Gazette marks the eighteenth time we’ve found Hitler on the venerable publication’s cover, and this is not the last we’ll see of Der Führer on the Gazette—we have three more that will bring his total to twenty-one, and we’re sure there are others out there. This time around, the world’s greatest medium Madame Luce Vidi has seen Hitler not crisped to a cinder in Berlin, but alive and kicking in the tropics. The Gazette attempts to quell any doubts about Vidi's divinatory prowess by informing readers that she foresaw “the assassination of President Kennedy and had predicted the time of the tragedy, and had also seen the death of French boxer Marcel Cerdan, the former middleweight champion, in a plane crash.”

After establishing Vidi’s bona fides, Gazette editors tell us their independent research showed that Hitler escaped Germany aboard a submarine on April 10, 1945, and traveled to a base in Norway where he and a female companion boarded a second sub, laden with millions of dollars in treasure, and sailed for Argentina. Hitler eventually fetched up in the vicinity of San Carlos de Bariloche, where Nazis had years earlier purchased 10,000 acres of land. Vidi describes what Hitler looks like in 1966 (hint: not good—see below). The story ends by claiming he resides in a tropical fortress, where “the aged despot, his heart brimming with hatred and his mind full of the days when his voice shook the world, lives out his time in misery.”

As we’ve pointed out, anyone who thinks conspiracy theories are a new phenomenon needs to read more history. Americans in particular have always given credence to alternate versions of important events, so next time you see someone on television saying Barack Obama was born in Kenya, just remember it’s nothing new. As it turns out though, the town of San Carlos de Bariloche was exposed as a hideout for at least one Nazi when former SS Hauptsturmführer Erich Priebke was found there in 1995. He had been running the local German school. As recently as 2004 claims that Hitler had also lived in the area were aired in an internationally published book, and of course slammed by mainstream historians. But since something like 9,000 former Nazis fled to various parts of South America, we'd be lying if we said we didn't wonder if Hitler couldn't have managed the feat.

Though Luce Vidi supposedly utilized a crystal ball for her Hitler visions, her true specialty was reading ink blots—i.e., she required her clients to throw ink on a surface and she would divine the future from the resultant shapes. We can’t help wondering if she ever divined that she would go from being the “world’s greatest medium” to almost completely forgotten. We doubt it. They never seem to see that coming. We should also note that her vision did not jibe with the beliefs of those who theorized Hitler living near San Carlos de Bariloche. Vidi saw Hitler living in a tropical place—in the background was a turtle dozing on a sandy beach. San Carlos de Bariloche is nestled in the foothills of the Andes, an area where people go to ski, trek and climb. There isn’t a beach anywhere in sight. 

New Year’s Eve is always a time of revelry, partying, and cringeworthy attempts to turn friendly midnight kisses into full blown sexual escapades, so what better day of the year to share this vintage 1931 condom box from Sheik? The Sheik company was founded by a half-paralyzed German immigrant named Julius Schmid, who arrived in New York City in 1884 at age seventeen and whose first job was as a—wait for it—sausage maker. Inspired by stuffing meat into animal intestines, he used the same principle to create his first condoms.

At first he sold exclusively from his apartment, and because all contraception was illegal in the U.S. at the time, he billed his skins as “French goods and medicines.” They were incredibly popular, because childbirth was dangerous and forcing women to be baby factories had serious impacts on their longevity. By the time condoms were made legal in 1918 Schmid was uniquely positioned to dominate the market. He became the official condom supplier to the U.S. military, launched the Ramses condom brand, and by the 1930s was sitting on a multi-million dollar fortune.

We were surprised to see similar Sheik condom tins online with fifty-dollar asking prices, but then a little spin around the interwebs informed us that these prices are driven by collectors. Yes, people actually collect these things. Presumably, they make great conversation pieces. With this one you really get your money’s worth, because it contains one unused, still-in-its-wrapper Sheik condom, as reliable and efficacious as the day it was manufactured. Okay, maybe not.

Happy 2013, pulpsters. We have plenty of lovely surprises planned for the upcoming year, so please keep dropping by. Our traffic has just about recovered from the erasure of our database earlier this year by the domain-company-that-shall-not-be-named, and each and every one of your visits is truly appeciated. Tomorrow, assuming we aren't hung over, we'll get back to posting pages from the Goodtime Weekly Calendar, so look forward to that. Okay, guess that's it for now. Have fun tonight, be safe in every way, and remember, when it comes time for that midnight kiss, fortune favors the bold.