Sex Files

January 9 2022

NOTES FROM THE SEXUAL REVOLUTION

National Informer gives sex advice—and if you take it don't blame anyone but yourself.

We love National Informer. We love it like a relative who makes off-color comments and is wrong about half of what they say, but is also bizarrely funny and indispensable at barbecues. This issue published today in 1972 illustrates the point perfectly. It’s filled with nonsense. You get a primer of sexual deviations, an endorsement of incest, and predictions for the future from Mark Travis—including his assertion that cock-fighting will become a major American pasttime. That didn’t come true—unless we’re confused about the type of cocks, in which case cockfighting has been the primary force in American politics for decades.

The paper also has bits on actress Ira von Furstenberg, burlesque dancer Rebel Carr, treats readers to plenty of sexist cartoons, and touts phony medical breaktrhoughs, but the most interesting feature is probably its forty-five question true-or-false sex quiz. “How sharp is your sexual knowledge?” it asks. Well, sharp enough for our girlfriends, is all we can say. The quiz offers up a few surprise factoids. Our favorite? “Studies show that men with tattoos are actually worried about their varility. T or F?” Studies also show that editors of tabloids should worry more about their spelling.

Informer and its little sister Informer Weekly Reader were among the earliest tabloids to prove that being regularly incoherent is no barrier to generating a mass following in America. In fact, it may even help, if the last half decade is any indication. This is the thirty-eighth issue we’ve shared, and finally, we’re starting to run low. That’s bad news, we know, and worse, we probably won’t buy more. They’re priced a bit high now. Maybe that happens when fifty or so issues are bought by someone in a two-year span. But don’t worry—there are many other tabloids out there, and some of them are even crazier, as a traipse through our tabloid index will reveal. Have a look. Meanwhile, Informer scans below.

National Informer, Ira von Furstenberg, Rebel Carr, Janet Baker, Mark Travis, nudity, burlesque, tabloid

Vintage Pulp

August 13 2018

WE’VE MET OUR MATCH

Enough! We'll tell you anything you want to hear! Just please make it stop!

Matchless premiered in Italy in 1967, but it was originally released under the title Sin rival. When and why it also played in Italy as Matchless—as indicated by this Italian and English promo poster—is a mystery. It later played in the U.S. as Matchless but with different poster art. Of all the promos, the one at top is the nicest, we think.

The movie is a bizarre spy flick spoof about a journalist (Patrick O’Neal) who escapes a Chinese military prison with the help of a ring that makes him invisible. He’s given this gadget by another prisoner for reasons that are unclear. After he reaches home turf in NYC the U.S. government takes advantage of his disappearing act by turning him into a spy. They send him to take down a criminal mastermind played by Donald Pleasance, who riffs on his own Blofeld character from You Only Live Twice. Chases, crashes, quips, and snafus soon follow.

Here’s the thing. Serious films that turn out bad are often unintentionally enjoyable; comedies that turn out bad can be slow torture. Matchless isn’t as bad as extraordinary rendition and enhanced interrogation in a CIA black site, but isn’t much of a step up from there either. It’s mostly tedious, witless, and punch drunk stupid, but it’s redeemed slightly by Nicoletta Machiavelli and Ira von Fürstenberg, and we imagine it can be fun if you watch it with a gaggle of friends and gallons of intoxicants. But then again, almost anything is.

Italy, Matchless, Sin rival, Patrick O'Neal, Ira Fürstenberg, Ira von Furstenberg, Nicoletta Machiavelli, Donald Pleasance, Henry Silva poster art, cinema, movie review

Femmes Fatales

October 29 2017

FURST CHOICE

Can you believe my stuffy old family won't let me wear this in the palace?

Above, a nice shot of Rome born Ira von Fürstenberg, whose full name is Virginia Carolina Theresa Pancrazia Galdina Prinzessin zu Fürstenberg. Yes, she was a princess as well as an actress, and appeared in films such as Playgirl 70 and Giornata nera per l’ariete. This image fronted the Belgian cinema magazine Ciné-Revue and it dates from 1971.

Belgium, Rome, Ciné-Revue, Giornata nera per l'ariete, Playgitl 70, Ira von Furstenberg

Vintage Pulp

November 22 2012

BLOOD MOON

They’ll try flattery, persuasion, bribery, and threats. After that, if you get murdered it’s your own damned fault.

You know what we really like about a lot of older cinema? Color. Have you noticed the blue/gray palette that has taken over modern thriller and action movies? Mario Bava’s body count giallo 5 filles dans une nuit chaude d’été (originally released as 5 bambole per la luna d’agosto, aka Island of Terror, aka 5 Dolls for an August Moon) is merely realistic in the color department, but it looks like a riot of Technicolor compared to modern cinema. That was one of the aspects of it we enjoyed most. The movie was set in and around an amazing mid-century modern beachfront pad right out of an early James Bond movie. So that was cool too. And we also enjoyed Edwige Fenech and Ely Galleani. So that covers the good—great color cinematography, great sets, Fenech and Galleani.

