A MILLION STRONG

Men are being watched and women aren't impressed. So—par for the course.

This promo poster from American International Pictures for The Million Eyes of Sumuru had us at palace of pleasure. No, actually, it had us back when we read the source material, which was Sax Rohmer’s Sumuru novels, about a cabal of women plotting to take over the world because men have royally screwed it. But where Rohmer goes for thrills and chills, The Million Eyes of Sumuru goes largely for laughs. In order to pull that off, cornball heartthrob Frankie Avalon was given the co-lead opposite impressive haircut George Nader, and both are assigned a quip a minute. Other performers are also saddled with laugh lines, or alternatively, dumb eccentricities. And poor Klaus Kinski is made up green. Was this really needed?

He burns a hole in Nader’s crotch too. Notice that? Anyway, we’d have preferred a more serious treatment of Rohmer’s creation, but judging objectively, the movie is okay for what it is. It takes a few elements from book one but largely charts its own course, as viewers meet Sumuru (Shirley Eaton), get to know her henchwomen (especially Ursula Rank), and learn of their ruthlessness. Nader is brought inside Sumuru’s current plot involving a political assassination in Hong Kong, but of course he’s just playing along. We have to say, as such a poor judge of character Sumuru simply isn’t destined to rule the world, but it’s occasional fun watching her and her lethal minions try. The Million Eyes of Sumuru premiered today in 1967.

Justice is blind, but it can still shoot straight.

This nice poster was made for the 1971 spaghetti western Blindman, a forgotten classic in an inherently cheesy genre. Tony Anthony plays a nameless blind gunman out to rescue fifty European women promised as brides to a group of miners in Lost Creek, Texas, but who were instead kidnapped to Mexico by a gang of bandits. Anthony channels Clint Eastwood, but we don’t mind because he does determined menace passably well, helped in his portrayal by a pair of creepy blind guy contact lenses from the prop department. How he can successfully aim at his quarries in order to aerate them is never addressed, but really, why bother to question it? It’s all good fun, especially because one of the main villians is Ringo Starr, and some of the fifty brides include Agneta Eckemyr, Krista Nell, Janine Reynaud, and Solvi Stubing, who’s certainly worth killing for. Shootouts, fistfights, explosions, and a double-cross or two equal spaghetti western gold. Blindman premiered in Japan today in 1971.

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HISTORY REWIND

The headlines that mattered yesteryear.

1918—Wilson Goes to Europe

U.S. President Woodrow Wilson sails to Europe for the World War I peace talks in Versailles, France, becoming the first U.S. president to travel to Europe while in office.

1921—Arbuckle Manslaughter Trial Ends

In the U.S., a manslaughter trial against actor/director Roscoe ‘Fatty’ Arbuckle ends with the jury deadlocked as to whether he had killed aspiring actress Virginia Rappe during rape and sodomy. Arbuckle was finally cleared of all wrongdoing after two more trials, but the scandal ruined his career and personal life.

1964—Mass Student Arrests in U.S.

In California, Police arrest over 800 students at the University of California, Berkeley, following their takeover and sit-in at the administration building in protest at the UC Regents’ decision to forbid protests on university property.

1968—U.S. Unemployment Hits Low

Unemployment figures are released revealing that the U.S. unemployment rate has fallen to 3.3 percent, the lowest rate for almost fifteen years. Going forward all the way to the current day, the figure never reaches this low level again.

1954—Joseph McCarthy Disciplined by Senate

In the United States, after standing idly by during years of communist witch hunts in Hollywood and beyond, the U.S. Senate votes 65 to 22 to condemn Joseph McCarthy for conduct bringing the Senate into dishonor and disrepute. The vote ruined McCarthy’s career.

1955—Rosa Parks Sparks Bus Boycott

In the U.S., in Montgomery, Alabama, seamstress Rosa Parks refuses to give her bus seat to a white man and is arrested for violating the city’s racial segregation laws, an incident which leads to the Montgomery Bus Boycott. The boycott resulted in a crippling financial deficit for the Montgomery public transit system, because the city’s African-American population were the bulk of the system’s ridership.

Cover art by the great Sandro Symeoni for Peter Cheyney's mystery He Walked in her Sleep, from Ace Books in 1949.
The mysterious artist who signed his or her work as F. Harf produced this beautiful cover in 1956 for the French publisher S.E.P.I.A.
Aslan art was borrowed for many covers by Dutch publisher Uitgeverij A.B.C. for its Collection Vamp. The piece used on Mike Splane's Nachtkatje is a good example.

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