One thousand and one nights with Marlene. Above, a photo of German actress Marlene Dietrich, mystical and regal, playing Lady Jamila in the 1944 Arabian Nights style adventure Kismet, aka Oriental Dream. The film is about a beggar who schemes to marry off his daughter to a member of the Baghdad royal court while himself wooing the Queen of the Grand Vizier's harem. It was one of nearly sixty motion pictures in which Dietrich appeared between 1919 and 1979. If you want to check out the dance number depicted in the photo, look here.
Desire is easy. It's fulfillment that's hard.
This unusual promo pamphlet was made for the Australian release of May Britt's romantic drama The Blue Angel, which opened Down Under today in 1959. 20th Century Fox's publicity department was calling it “one of the great classic films of all times,” though it had only been out a few months. The lesson here is never believe the publicity department. In the film, which is a remake of Marlene Dietrich's 1930 classic of the same name, Swedish bombshell May Britt plays a burlesque performer named Lola-Lola who dances and sings nightly at a smalltown cabaret called the Blue Angel. She draws the romantic attention of a prudish, perhaps even virginal, high school professor, and all kinds of complications follow, ranging from the good (love and romance) to the bad (scorn and unemployment). It's been said that Britt was chosen over Marilyn Monroe for this role, but if that's true, we're looking at a remarkably different movie than Monroe would have made. For one thing, while financed by 20th Century Fox, the movie is set in Germany and everyone in it hails from somewhere in Europe. We can't imagine that was the plan if Monroe had starred, but as a remake of a German classic, we suppose it's possible. Anotherbig difference is that Britt is not in any way Monroesque. While both are blonde and beautiful, Britt has a knowing, grown-up, real-woman demeanor, her voice a throaty contralto, while Monroe played wiggly-hipped high-pitched kittenish to the hilt. We can only assume the role was intended as a departure for Monroe, and a major departure it would have been. But this is Britt's film and one thing is sure—she has talent. This isn't a surprise. She had already been in thirteen movies by this point. The Blue Angel came out the year before she met and married Sammy Davis, Jr. She made one more movie then was out of show business until after she and Davis divorced eight years later. These would have been her prime moviemaking years, but she chose to be a wife and mother,and has commented of that period that she chose correctly. Yet The Blue Angel gives a strong indication what sort of star she might have been. 20th Century Fox may have jumped the gun calling the film one of the great classics of all times, but now that it's actually an old film, and it's undoubtedly good thanks to May Britt and the very capable Curd Jürgens, maybe that description isn't so far off after all.
Everybody who was anybody got inside. Above and below, scans from the French show-biz and showgirl magazine Paris-Hollywood, issue 26, from 1948. The front cover features Marguerite Chapman, the rear Arlene Dahl, and in between you get Cyd Charisse, Patricia Roc, Martha Vickers, Alexis Smith, Anne Jeffreys, Luce Feyrer, Edwige Feuillère, Marlene Dietrich, and other luminaries. That's quite a collection of celebs. In upcoming years the magazine would spend more time on cabaret dancers, but its early issues were all about international stars. We picked up a few of these in Paris a while back and we’ll get to some detailed scans of those soon. In the meantime, you can see more from Paris-Hollywood here, here, and here.
They always say to aim high in life but I’ve found aiming low gets good results too. Isa Miranda was born in Italy in 1909 as Ines Isabella Sampietro and by 1933 was acting in films. The next year she earned widespread acclaim in Max Ophüls’ La Signora di tutti, a role that paved the way for her to leap to Hollywood where she was billed as an Italian Marlene Dietrich. The above promo shows Miranda in character as Anna from 1939’s Hotel Imperial, a movie in which she shot nobody in the crotch, despite her low aim here.
