Manhandlers, right? It's a good title for a sexploitation movie, and John Solie painted a nice promo poster, but the actual product is a limp drama with dopy comedic episodes about a woman played by Cara Burgess who inherits her mobbed up uncle's L.A. massage parlor and finds that it's a front for a brothel. Her uncle was killed for being uncooperative with the mafia, and now they come after her, trying to intimidate her into signing away half of the place's profits. One the one hand, she'd supposedly net a nice income just for looking the other way and doing nothing. On the other, she'd be giving in to organized crime. The answer? Fill both hands with scented oil, massage the mob into a sense of false security, then make her move. None of it is as interesting as it sounds, at no point are machine guns wielded, and for sexploitation the extracurriculars aren't very erotic, even with Judy Brown and Rosalind Miles in support. You can give this one a pass. The Manhandlers premiered—and went limp at the box office—today in 1974. 

This photo, which is another one from the Los Angeles Police Department photo archive, shows an unidentified man after police crime scene detectives have outlined his body in chalk. Note the knife. He defended himself against an attacker, but unsuccessfully. Or perhaps he attacked someone and they defended themself successfully. The photos from the archive carry only the information written on them, and in this case that's nothing. But it's a compelling shot, made today in 1950. 

Why did we read Evil Desire? Because the cover femme fatale is obviously copied from Ursula Andress (in her 1965 role in What's New Pussycat?) and sometimes that's all it takes to attract our interest. The artist is credited only as Ellison, and though we wouldn't say he/she is greatly skilled, they at least chose a good model. The book was written by Carl DeMarco, author or pseudonym behind other sleaze efforts such as The Body Beautiful, Suzanne, and Woman on a String, and is exactly as its cover describes, as a stepfather gets sexually involved with his wife's eighteen year-old daughter. It all begins when he attempts to punish the daughter with a spanking, and finds not only that he likes it—so does she. In the end the two end up living together in Brazil and the spurned wife finds love at home, leaving everyone horny and happy by the final sentence. It wasn't competent in terms of writing skill, but in its favor it was—despite its title—light in tone, making for an easy and fast read. Is that a recommendation? Not even remotely. 

This is, once again, Robert Silverberg hiding behind his usual pen name Don Elliott for 1965's Only the Depraved from sleaze imprint Greenleaf Classics. This is the second time we've seen a domestic staffer delivering his employer two drinks at once. That's how we order them too. The cover is uncredited. 

Above is another cover from J.H. Moriën for Amsterdam based publishers Uitgeverij Orion, this time fronting Danny slaat geld uit de vrouwen by Loren Beauchamp, aka Robert Silverberg. We're pretty sure this is a translation of his 1959 novel Another Love, Another Night. The title in Dutch means, “Danny beats women out of money,” which we assume refers to a beating of the grifter variety rather than anything physical. Moriën's art, with its beautiful color palette and sheet-wrapped femme fatale, is sublime. Click his keywords below to see more. 

Above: a little Beacon Signal sleaze for you today, a cover for Woman's Doctor by Terry James, published in 1962. We've shared numerous medical paperback covers over the years. Several of our favorites are here, here, here, and here.