 Brando and Niven break hearts and bank accounts on the French Riviera. 
Les séducteurs had its French premiere today in 1964, with the above promo art by Russian born illustrator Boris Grinsson paving the way for a U.S. production featuring Marlon Brando, Shirley Jones, and David Niven. Séducteurs translates to “deceivers,” but the original title was Bedtime Story. What you have is a couple of con men who fleece women out of jewels, cash, and more. When they cross paths on the French Riviera their egos bring about a clash of wills and a high stakes wager to see which of them can scam ripe target Shirley Jones out of $25,000. Later the bet shifts to which of them can scam her out of her clothes. File the movie with set-in-France caper comedies like To Catch a Thief, Charade, and Beg, Borrow or Steal. For that matter file it with 1988's Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, which is actually a quasi-remake of this flick. For most watchers Bedtime Story won't be up to the standards of those other films—even the one based upon it—but we thought it was pretty damned good.  
 In some ways she's a non-traditionalist. 
Above, a nice geisha themed promo photo of Japanese actress Junko Fuji, star of scores of films spanning forty-five years. Among them: Kyokotsu ichidai, aka The Chivalrous Life, Bakuchi-uchi: socho tobaku, aka Big Time Gambling Boss, and the popular Hibotan bakuto aka Red Peony Gambler series. Fuji's showed no signs of slowing down and has another film on the slate for 2018. We don't have a date on this image, but figure late 1960s.
 Theft becomes death in the blink of an eye.  
Last week we shared a brilliant Italian poster for Stanley Kubrick's The Killing, and today you see the French and Belgian posters. The title is a double entendre that refers not only to murder but also to killing in the sense of a big score, which is why in France the movie was called L'ultime razzia, or “the last raid,” and in Belgium it was Coup manqué, which translates as “mis-hit,” as in badly striking a ball—i.e. missing a target. The Belgian poster also has a banner at the bottom with the title in Dutch—Mislukte opzet, or “failed set up.” Those titles, taken together, reveal exactly what happens in the film—a robbery goes terribly wrong. Both of these are very nice posters, fitting ror Kubrick's early masterpiece. The Killing opened in France today in 1956, and in Belgium shortly thereafter.
 Okay, I take it back—you don't hit like a girl. 
Above you see a great Sam Peffer cover for Jonathan Latimer's Solomon's Vineyard, originally published in 1941, and banned in the U.S. until 1988. We could go into why it was blacklisted, but as always it doesn't really matter, because save for a brief mention of underage sex the book is not racy by today's standards. Its best quality is not sexual innuendo anyway, but toughness. To give you an example, we'll transcribe one of its many interesting scenes. The main character Karl Craven—a burly ex-football player-turned-private detective—becomes upset at the layered deceptions he's had to deal with and finally loses his temper:
I grabbed her by the arms and shook her. Her false teeth fell out and rolled across the carpet. [snip] I started into the parlour, but a thin man in shirtsleeves was in the way. I hit him and he went down. In the parlour the blonde who'd slugged me with the lamp began to scream. She thought I was coming for her. I went to the big radio in the corner. I picked it up, tearing out the plug, and tossed it across the room. It shattered against the wall. I kicked over a table with two lamps on it. I tore some of the fabric off a davenport. I threw a chair at a big oil painting over the fireplace. I took a metal stand lamp and bent it up like a pretzel. I pulled up the oriental rug and ripped it down the middle.
That's going berserk like you mean it. We won't bother with a long plot summary since you can find those all over the internet, but basically the protagonist is hired to spring a woman from a cult and finds himself neck deep in corpse worship, hidden treasure, police corruption, and sado-masochism. The book is reasonably well written, very hard boiled, and built around a set of unlikely characters—including a femme fatale known by all as “The Princess.” Great Pan published it in 1961, and it had an alternate cover which you also see here. It was re-issued several times after its debut—including by Popular Library as The Fifth Grave—which means it isn't hard to find. We recommend you give it a read.
 If she's really anything like a rabbit she's going to need a hole in the bottom of that costume. 
We like this strange, rabbit themed cover from the U.S. pop culture magazine Jest, which was published bi-monthly out of New York City and Chicago by Jest Publications, later Timely Features, Inc. Jest was a staple on newsstands from approximately 1941 to 1963. While the rabbit suit on the cover model is funny, we also find it a little creepy—residue from watching Stanley Kubrick's The Shining no doubt. We know—that was a bear suit. But it ruined all animal costumes for us, plus she does look a little evil, doesn't she? Well, the models inside the magazine are less sinister. Some of those include Joan Corey, Kay Morgan, Lucille Lambert, and Loretta Hannings. The editors refer to them as "chorines," which is an interesting word we've seen a few times before. It's a feminization derived from "chorus," but when we see it we mainly think of how white our clothes would be if we threw one in our wash. These images all came from the website Darwin Scans, now sadly idle these last three years and running. But you still may find it worth a look.                              