Half a century and countless social changes later only one story in Suppressed remains shocking. This July 1955 Suppressed serves up its usual outrage, with Erroll Flynn bedding a woman half his age, Debra Paget scandalizing audiences with her dancing, and Marlene Dietrich, Greta Garbo, Paulette Goddard and others brazenly indulging in “promiscuity, free living and flagrant exhibitionism.” Which is to say, they moved on to other sexual partners without bothering to get divorced. The magazine also takes a swipe at Terry Moore, who “resorts to suggestive gowns rather than talent.” We’d love to have read what Suppressed would have printed when Moore posed nude for Playboy in 1984 at age 55, but it was long defunct by then. After bashing celebs, the editors move on to fashion, offering a primer on hepcat style, but before you rush out to buy a pair of zebra print shoes, remember that the line forms behind us. Later, the magazine offers readers a peek inside a mental asylum, and in the process shows a few hair-raising practices. Among them are violent patients being penned together like cattle, and a delirious alcoholic who is “brought back to reality by shock treatment.” We think the easiest way to shock an alcoholic back to reality is to tell him he’s out of booze, but what do we know? It’s ironic, though, that all the sexual innuendo and moral outrage mustered by Suppressed seems so misplaced now, and the one story editors probably thought of as uncontroversial—electrically shocking alcoholics—is truly frightening. How times change.
Uncensored takes readers from New York City to Spain to Havana in search of dirt.
Uncensored returns to Pulp Intl. for the first time in over a year with an issue published this month in 1955. The story of Ava Gardner and Frank Sinatra’s tumultuous relationship (and the Spanish bullfighter who helped ruin it) has been covered numerous times, so no need to get into it again just now, but the photos are certainly worth a look. Uncensored shares other nice images as well. There’s Eartha Kitt (described as not much to look at “unlike such Negro beauties as Dorothy Dandridge and Lena Horne”), Sarita Montiel (who in Mexico was allegedly on the receiving end of a horsewhipping by Miguel Aleman’s jealous wife), and Marlene Dietrich (seen both onstage performing and offstage fulfilling a G.I.’s request for a kiss). The latter photo, from 1945, appeared in Life and many other magazines and remains one of the most famous Dietrich images. So Hollywood starlets take note: if you want millions of dollars in free publicity, no need to get arrested or leak nude photos—just kiss a fan. Uncensored readers also meet Father Divine, (who we wrote about here), his alleged rival Prophet Jones, get a glimpse of nightlife in the so-called Bohemia of NYC’s Greenwich Village, and are introduced to “The World’s Hottest Hot Spot,” Havana, Cuba. Readers see photos of an actual drug deal taking place on some backstreet and learn that the city is “Babylonian bedlam,” where “one can buy marijuana, cocaine, forbidden wormwood liquor, illegal bon bons, or just oblivion.” There’s a photo of a woman outside a revolving repository at Havana’s Orfanato Beneficia (Beneficia Orphanage) where mothers could leave their unwanted babies as easily as mailing a postcard. The caption on the photo? “Despite its bawdiness, Havana has a heart.” A baby depository? Is it any wonder there was a revolution? Twenty-four scans below for your enjoyment.
They only have eyes for you. We were researching our recent post on fascist-era femme fatale Isa Miranda when we stumbled across fourteen sets of eyes from some of the most famous starlets of the 1930s. They were on a Brazilian fashion blog called Cajon DeSastre, now defunct, and we gather they came from a book—Fashion at the Time of Fascism—which we’d love to read if we could find a copy. Anyway, just a little eye candy for Friday.
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The headlines that mattered yesteryear.
1951—The Rosenbergs Are Convicted of Espionage
Americans Ethel and Julius Rosenberg are convicted of conspiracy to commit espionage as a result of passing nuclear secrets to the Soviet Union. While declassified documents seem to confirm Julius Rosenberg's role as a spy, Ethel Rosenberg's involvement is still a matter of dispute. Both Rosenbergs were executed on June 19, 1953. 1910—First Seaplane Takes Flight
Frenchman Henri Fabre, who had studied airplane and propeller designs and had also patented a system of flotation devices, accomplishes the first take-off from water at Martinque, France, in a plane he called Le Canard, or "the duck." 1953—Jim Thorpe Dies
American athlete Jim Thorpe, who was one of the most prolific sportsmen ever and won Olympic gold medals in the 1912 pentathlon and decathlon, played American football at the collegiate and professional levels, and also played professional baseball and basketball, dies of a heart attack. 1958—Khrushchev Becomes Premier
Nikita Khrushchev becomes premier of the Soviet Union. During his time in power he is responsible for the partial de-Stalinization of the Soviet Union, and presides over the rise of the early Soviet space program, but his many policy failures lead to him being deposed in October 1964. After his removal he is pensioned off and lives quietly the rest of his life, eventually dying of heart disease in 1971.
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