Intl. Notebook

September 29 2020

BURLESQUE HUMORESQUE

This is the best Laff you'll have all day.

We’ve posted three issues of Laff magazine over the years, and we return to that publication today with an example from this month in 1946 featuring starlets, showgirls, and burlesque dancers of the highest order. You get Jane Russell, Adele Mara, Vera Ellen, and Myrna Dell, amongst others, but the winner in these pages is Acquanetta, aka the Venezuelan Volcano, who gets a striking tropical themed centerfold photo. In addition, you get a bit of sports coverage—specifically baseball, which is appropriate with the MLB playoffs starting tonight—as well as numerous cartoons.

These cartoons—the laffs in Laff magazine—tend to be sexist by today’s standards, but then so is this entire website, really, which is an unavoidable side effect of focusing on vintage fiction, art, and photography. We hope the historical significance of the material overshadows all else. In any case, we included the cartoons despite their mostly lame humor, due to the fact that they’re high quality illustrations well worth seeing. All that and more appears here in forty-plus scans and zooms, and you can see the other issues of Laff by clicking its keywords below.

Laff, Adele Mara, Acquanetta, Jane Russell, Myrna Dell, Vera Ellen, Joy Skylar, Harry Danning, Doreen DeMos, Doris Dean, Pat Hutto, Virginia Dew, magazine art, burlesque, baseball

Vintage Pulp

April 7 2017

OUT TO SEA

French Polynesia gets whitewashed by tropical storm Hollywood.

This poster was made to promote the mostly forgotten b-picture Call of the South Seas, one of those Westerners-in-paradise flicks so popular during the mid-century period. The set-up here is simple: a roguish adventurer fetches up on a Pacific island looking for work. He takes a job at an exporting firm, but finds that his employers are paying the local Polynesians a pittance of the fortune being earned. The movie stars Janet Martin as Tahia, who’s local but whose mother was French, grandmother was French, and great grandmother was French, a line of dilution strong enough to ensure that she possesses the needed racial purity to serve as love interest to co-star Allan Lane. While her blood has been whitewashed, her linguistics have not, leading to her delivering hilarious lines like, “I come because I very angry and if I don’t let it out I burn all up inside.” The filmmakers had a grand old time making this movie, and the end result, clumsy though it may be, is non-malicious. It also has Adele Mara in a small part, and as a bonus she’s wearing this. Call of the South Seas premiered in the U.S. today in 1944.

Call of the South Seas, Janet Martin, Allan Lane, Adele Mara, poster art, cinema, movie review

Intl. Notebook

March 8 2017

AMERICAN GODDARD

It's never too late to go to Paris.

Above are some scans from Paris-Hollywood issue #56, published in 1949. Paulette Goddard is the cover star, sporting a crazy hair-do that makes her look a bit like she has horns. The cover text explains that the shot was made as a promo for her role in Les Naufrageurs des mers du sud, better known as Reap the Wild Wind, and we’ll just assume the wild wind did that to her hair. The movie was made in 1942 but due to a little inconvenience called World War II did not play in France until later. Inside the issue you get Alexis Smith (described as a protégée of Errol Flynn), Jane Russell, Mary Kay Dodson, and the always lovely Adele Mara. The back cover goes to Janis Paige, who’s posing in costume for her role in the western Cheyenne. We have more of these magazines in the website and you can see them by clicking the keywords “Paris-Hollywood” below.

France, Paris-Hollywood, Les Naufrageurs des mers du sud, Reap the Wild Wind, Cheyenne, Janis Paige, Paulette Goddard, Alexis Smith, Adele Mara, Mary Kay Dodson, Jane Russell, Errol Flynn, cinema

Femmes Fatales

March 5 2017

WALK LIKE A POLYNESIAN

If you think it looks funny in a photo you she should see when I walk into a restaurant this way.

Above, hottie Adele Mara strikes some limber poses in two promos from the Republic Pictures b-feature Call of the South Seas. She plays a Polynesian dancer named Aritana, which must mean “lily white” in her language. But of course, in 1944 when the film was released, dark skinned performers were rarely part of Hollywood calculus. Mara loses points for authenticity, but the shots are still amazing.

Republic Pictures, Call of the South Seas, Adele Mara, cinema

Femmes Fatales

March 23 2015

MAIL AND FEMALE

Even if she could fit in the slot she’d be returned due to lack of postage.

This nice shot shows American actress Adele Mara, née Adelaide Delgado, who got into show business when she was discovered in her early teens by bandleader Xavier Cugat, and performed with his orchestra as a singer and dancer. From there she naturally pursued roles in film and had a long career on the screen, appearing in such productions as Traffic in Crime, Passkey to Danger, Blackmail, and I, Jane Doe. This image is probably from around 1950.

Traffic in Crime, Passkey to Danger, Blackmail, I Jane Doe, Adele Mara, Adelaide Delgado, Xavier Cugat, cinema

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HISTORY REWIND

The headlines that mattered yesteryear.

October 10

1971—London Bridge Goes Up

After being sold, dismantled and moved to the United States, London Bridge reopens in the resort town of Lake Havasu City, Arizona.

October 10

1975—Burton and Taylor Marry Again

British actor Richard Burton and American screen star Elizabeth Taylor secretly remarry sixteen months after their divorce, then jet away to a second honeymoon in Chobe Game Park in Botswana.

October 9

1967—ChÃ© Executed in Bolivia

A day after being captured, Marxist revolutionary Ernesto “Che” Guevara is executed in Bolivia. In an attempt to make it appear as though he had been killed resisting Bolivian troops, the executioner shoots Guevara with a machine gun, wounding him nine times in the legs, arm, shoulder, throat, and chest.

October 8

1918—Sgt. York Becomes a Hero

During World War I, in the Argonne Forest in France, America Corporal Alvin C. York leads an attack on a German machine gun nest that kills 25 and captures 132. He is a corporal during the event, but is promoted to sergeant as a result. He also earns Medal of Honor from the U.S., the Croix de Guerre from the French Republic, and the Croce di Guerra from Italy and Montenegro. Stateside, he is celebrated as a hero, and Hollywood even makes a movie entitled Sergeant York, starring Gary Cooper.

October 8

1956—Larsen Pitches Perfect Game

The New York Yankees’ Don Larsen pitches a perfect game in the World Series against hated rivals the Brooklyn Dodgers. It is the only perfect game in World Series history, as well as the only no-hitter.

October 7

1959—Dark Side of Moon Revealed

The Soviet space probe Luna 3 transmits the first photographs of the far side of the moon. The photos generate great interest, and scientists are surprised to see mountainous terrain, very different from the near side, and only two seas, which the Soviets name Mare Moscovrae (Sea of Moscow) and Mare Desiderii (Sea of Desire).