 Hi! I'll be filling in for your regular wife this evening. How many times do I have to ask you to take out the damn garbage? 
We saw this Robert Bonfils piece at pulpcovers.com and couldn't resist re-using it. Bill Russo's Substitute Wife, 1962, from Playtime Reading. Remember—there's nothing like the real thing.
 I've reformed. I still smoke, drink and sleep around, but I don't feel guilty about it anymore. 
Would you believe someone was asking $900 for this copy of Felice Swados's Reform School Girl? It went unsold, but we've seen it go for around $400, which is an indication how rare it is. The story deals with assorted free spirits on lockdown at a home for wayward girls. It was published by Diversey in 1948, but originally appeared in 1941 as a Doubleday hardback called House of Fury. Diversey had the genius idea to rework the cover art and ended up putting Canadian ice skater Marty Collins on the front, dressed far less demurely than in her competitive routines. Despite the look of the novel, Swados was a serious writer, which is why Reform School Girls focuses its plot on racial oppression and the dangerous decision by two of the cruelly treated black girls to bust out. There's also a nod to lesbianism, though not explicitly. Swados cooked up a classic with this incendiary debut, but her rare skills—which even scored her an editorial gig at Time magazine—were never broadly showcased due to a case of cancer that killed her in 1945, when she was only twenty-nine. Way too early for someone who drew comparisons to William Faulkner and Carson McCullers.
 Whoever told me Tappa Tappa Ass is the nice guy frat was wrong! 
We really should put together a group of frathouse sleaze covers sometime. The pervasive trope in mid-century fiction of educated women somehow still being mere male property is worthy of deeper examination. For instance in this book female characters are literally given away to horny fraternity boys. We may put together a collection on this theme, but until then consider Campus Chippies an entry (along with this example from last year). It comes from Playtime Reading, 1964, was written by Monte Steele, author of numerous novels along the same lines, and the cover art is from Robert Bonfils.
 The only thing as hard as being in prison is being out. 
In Straight Time Dustin Hoffman plays a parolee having a hard time adjusting to life on the outside. Things go well initially. He gets a job. He meets a woman (Theresa Russell, so excellent work there). He stays out of trouble. But civilian life is difficult to navigate, especially when his nosy parole officer (the impressively slimy M. Emmett Walsh) expects the worst of him. It doesn't take long for Hoffman to fold under the pressure, and just like that he's back in the rackets, robberies specifically, and of course they escalate until he's aiming for a big score. Straight Time is Hoffman doing his thing after brilliant efforts in Little Big Man, Straw Dogs, Midnight Cowboy, Marathon Man, All the President's Men, and Lenny. In other words, he's at the height of his abilities and he turns the story of a con making bad choices into a viscerally believable ride. He would move on mainly to less gritty roles the rest of his career. For example, the next year he did Kramer vs. Kramer, and a couple of years after that came Tootsie. So Straight Time is worth seeing just to witness Hoffman in a mode he was moving beyond. If that isn't enough enticement, well, the movie is great. 
 The Good Times just keep on rolling. 
American actress Bern Nadette Stanis, born Bernadette Stanislaus is well known for her role as Thelma in the 1970s television show Good Times, but has also appeared in a number of films, including one as recently as this year. In addition to that, she's written a couple of self help books and a volume of poetry. This nice shot probably dates from around 1976.
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The headlines that mattered yesteryear.
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. 1974—Police Raid SLA Headquarters
In the U.S., Los Angeles police raid the headquarters of the revolutionary group the Symbionese Liberation Army, resulting in the deaths of six members. The SLA had gained international notoriety by kidnapping nineteen-year old media heiress Patty Hearst from her Berkeley, California apartment, an act which precipitated her participation in an armed bank robbery. 1978—Charlie Chaplin's Missing Body Is Found
Eleven weeks after it was disinterred and stolen from a grave in Corsier near Lausanne, Switzerland, Charlie Chaplin's corpse is found by police. Two men—Roman Wardas, a 24-year-old Pole, and Gantscho Ganev, a 38-year-old Bulgarian—are convicted in December of stealing the coffin and trying to extort £400,000 from the Chaplin family. 1918—U.S. Congress Passes the Sedition Act
In the U.S., Congress passes a set of amendments to the Espionage Act called the Sedition Act, which makes "disloyal, profane, scurrilous, or abusive language" about the United States government, its flag, or its armed forces, as well as language that causes foreigners to view the American government or its institutions with contempt, an imprisonable offense. The Act specifically applies only during times of war, but later is pushed by politicians as a possible peacetime law, specifically to prevent political uprisings in African-American communities. But the Act is never extended and is repealed entirely in 1920.
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