 Annie Belle streaks across Hong Kong and stardom follows. 
Above you seen an Aller, aka Carlo Alessandrini, poster for La fine dell'innocenza, which premiered in Italy today in 1976 and was titled in English Annie, after the lead character Annie Belle. The star of the film had acted under her real name Annie Brilland up to this point, but adopted Annie Belle as her stage name for this film and the rest of her career. Yes, technically she acted as Annie Belle in an earlier movie—Laure, which came out about a week before Annie, but we strongly suspect that made-in-Manila sex romp was shot later and simply went through post production more quickly. Another small movie from 1975 is credited to Belle, but we're sure that was done much later. Annie is the film that made her Belle.
It's a coming of age story in which Belle proves to be too independent for all those—male and female—who wish to possess her. She begins the film under the wing of her incest-minded father, travels with him to Hong Kong, where he's arrested for money laundering, forcing her to fend for herself. From there she makes the inevitable sexual splash in upper crust expat circles around the island. And who can fault them for their interest? In real life Belle is a tiny, tomboyish figure, certainly no more than 5' 2”, but onscreen she comes across as even lusher than the Hong Kong hills. There's no disputing it: the camera loves her. She's one of the most striking stars of any era of cinema.
La fine dell'innocenza is remembered for its extended sequence depicting Belle's escape from a brothel. She pulls it off—no body double—by sprinting starkers through the Hong Kong streets, leaping onto the back of a motorcycle driven by an associate, careening through traffic as she wantonly flouts local helmet laws, leaping off the bike and running again, now chased by cops, to a public fountain, where she's finally apprehended. The scene is worth rewinding just to see all the locals gawking from the backgrounds of the shots. They must have thought, watching this platinum blonde boy-woman with the jet back muff running through their city—what the hell do these foreigners smoke?           
 Come on in. Make yourself uncomfortable.  
More bondage? Sure, why not? We don't pick the release dates. We just post according to them. Above are two Italian posters for the infamous nazisploitation flick Casa privata per le SS, which premiered today in 1977. They don't make them like this anymore, for good reason. The top poster isn't signed, but the second one was painted by Aller, aka Carlo Alessandrini, who also painted the very famous French promo for the film. That promo is similar to the unsigned piece above, but without a signature or official attribution we can't credit it to Aller, so into the mystery bin it goes for now. We did a small write-up on this film back in 2011, and if you're curious you can see that here.
 The one on the grassy knoll got away, so let's tell everyone the only assassin was this guy. 
Above is a poster for the spaghetti western Il prezzo del potere, aka The Price of Power, which opened in Italy today in 1969 and deals with real life events—the assassination of U.S. president James Garfield, who was shot in July 1881 and died eleven weeks later. In real life Garfield was shot in a train station, but in the movie the shooting is set up exactly like JFK's killing, with the exception that Garfield takes a single bullet in the side of the neck. Interesting flick, with Norma Jordan in a bit role, though not one we can call good, precisely. But as a curiosity, you may find it worth your time. The promo poster was painted by Aller, aka Carlo Alessandrini. As we mentioned last month, someone wrote a book that finally identified the guy and we're happy to funnel that info into the online universe. Now that we know more about Alessandrini we plan to post more of his work, and today is yet another great example.
 Laura Gemser bites off more than she can chew in z-grade zombie epic. 
Finally! We've learned that the Italian poster artist who signed his work Aller was a man named Carlo Alessandrini, and we owe that information to a new book by Roberto Curti called Italian Gothic Horror Films 1970-1979. Above you see Alessandrini's work for the Laura Gemser sexploitation flick Le notti erotiche dei morti viventi, aka Sexy Nights of the Living Dead. Gemser started in erotica in 1974, and as the years wore on she basically traded on her name and did less and less actual performing, appearing in several films in little more than cameo roles. In this one she secures top billing for not showing up until the thirty-three minute mark, and not uttering a line of dialogue until probably forty minutes in. Plotwise, a sailor takes a greedy gringo developer and his prostie companion to a deserted island where the American wants to build the finest resort in the Caribbean. The place is called Cat Island and whenever anyone mentions it to the locals who live on nearby islands they run out of the room. To normal people this would be a strong non-endorsement concerning travel to Cat Island, but such blatant hints are lost on lunkheads in horror movies. So a-boating they go. When the developer announces his plan to pave over the old island cemetery to build a heliport you just know he's sticking his dick somewhere he's likely to lose it—Gemser's mouth (see below). Her army of zombies are equally opposed to gentrification, and lodge their protests by chasing the living all over the place. But all is not lost. As the hero explains at one point: “The advantage we have is that they move at a snail's pace.”
