 Come on, baby, scientists say we already have a common ancestor, so let’s make a common offspring. 
Doris Houck clowns around with an actor in a gorilla suit in this photo shot by Joseph Jasgur during the mid-1940s. Houck was an actress who appeared in about twenty-five films, many of the roles uncredited, but who also starred in several well-remembered Three Stooges shorts. This whole ape thing, though, she probably always tried to forget.
 Sandro Symeoni presents an Italian vision of Japan. 
We often share Japanese movie posters, but today we thought we’d look at Japan through the eyes of Italian illustration master Sandro Symeoni. This poster is for La strada della vergogna, which was a Japanese movie made by Kenji Mizoguchi entitled Akasen chitai, aka Street of Shame. No shame in this art. 1956 on the original film, 1959 on this poster.
 Bridge to nowhere. 
Above, another photo from the coffee table book so morbid it will put you off your coffee—Scene of the Crime: Photographs from the LAPD Archive. This image shows the aftermath of a suicide leap from L.A.’s 7th Street Bridge, today 1959.
 Lana Turner makes a splash. 
We’ve shared five or six Paris-Hollywood magazines, including a few last year, but it’s been since 2012 that we found an issue with one of its trademark déshabillable—or undressable—centerfolds. Not surprising, since the magazine featured them for only a year or so. Anyway, we have an especially charming one inside this 1950 issue, painted by pin-up master Roger Brard, whose clever work we’ve shown you before. The issue also has an unrecognizable photo-illustration or painting of Lana Turner playing with soapsuds on the cover. We’d never have thought it was her, but it says so at lower right. Ten scans below, and more issues if you follow the links starting with this one.
 Spain is germane only if you look closely at Miss Crayne.  
American actress Dani Crayne stands in front of a piece by the Valencian bullfight painter Juan Reus Parra, who signed his work J. Reus (not J. Revs, as many websites say) and was a top artist during the 1940s and 1950s. The poster advertises the Sunday bullfights at Barcelona’s impressive Moorish-Byzantine style La Monumental bullring. You would therefore think, this being a promo photo, that Crayne was shooting a movie having to do with bullfights or Spain, but she was actually filming Shoot-Out at Medicine Bend in the U.S., and it had zilch to do with bulls, Spain, or anything remotely Spanish. She is, though, wearing a somewhat Spanish outfit, and she looks great in it, so that must be the connection. The photo dates from 1957.
 It’s gonna be the death of you. 
The interest in Mexican pulp art continues to pick up steam. This heroin themed piece was created for a book or comic called Rock Candentes y Mortal, which translates as something like “red-hot and deadly rock.” It was painted, quite skillfully we think, by Jaime S., or alternatively Jaimes. The artists who worked in this market typically signed their work with single names, with the result that today info on most of them is impossible to find. At least for now. Let that be a lesson to you to always sign your work properly. This coming from a couple of anonymous website guys.
 Whether coming or going she was determined to make an impression. 
Above is a photo of American actress Vikki Dougan at the 1957 Foreign Press Banquet in Hollywood, California. Dougan is wearing a daring backless dress designed to generate publicity for her film career. Since Marilyn Monroe and Jayne Mansfield had a stranglehold on the bosom, Dougan and her studio handlers at Batjac Productions decided she should go the opposite direction and bare her back. To say she garnered press would be an understatement, but despite the reams of slavering coverage her career never quite ignited. She remains, however, well remembered for proving that it’s sometimes good to say yes to crack.
 Love and other art forms. 
Above, a great piece from Aslan, aka Alain Gourdon, fronting Le pays de l’amour perdu, aka Country of Lost Love, written by Y. Patrick for France Euro Presse’s series Le Roman de Minuit. Y. Patrick was in reality Jacques-Henri Juillet, and he was aka Roland Yann Patrick, Henri Chamelet, Carol Paterson, and others. Basically, you’re nobody in French pulp if you don’t write under an entire phone book of pseudonyms. 1959 is the publication year on this.
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The headlines that mattered yesteryear.
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. 1962—Marilyn Monroe Sings to John F. Kennedy
A birthday salute to U.S. President John F. Kennedy takes place at Madison Square Garden, in New York City. The highlight is Marilyn Monroe's breathy rendition of "Happy Birthday," which does more to fuel speculation that the two were sexually involved than any actual evidence. 1926—Aimee Semple McPherson Disappears
In the U.S., Canadian born evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson disappears from Venice Beach, California in the middle of the afternoon. She is initially thought to have drowned, but on June 23, McPherson stumbles out of the desert in Agua Prieta, a Mexican town across the border from Douglas, Arizona, claiming to have been kidnapped, drugged, tortured and held for ransom in a shack by two people named Steve and Mexicali Rose. However, it soon becomes clear that McPherson's tale is fabricated, though to this day the reasons behind it remain unknown. 1964—Mods and Rockers Jailed After Riots
In Britain, scores of youths are jailed following a weekend of violent clashes between gangs of Mods and Rockers in Brighton and other south coast resorts. Mods listened to ska music and The Who, wore suits and rode Italian scooters, while Rockers listened to Elvis and Gene Vincent, and rode motorcycles. These differences triggered the violence.
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