Vintage Pulp | Nov 18 2012 |
Imagine our surprise. The Goodtime Weekly Calendar of 1963 has offered up its first fully clothed model of the year. The bad news is she’s also wearing a wicked expression and holding a rope. The model is unknown to us, but since she was photographed by filmmaker Russ Meyer, it’s possible she appeared in one of his films and we simply don’t recognize her. Anyway, lovely shot, cool jeans, great hair, scary rope. As for this week’s observations, you have to marvel at the Goodtime guys’ self confidence in using original material. And really, why not? Who needs Shakespeare? Why quote Oscar Wilde? No sir. When you can come up with the word “nutwork” all by yourself, clearly classical wit and wisdom have been outshone. And that one about how a waitress catches more passes than a football player? Sub. Lime. More quips below, but shield your eyes. This is incandescent stuff.
Vintage Pulp | Oct 6 2012 |
Russ Meyer is back with another shot for the Goodtime Weekly Calendar of 1963, and there are immediately two points of interest here. First, Meyer found a model he liked that didn’t have double-d boobs, which is very equal opportunity of him, considering his track record. Second, the model went nuts around the eyes with her makeup. Words of advice—you know you’ve drawn a little too much arch in your eyebrows if random people keep looking at you and saying, “I’m sorry, did you just ask me something?”
Oct 12: “Today we honor Christopher Columbus—only in America could it happen!”
Vintage Pulp | Jul 28 2012 |
The Goodtime Weekly Calendar of 1963 offers up a shot for the end of July of famed glamour model June Wilkinson, who seems ready to fall out of her bikini. A couple of the week’s quips touch on the subject of that garment as well, and the interest is understandable. Bikinis had been introduced in their modern form seventeen years earlier in Europe, but it took Brigitte Bardot to make them widely known with her 1950s film appearances, Ursula Andress to truly bring them into the American mainstream with her debut in 1962’s Dr. No, and apparently Russ Meyer—the photographer behind this shot—to test their tensile limits by wrapping one around a woman who was known as "The Bosom." Of course, Meyer being Meyer, if the bikini did actually manage to hold together, you can bet he simply put it on increasingly larger models until—snap!—Houston, we seem to be experiencing structural failure, please advise. Who said science can’t be fun?
Vintage Pulp | Jun 17 2012 |
Above, the page for this week in the Goodtime Weekly Calendar of 1963, with photography by none other than big breast maven Russ Meyer. Meyer was, of course, the man behind such fare as 1965’s Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!, 1966’s Mondo Topless, 1968’s Vixen, and the 1970 schlock masterpiece Beyond the Valley of the Dolls. More Meyer photography to come.
Sex Files | Jan 26 2011 |
This January 1967 issue of Whisper digs up dirt on Gina Lollobrigida, Eddie Fisher and Connie Stevens, and tells us why Uncle Sam wants to deport a topless dancer. The latter is actually an interesting story. The topless star in question is Iranian-born burlesque dancer Yvonne D’Angers, aka Yvonne Boreta, and the reason she was being deported was for obscenity.
D’Angers, who was also known by the nickname the Persian Lamb, had already been involved in a 1965 obscenity trial over the employment of topless waitresses and dancers by various San Francisco nightclubs and had gotten herself on the radar of political bluenoses scandalized by her act at the Off Broadway.
When the deportation order came, d’Angers waged a very public battle against it and finally, in 1967, chained herself to the Golden Gate Bridge in protest. The press turned out in droves for the bizarre spectacle, and all the publicity made her nationally famous. At that point she was able to make the leap into motion pictures, appearing in 1968’s Sappho Darling, 1970’s Move with Elliot Gould, and the 1971 Russ Meyer flick The Seven Minutes. And in the end d’Angers was never deported, so, in this case at least, protest paid. So there's a lesson for all of us.
Vintage Pulp | Dec 11 2008 |
Here we have a beautiful German poster for the classic sexploitation film Beyond the Valley of the Dolls. It starred a cast of dozens, and was directed by boob maven extraordinaire Russ Meyer. But believe it or not, the most important fact here is that the script was written by film critic Roger Ebert when he was young and, apparently, horny.
Dolls follows the misfortunes of an all-girl band called the Carry Nations, as they’re sucked into the usual Hollywood vortex of drugs, booze, and soft-focus sex. Ebert may or may not want to lay claim to this effort, but we gotta tell you, the man is a frickin’ genius with dialogue. Everyone who’s seen the movie loves when Z-Man exclaims, “This is my happening and it freaks me out!” And it’s a good line. You’ll hear no demurral from us on that point. It isn’t farfetched to imagine Ebert saying that about his own creation.
But as dialogue goes, we present for contemplation the less-cited Z-Man line: “You will drink the black sperm of my vengeance!” That is spun gold. In short, Beyond the Valley of the Dolls is one of the most fantastically entertaining bad films ever made, and we suggest you go rent it right now, and smoke a joint before you cue it up, because it’s even funnier when you’re stoned. The West German premiere was today in 1970.
Vintage Pulp | Nov 18 2008 |
Shock auteur Russ Meyer’s Mondo Topless—aka Mondo Girls and Mondo Top—is a pseudo-documentary shot in swinging San Francisco in which various well-endowed beauties discuss sexual matters in frank terms. Worth a viewing for the historical value alone, it was Meyer’s first color film, and starred Pat Barrington, Lorna Maitland, Babette Bardot and other “buxotic” beauties. It shocked America forty-two years ago today in 1966.