vintage and modern pulp fiction; noir, schlock and exploitation films; scandals, swindles and news
Since we had a piece of fishing themed art recently, today we have another item. Here you see a Corp. A. Fox Technicolor lithograph of an unknown model decked out for a day on the water. It was printed in 1954 and is the latest addition to our always expanding collection of these. You can see the others by clicking the keywords below.
Model and actress Mara Corday, née Marilyn Watts, captains this nautical 1953 Corp. A. Fox Technicolor lithograph. Corday is one of those vintage actresses who has a cult following today, which in her case mainly derives from starring in three cheesy sci-fi films—Tarantula, The Giant Claw, and The Black Scorpion. She also appeared in some thrillers and noirs, but her stardom was truly cemented when she was Playboy magazine’s Playmate of the Month for October 1958. That centerfold may be one of the most demure the magazine ever published, but the issue sold well, owing to Corday’s status as an established movie star. She’s still with us at age eighty-eight, and these images are nice mementos from a time when legions of fans were willing to sail anywhere with her.
One of your older relatives definitely sports this look. We mean from the neck up. In 1959, when this Corp. A. Fox Technicolor lithograph was made, short hair was the rage and remains so for women of this era that are now senior citizens. There’s nothing senior about the rest of this model, though. We’re unable to identify her, but we suspect she was at least semi-famous. A. Fox models often were. If you recognize her drop us a line.
Since we neglected to share any Technicolor lithographs for several months before we got back to them recently, here’s another one close on that one’s heels entitled “Fair and Warmer,” from A. Fox Corp., circa 1955, with an unidentified model. We’ve wondered in the past whether a single ass comprised one bun or two buns. For example, should our header be “bun warmer” or “buns warmer”? It’s a subject that requires deep exploration, and we’ve already put substantial thought into it.
Our ongoing exploration of mid-century Technicolor lithographs continues with this nice image from A. Fox featuring an unknown model in lingerie that simultaneously covers nearly her entire body yet is sheer enough to show nearly everything. The image is titled “Naughty Nightie” and it dates from around 1960. If you want to see dozens more of these just click the appropriate keywords below.
An unidentified model appears above on two 1965 Technicolor lithographs, the first of which, from A. Fox Corp., is called “How Nice,” and the second of which, from KLM, is called “Silver Siren.” The model sports striking silver hair in both, and we’ve noticed this trend has gotten pretty big of late, so these serve as a reminder that, once again, your grandmother beat you to it.
Above, a Technicolor lithograph, entitled “Aim To Please,” starring Playboy model Mariyln Hanold looking for something to kill with her longbow and quiver of arrows. Does she look familiar? Possibly it’s because we featured her before, from a similar looking woodland session. This is dated 1959 and comes from Corp. A. Fox.
The U.S.S.R. launches the spacecraft Venera 1, equipped with scientific instruments to measure solar wind, micrometeorites, and cosmic radiation, towards planet Venus. The craft is the first modern planetary probe. Among its many achievements, it confirms the presence of solar wind in deep space, but overheats due to the failure of a sensor before its Venus mission is completed.
In Oslo, Norway, a pair of art thieves steal one of the world’s best-known paintings, Edvard Munch’s “The Scream,” from a gallery in the Norwegian capital. The two men take less than a minute to climb a ladder, smash through a window of the National Art Museum, and remove the painting from the wall with wire cutters. After a ransom demand the museum refuses to pay, police manage to locate the painting in May, and the two thieves, as well as two accomplices, are arrested.
BBC Television produces the first ever science fiction television program, an adaptation of a section of Czech writer Karel Capek’s dark play R.U.R., aka, Rossum’s Universal Robots. The robots in the play are not robots in the modern sense of machines, but rather are biological entities that can be mistaken for humans. Nevertheless, R.U.R. featured the first known usage of the term “robot”.
Captured American spy pilot Gary Powers, who had been shot down over the Soviet Union in May 1960 while flying a U-2 high-altitude jet, is exchanged for captured Soviet spy Rudolf Abel, who had been arrested in New York City in 1957.
Actress Joanne Woodward receives the first star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, the Los Angeles sidewalk at Hollywood Boulevard and Vine Street that serves as an outdoor entertainment museum. Woodward was one of 1,558 honorees chosen by the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce in 1958, when the proposal to build the sidewalk was approved. Today the sidewalk contains more than 2,800 stars.
Satchel Paige becomes the first player from America’s Negro Baseball League to be voted into the Major League Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York. Paige, who was a pitcher, played for numerous Negro League teams, had brief stints in Cuba, Mexico, Puerto Rico, and the Major Leagues, before finally retiring in his mid-fifties.