Now for the bad. Let’s just boil that all down to a limp script. Basically, a wealthy industrialist invites some guests to his private island and introduces them to a chemist who has a formula that could be worth millions. The chemist won’t reveal any details of this process, and prettysoon someone is murdered (the houseboy, who Fenech is sleeping with “to do something for the working classes”). Naturally, she’s a suspect, but then there’s another murder. And another. And soon, Fenech is murdered too, rather cruelly. Cut off from police, the guests store all these bodies in a meat locker and try to solve the crimes themselves. But they just keep getting bumped off. Are the killings due to infidelity? Greed? All around perversity?

Consensus is that 5 bambole per la luna d’agosto is not one of Bava’s best films. But all those shots of bodies hanging in the meatlocker confirm that he at least tried to have fun with it. The climax brings more twists, more deaths, and one main takeaway—no matter how filthy rich a man gets he’ll stab you in the back (or front) for a few more dollars. But wealready knew that, didn’t we? Also, women are shady as fuck too—at least, they are in giallo. We’re not going to recommend this film to Bava newcomers, simply because he made others that were so much better. But if you know his work and haven’t seen this one, by all means add it to your queue. Made in Italy and released in 1970, 5 filles dans une nuit chaude d’été/5 bambole per la luna d’agosto premiered in France today in 1972.

France, Italy, 5 bambole per la luna d’agosto, 5 filles dans une nuit chaude d’été, Island of Terror, 5 Dolls for an August Moon, Mario Bava, Ira von Furstenberg, Edwige Fenech, William Berger, Ely Galleani, giallo, poster art, cinema, movie review

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HISTORY REWIND

The headlines that mattered yesteryear.

March 25

1957—Ginsberg Poem Seized by Customs

On the basis of alleged obscenity, United States Customs officials seize 520 copies of Allen Ginsberg’s poem “Howl” that had been shipped from a London printer. The poem contained mention of illegal drugs and explicitly referred to sexual practices. A subsequent obscenity trial was brought against Lawrence Ferlinghetti, who ran City Lights Bookstore, the poem’s domestic publisher. Nine literary experts testified on the poem’s behalf, and Ferlinghetti won the case when a judge decided that the poem was of redeeming social importance.

March 25

1975—King Faisal Is Assassinated

King Faisal of Saudi Arabia dies after his nephew Prince Faisal Ibu Musaed shoots him during a royal audience. As King Faisal bent forward to kiss his nephew the Prince pulled out a pistol and shot him under the chin and through the ear. King Faisal died in the hospital after surgery. The prince is later beheaded in the public square in Riyadh.

March 24

1981—Ronnie Biggs Rescued After Kidnapping

Fugitive thief Ronnie Biggs, a British citizen who was a member of the gang that pulled off the Great Train Robbery, is rescued by police in Barbados after being kidnapped. Biggs had been abducted a week earlier from a bar in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil by members of a British security firm. Upon release he was returned to Brazil and continued to be a fugitive from British justice.

March 23

2011—Elizabeth Taylor Dies

American actress Elizabeth Taylor, whose career began at age 12 when she starred in National Velvet, and who would eventually be nominated for five Academy Awards as best actress and win for Butterfield 8 and Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, dies of congestive heart failure in Los Angeles. During her life she had been hospitalized more than 70 times.

March 22

1963—Profumo Denies Affair

In England, the Secretary of State for War, John Profumo, denies any impropriety with showgirl Christine Keeler and threatens to sue anyone repeating the allegations. The accusations involve not just infidelity, but the possibility acquaintances of Keeler might be trying to ply Profumo for nuclear secrets. In June, Profumo finally resigns from the government after confessing his sexual involvement with Keeler and admitting he lied to parliament.

March 22

1978—Karl Wallenda Falls to His Death

World famous German daredevil and high-wire walker Karl Wallenda, founder of the acrobatic troupe The Flying Wallendas, falls to his death attempting to walk on a cable strung between the two towers of the Condado Plaza Hotel in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Wallenda is seventy-three years old at the time, but it is a 30 mph wind, rather than age, that is generally blamed for sending him from the wire.

March 22

2006—Swedish Spy Stig Wennerstrom Dies

Swedish air force colonel Stig Wennerström, who had been convicted in the 1970s of passing Swedish, U.S. and NATO secrets to the Soviet Union over the course of fifteen years, dies in an old age home at the age of ninety-nine. The Wennerström affair, as some called it, was at the time one of the biggest scandals of the Cold War.