 We’ve got something special up our sleeves. 
Above and below are the front and rear sleeves of four Japanese soundtrack pressings for the 1960s James Bond films Thunderball, From Russia with Love, You Only Live Twice, and Goldfinger. The themes were sung by Tom Jones, Matt Munro, Nancy Sinatra, and Shirley Bassey respectively, and pictured along with Sean Connery you see Bond beauties Claudine Auger and Shirley Eaton. Ms. Eaton, as wrong-place wrong-time Jill Masterson, had the dubious honor of being suffocated under a coating of gold paint, certainly one of the most infamous deaths of any Bond femme. We think these sleeves are great, and if you agree and want to see a lot more excellent 007 soundtrack art, check our previous posts here, here, and especially here. On a related note, the Bond franchise’s fiftieth anniversary is next month, and in honor of the occasion former star Roger Moore, along with co-stars Britt Ekland and Richard Kiel, are touring around England with a Blu-ray box set of all the films, which are stored inside a gold case that is in turn comfortably riding in one of Bond’s preferred vehicles, an Aston Martin DBS. Actors, auto, and discs are visiting some of the iconic locations of the Bond series in advance of the release of the next film, which is entitled Skyfall. You can read more about all that here. Japan, Thunderball, From Russia with Love, Goldfinger, You Only Live Twice, James Bond, Sean Connery, Roger Moore, Britt Ekland, Richard Kiel, Shirley Eaton, Claudine Auger, Matt Munro, Nancy Sinatra, Shirley Bassey, Tom Jones, cinema
 Confidential gets out its trusty airbrush. 
 We like this fun blue cover of Confidential from January 1968, but it’s just a bit misleading. The image of Nancy Sinatra is doctored to imply that she's naked. The original, which you see below, was shot around the time she was filming her 1966 comedy caper The Last of the Secret Agents? In the movie there’s a scene in which her dress gets snagged on something and accidentally torn off. The moment is played for laughs, in a public setting. The ensemble she wore in that scene is exactly what she has on in the photo, which suggests it was probably shot to promote the film. Nancy in her undies could not save The Last of the Secret Agents? from bad reviews and an underwhelming run, but while the movie was a dud, the undies photo became quite famous and was used on many magazines, including a cover of The National Police Gazette that we showed you a couple of years ago. Leave it to Confidential to suggest that more came off during the filming of Secret Agents than ended up in the final version of the film, but as far as we know, Sinatra never appeared fully nude in any medium until 1995, when she was 54 years old and did a layout for Playboy. Before that she had shot a promo photo in which she appeared to be bare, but with arms and legs arranged to hide the naughty bits. The Playboy spread, by contrast, hid nothing. And Confidential? It hid the truth.
 A song is worth a thousand pictures. The other day we realized that nearly all of our femmes fatales released records at some point, so we have a megapost of sleeves below representing a fraction of these multi-talented women’s musical output. We’ve heard most of the music, believe it or not, and while its quality varies, we do suggest you check out both Marilyn Chambers and Reiko Ike—their simulated orgasms are quite pleasing to the, er, ears.                                                
U.S.A., England, Australia, Japan, Sweden, Turkey, Netherlands, Italy, Marilyn Chambers, Farrah Fawcett, Meiko Kaji, Sylvia Kristel, Abigail, Linda Yamamoto, Jayne Mansfield, Reiko Ike, Eartha Kitt, Christina Lindberg, Diana Dors, Elke Sommer, Radiah Frye, Fatma Girik, Nancy Sinatra, Marilyn Monroe, Britt Ekland, Brigitte Bardot, Sophia Loren, Jane Birkin, Monica Vitti, sex symbol, nudity
 Nobody does art better.                       
James Bond soundtrack albums and singles, with production art covers, plus paintings by Frank McCarthy, Robert McGinnis and others. Dr. No, Diamonds Are Forever, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, Thunderball, Live and Let Die, Man with the Golden Gun, From Russia with Love, The Spy Who Loved Me, Goldfinger, Frank McCarthy, Robert McGinnis, James Bond, John Barry, Art Farmer, Shirley Bassey, Nancy Sinatra, Roger Moore, Sean Connery, album art
 Nancy Sinatra sets Guinness record for world’s biggest panties. 
We had planned to share more Dutch pulp today, but we can't manage the work after last night, an eventful foray into the Amsterdam social scene that included getting tossed from a bar called Royalty. And we don't mean tossed like politely asked to leave. We mean tossed like bouncers putting us in arm locks and bum rushing us out the door. So we won't be going back there. Anyway, here's our backup post, an August 1969 issue of The National Police Gazette, with Nancy Sinatra rocking the retro bod and granny panties. Notice her missing navel—in 1969 exposed navels were still considered risqué, which is why they had only just begun to appear in movies, weren’t shown on respectable magazine covers, and were entirely banned from television. At first we thought it was possible Nancy’s naughty little button was tucked inside her bottoms, but then we began to suspect it had been airbrushed away. Finally, we decided she’s an alien with no navel at all. Which also would explain the wink—that’s what aliens do when they’re about to probe you. But then we found two more photos from the same session, which are proof positive the airbrushing theory is correct, and that she isn’t an alien. A shame, really. After last night, we could use a good probing.  
 
February 1961 Top Secret cover with Jayne Mansfield, Lucky Luciano, Suzy Parker and Nancy Sinatra.
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The headlines that mattered yesteryear.
1942—Ted Williams Enlists
Baseball player Ted Williams of the Boston Red Sox enlists in the United States Marine Corps, where he undergoes flight training and eventually serves as a flight instructor in Pensacola, Florida. The years he lost to World War II (and later another year to the Korean War) considerably diminished his career baseball statistics, but even so, he is indisputably one of greatest players in the history of the sport. 1924—Leopold and Loeb Murder Bobby Franks
Two wealthy University of Chicago students named Richard Loeb and Nathan Leopold, Jr. murder 14-year-old Bobby Franks, motivated by no other reason than to prove their intellectual superiority by committing a perfect crime. But the duo are caught and sentenced to life in prison. Their crime becomes known as a "thrill killing", and their story later inspires various works of art, including the 1929 play Rope by Patrick Hamilton, and Alfred Hitchcock's 1948 film of the same name. 1916—Rockwell's First Post Cover Appears
The Saturday Evening Post publishes Norman Rockwell's painting "Boy with Baby Carriage", marking the first time his work appears on the cover of that magazine. Rockwell would go to paint many covers for the Post, becoming indelibly linked with the publication. During his long career Rockwell would eventually paint more than four thousand pieces, the vast majority of which are not on public display due to private ownership and destruction by fire.
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