GUN GO BANG

Landis finds herself with a digital dilemma.

Above: Carole Landis is a finger short in a fun pose she struck for this promo image from the 1945 screwball comedy Having a Wonderful Crime. We watched the film and we’d describe it this way: the thinner man. You know vintage cinema, so you know what we mean. We’ve featured Landis as a femme fatale twice before, here and here.

So you want to me to seriously injure my back here? On this spot right here? Okay, I'll give it a whirl.


Above, American actress Rosemary LaPlanche prepares to attempt an acrobatic pose in 1942, and below we see how it worked out. LaPlanche was what we think of as a career extra, which is to say she appeared in many movies but rarely as a named character. Some of those roles: “hatcheck girl” in Johnny Angel, “guest” in Having a Wonderful Crime, and “Falcon’s nurse” in The Falcon in Danger. Probably her best known credited roles were in Strangler in the Swamp, Federal Agents vs. Underworld, Inc., and Devil Bat’s Daughter. We can’t imagine many actresses trying a headstand for a photo session today, which is why we love this sequence.

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HISTORY REWIND

The headlines that mattered yesteryear.

1918—The Great War Ends

Germany signs an armistice agreement with the Allies in a railroad car outside of Compiègne in France, ending The Great War, later to be called World War I. About ten million people died, and many millions more were wounded. The conflict officially stops at 11:00 a.m., and today the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month is annually honored in some European nations with two minutes of silence.

1924—Dion O'Banion Gunned Down

Dion O’Banion, leader of Chicago’s North Side Gang is assassinated in his flower shop by members of rival Johnny Torrio’s gang, sparking the bloody five-year war between the North Side Gang and the Chicago Outfit that culminates in the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre.

1940—Walt Disney Becomes Informer

Walt Disney begins serving as an informer for the Los Angeles office of the FBI, with instructions to report on Hollywood subversives. He eventually testifies before HUAC, where he fingers several people as Communist agitators. He also accuses the Screen Actors Guild of being a Communist front.

1921—Einstein Wins Nobel

German theoretical physicist Albert Einstein is awarded the Nobel Prize for his work with the photoelectric effect, a phenomenon in which electrons are emitted from matter as a consequence of their absorption of energy from electromagnetic radiation. In practical terms, the phenomenon makes possible such devices as electroscopes, solar cells, and night vision goggles.

1938—Kristallnacht Begins

Nazi Germany’s first large scale act of anti-Jewish violence begins after the assassination of German diplomat Ernst vom Rath by Herschel Grynszpan. The event becomes known as Kristallnacht, and in total the violent rampage destroys more than 250 synagogues, causes the deaths of nearly a hundred Jews, and results in 25,000 to 30,000 more being arrested and sent to concentration camps.

1923—Hitler Stages Revolt

In Munich, Germany, Adolf Hitler leads the Nazis in the Beer Hall Putsch, an unsuccessful attempt to overthrow the German government. Also known as the Hitlerputsch or the Hitler-Ludendorff-Putsch, the attempted coup was inspired by Benito Mussolini’s successful takeover of the Italian government.

1932—Roosevelt Unveils CWA

U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt unveils the Civil Works Administration, an organization designed to create temporary winter jobs for more than 4 million of the unemployed.

A collection of red paperback covers from Dutch publisher De Vrije Pers.
Uncredited art for Hans Lugar's Line-Up! for Scion American publishing.
Uncredited cover art for Lesbian Gym by Peggy Swenson, who was in reality Richard Geis.

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