So does the movie. One plus is that it was made primarily on beautiful beaches in the Dominican Republic, and several scenes were shot in Santo Domingo, which is interesting to see pre-tourist era. Another plus is that there's wall to wall sex featuring such beauties as Dirce Funari, who's the real star of the movie, and Lucia Ramirez. The unrated version goes all the way, and even treats viewers to a Tijuana donkey show-worthy routine involving a stripper and a Champagne bottle. None of the X action includes Gemser, who was strictly softcore her entire career, though her nudity is more explicit than usual here. Basically, it's all just as dumb as it sounds, but we'll admit it's accidentally funny in parts, which helps. Le notti erotiche dei morti viventi premiered in Italy today in 1980.                  
 He’s one guy you don’t want to sell short.  
Il Trionfo della casta Susanna, for which you see two posters above, isn’t pulp influenced—it’s a period comedy set during the Napoleonic era—but it does feature giallo superstar Edwige Fenech, and any Fenech is good Fenech. Also, the promo posters were painted by Aller, who we’ve shown you a couple of times before, and like Fenech anything he does is worth sharing. Just for fun, we actually watched this film, and basically, the hostess of a hotel saves Napoleon from an assassination attempt, gets romantically entangled with him, and learns some military secrets. By the way, did you know Napoleon wasn’t short? He was about 5’7”, which was above average for those days. Anyway, there’s a lot of bed hopping, tasteful nudity, and broad humor, but really we can’t recommend the movie. Il Trionfo della casta Susanna, aka Frau Wirtin hat auch eine Nichte, aka House of Pleasure opened in Italy today in 1969.    
 They may be officers, but they’re certainly not gentlemen. 
Hmm, how to assess Bruno Mattei’s nazisploitation flick Casa privata per le SS, aka La maison privée des SS, aka SS Girls? Well, let’s just say that the term softcore is too kind. In reality, it’s droopcore, or better yet, shrinkcore—i.e., watching this will affect your sex organs like a dip in icy waters. If you took out all the inept, thrashing semi-sex scenes, and the scenes of sweaty Gabriele Carrara playing his pipe organ, as well as the shots of Nazis laughing evilly (and interminably), what you’d have left is maybe forty minutes of Mystery Science Theatre-level awfulness about a group of women coerced into sleeping with high ranking SS officers in order to uncover a plot to betray Hitler. Our girlfriends gave up during the naked hunchback scene (“Oh my God! That’s revolting! How can you watch this?”) but we stuck with it and eventually focused our attentions on Macha Magall, who might be the only watchable cast member. But she’s eventually mutilated and dumped out a castle window, and the movie fatally plummets at that point too. So in the end, perhaps the flick’s best quality is its promo art by Aller, aka Carlo Alessandrini, which you see above. Casa privata per le SS premiered in Italy today in 1977.   
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The headlines that mattered yesteryear.
1953—Watson and Crick Unravel DNA
American biologists James D. Watson and Francis Crick tell their friends that they have determined the chemical structure of DNA. The formal announcement takes place in April following publication in Nature magazine. In 1968, Watson writes The Double Helix, a non-fiction account of not only the discovery of the structure of DNA, but the personalities, conflicts and controversy surrounding the work. 1922—Challenge to Women's Voting Rights Rebuffed
In the United States, a conservative legal challenge to the nineteenth amendment to the U.S. Constitution establishing voting rights for women is rebuffed by the Supreme Court in Leser v. Garnett. The challenge was based partly on the idea of individual "states rights" to self determination. The failure of such reasoning as it applied to basic human rights created a framework for later states rights losses involving the denial of voting rights to African-Americans. 1917—First Jazz Record Is Made
In New Orleans, The Original Dixieland Jass Band records the first ever jazz record for the Victor Talking Machine Company in New York. The band was frequently billed as the "Creators of Jazz", but in reality all the members had previously played in the Papa Jack Laine bands, a group of racially mixed performers who helped form the basis of Dixieland while playing under bandleader George Laine.
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