If you’re going to do smut, do it highbrow. This July 1937 issue of the French nudie mag Beautés is filled with many classy images, but our favorite is the woman who seems to be making plans for the defense of Paris. We really hope DeGaulle didn’t listen to her, but on the other hand, it would explain a lot. 

Cover and interior pages from Adam, July 1976.  

Assorted covers of the French nudie mag Paris Flash, with Mylène Demongeot, Jane Fonda, Catherine Jourdan and others. 

Algerian-born French actress-turned-astrologer Elizabeth Teissier, shown here in a shot originally published in the French nudie magazine Lui, circa 1975. 

Assorted images from Adam, March 1973, with nice shots of Claudia Cardinale and Vanessa Redgrave in panel nine. It also features something we’ve never seen before—a cover that reverses the traditionally assigned roles. For an idea what we mean, check here. 

Here’s another Paris-Hollywood, which we've mentioned before is one of our favorite vintage erotic mags. Below is one of their famous semi-transparent centerfolds, along with some nude-o-licious interior pages. We explained how the centerfolds work in our last post on this magazine, so feel free to click on over there and have a peek. We have a few more Paris-Hollywoods we’ll post pretty soon. 

Cover and interior pages from the French erotic magazine La Vie Parisienne, January 1959. If you recognize the photo of Lily Niagara in panel two, that may be because we used it back in August for another post. We have more issues of this publication to show you in the future.

Cover and assorted interior pages from the January 1974 issue of the great Australian men’s magazine Adam. Incidentally, that suspicious stain on Heidi's leg in panel twenty-four was put there by a previous owner, we swear. Click keyword Adam below to see the other issues. 

Paris-Hollywood was a cinema and cheesecake magazine published every two weeks in France from 1947 to 1973. Its first issue featured Rita Hayworth on the cover, and over the years dozens more movie stars, as well as scores of unknown models, graced its cover. This issue, from 1952, features not just a provocative cover shot, but one of the magazine’s favorite interior treats—a centerfold that strips. It’s ingeniously simple. The centerspread is a piece of semi-transparent white paper inked in such a way as to strategically block portions of the pages beneath. In this case, a silhouette of black ink creates the image of a woman in a catsuit. But lift the white paper and you see the same figure nude. The coolness of this trick can only be described using the word on the magazine’s cover: “espièglerie”—the state of being mischievous or frolicsome. Take a look below and see if we aren’t right. 

Today, nudie mags seem to be the last refuge of women whose careers are failing, but back in the day such publications were instrumental in launching careers. This photo of Italian actress Anita Pallenberg appeared in the Italian nudie mag Playmen in 1965, two years before she scored her first film role. Other women who used Playmen as a stepping stone to stardom include Brigitte Bardot, Patty Pravo, Ornella Muti, and Barbara Bouchet. Pallenberg, in addition to acting, became a famous companion to Keith Richards and moved into fashion design, but fame was a turbulent ride. She dealt and consumed drugs, became involved in the occult, and was even acquitted of manslaughter charges in 1979. There's too much to tell in one small post. We'll revisit this interesting person at a later date.