Here’s another typical cover of the tabloid Midnight. We tend to think of this as a U.S. publication but it actually had offices in both Chicago and Montreal, and was printed in Canada, which presumably makes it a Canadian paper first and foremost. This issue appeared today in 1964 and the imprint had by this point been around for eleven years. We have no idea when it died but we’ve never seen an issue past 1969. We’ll have more from Midnight later, including some complete scans. 

Above, a Midnight from today 1966 with cover star Nobu McCarthy, wild, wicked and willing. Or so Midnight claims. Born Nobu Atsumi in Canada of Japanese extraction, McCarthy won the 1955 Miss Tokyo pageant, and later parlayed a chance Los Angeles encounter with a talent agent into a television and theater career dotted with film roles. As far as Midnight’s suggestion of availability goes, McCarthy was already married with children by 1966, and probably already too well-known to have to stoop to cheap publicity techniques on the covers of second rate tabloids. Which means we’re putting this quote entirely on the editors. After many years on screen and stage, McCarthy died of an aortal aneurysm while filming Gaijin—Ama-me Como Sou in 2002. Below is a still of her from her first credited film role in the 1958 Jerry Lewis comedy The Geisha Boy.

 

Above is a cover of Midnight published today in 1967 featuring American actress and sex symbol Edy Williams making one of the more obvious statements of the year. Actually, this being Midnight, she probably never said that, but you never know. Below is another nice shot of her, and you can more of her here.

You can find plenty of amateur reviews of La mansion de la niebla, aka Murder Mansion, aka Maniac Mansion around the internet, so we won’t add another. We watched it, though, and basically, it’s about a bunch of people stranded in a fogbound manor house, and a plot to frighten one of them to death. Hope that didn’t give away too much. What really struck us was the poster, which was painted by an artist who signed his work Mac. Mac was short for Macario Gomez, and for four decades beginning in 1955 this Spanish painter created posters for such films as Dr. Zhivago, For a Few Dollars More, El Cid and others.

Gomez’s effort for La mansion de la niebla is a bit cheeseball, but we rather enjoy the numerous elements he managed to fit in, including a disembodied face, some skulls, a ribcage, a full moon, assorted gravestones, some random ironwork, a spider web, a bare tree, a couple of bats, and, of course, copious fog. Faced with all that, it’s no wonder the central figure is fleeing for her life. But just to show that Gomez really does have top tier talent, we’ve shared a few of his more successful posters below. La mansion de la niebla, an Italian/Spanish co-production, premiered as Quando Marta urlò dalla tomba in Italy, and in Spain six weeks later, today 1972.

Yeah, there’s a girl on the cover of this Midnight published today in 1969 demanding $15,000 for her virginity, but she’s not important right now. Does beer really cause heart attacks? Doctors tell us that FAEEs (fatty acid ethyl esters) are synthesized at high rates in the heart, and because ethanol in alcohol is a toxic agent that affects the metabolism of fatty acids—which are the sole energy source for the heart—there’s a plausible link between the ingestion of alcohol and observed cardiac damage. But fuck those doctors. Let’s turn to noted beer drinker Plato. He once said that it was a wise man who invented beer. Sizzle. And what would the Mahatma say? Nothing, because he was too busy breaking a blood vessel in his eye tossing his cookies after a long binge one night at Samaldas College. In short, we don’t need no stinking doctors—if the best minds in history drank beer, it’s good enough for us.

Above is a cover of the tabloid Midnight published today in 1968. The idea that someone stole JFK’s corpse was aired pretty much right after the murder, and to this day some people believe he was snatched off Air Force One sometime before the plane landed in Washington D.C. It’s a pretty farfetched theory, one not necessarily interesting on its own merits, but because it’s a good example of one of the most important factors that makes conspiracies work. And that is simply that in the absence of convincing facts people concoct multiple theories and those help obscure actual discrepancies about the event. Once you’ve heard enough crackpot theories you tend to forget the original, crucially pertinent questions. If one were conspiracy-minded one would almost suggest that the perpetrators of conspiracies count on this to happen. But that would be only if one were conspiracy-minded. We are not.

Above, a cover of the tabloid Midnight from today in 1967, with one of their standard sex headlines. This one is pure fiction. How do we know? Because despite all their “bros before hos”* machismo, men fall out over women almost as often as they do about money, which means the town would devolve into Fallujah style chaos in mere days. At least the bride-to-be wouldn’t have to break any hearts. Every man except one would be dead.

*For a serious grammatical discussion of whether “hos” is spelled properly see here

Another entry from that gift that keeps on giving—a book of tabloid covers we bought three years ago—this issue of Midnight hit the streets 45 years ago today, promising the lowdown on where to purchase love slaves. The cover star, who does not seem to have been available for purchase, is a German born Folies Bergère showgirl named Birgit Bergen. We’d never heard of her, but with hair that enormous she must have been a star, and in fact it turns out she was quite famous in her day. In addition to dancing in Paris, she appeared in about twenty films, including 1958’s Nackt, wie Gott sie schuf, aka, Naked, As God Intended, and 1972’s Laß jucken, Kumpel, aka Let’s Itch, Mate, which was a big hit in Germany. We located a couple of photos of Bergen at the height of her beauty and fame (her hair's still pretty high too, but not to the extent it was on Midnight), and we’ve posted those below.

Above, an issue of Midnight published today 1964, with cover star Sophia Loren. The text references her famed topless appearance in Era lui… si! si! However, despite the splash she made with that role, and despite what Midnight editors wished, Loren never actually went fully nude onscreen.

Update: a sharp-eyed reader informs us that the model featured in the photo series entitled "Cynthia's Poses" is none other than Rene Bond, who appeared in about 300 x-rated loops and films during the 1970s. Thanks to Rai for soptting that.