We were marveling a while back at how the film noir Mildred Pierce begins with a shooting, and wouldn't you know it—the melodrama Repeat Performance uses the same opening. In the first scene Joan Leslie ventilates her husband then heads off in a daze to a New Year's Eve party. She makes a wish as the clock strikes midnight, pleading for a chance to erase the past year's mistakes and alakazam!—she's sent back in time to re-do the previous 365. Once she realizes what's happened, she's practically thrilled enough to do handsprings, and vows to avoid the missteps that led to her shooting her husband. But to quote a poem a friend dedicates to her: “If you would run from destiny, first learn to run through snow leaving no footprints.” Yeah. She's screwed either way. Maybe. Keep an eye out for Natalie Schafer, aka Mrs. Howell from Gilligan's Island as—surprise—a vacuous socialite. Repeat Performance premiered in the U.S. today in 1947.

In a reward based system, Tina Louise would be the carrot, but since it looks like the punishment part is anything from a bump on the head to a hole in the heart, perhaps it's best to just to stand pat. Born in New York City as Tina Blacker, Louise is best known for playing sultry Ginger Grant on the television comedy Gilligan's Island, but she is also a veteran performer from such films as God's Little Acre and Warrior Empress, the latter of which gave the world the above promo shot. It was made in 1960.

We've talked about French author Louis-Charles Royer and mentioned the staying power of his novels, which enjoyed many English language reprints throughout the 1950s. Love Camp is Royer doing what he does best, which is exploring sexual niches and conjuring up romance in far flung locales. The story is as the art depicts—women are chosen for the honor of attempting to mate with Nazi soldiers in order to breed a master race. The program was known as Lebensborn, or Fount of Life, and was under control of the SS.

The book interweaves the lives of characters brought to a lakeside monastery for some state sponsored bonin'. Some of them fall in love, others struggle with shame, one fights to preserve a female friend's virginity, and so forth, while the doctor who runs the show manages to knock up an eager young recruit only to later reject her and blame her pregnancy on another soldier.

It's all exactly as titillating as it sounds, with women paraded naked before men, a lesbian matron having her way with rejected recruits, nude exercise sessions, and other indulgences, all under the dark Nazi aegis. There were many naziploitation books written during the mid-century period, and while it's probably a good thing the trend died, it really did lend itself quite well to exploring perversion and evil. But considering the Nazis' real world toll, such lightweight books can only minimize the horror. The Pyramid paperback you see here is from 1953 with art by Julian Paul.

Pornodelirio was originally made in France as Les grandes jouisseuses and premiered today in 1978. The title literally means “the great enjoyers,” but Pornodelirio is a lot snappier, don't you think? As usual with these Italian smut posters, the names are all pseudonyms made especially for the movie's run in Italy. We don't know why, but if if any of the stars ever needed to go there at least their hotels weren't overrun by adoring, pornodelirious fans.

In any case, Annick Fougery, Anne Sand, Michele Perelo, and Pierre Forget are actually Brigitte Lahaie, Ursula White, Jean-Louis Vattier, and Dominique Aveline. It's weird that two of the pseudonyms are Fougery like “forgery” and Forget. And it's even weirder that Annick Fougery and Pierre Forget were actual French stars. But they certainly weren't in this movie. Did they ever know their names had been borrowed? Did Europe have trademark infringement laws in 1978? When they checked into hotels were they beseiged by pornodelirious fans? 

This is all a bit of a mystery, but the only name in which we're really interested is Mafé. He or she painted the promo poster you see above and it's another example of his/her great work on an x-rated promo, along with this, these, and these, one of which you'll notice is an alternate poster for Pornodelirio. We still have no idea who Mafé is/was, but as always, we'll keep up the research. Soon as our delirium subsides. You wanna watch the film? The English dubbed version (with correct credits) is online right here. 

A gringo detective with an agency in Mexico City is hired to locate his crooked ex-partner, who has bailed with the agency's money, and now is causing trouble for the client. The PI takes the job, glad to be paid to track down his betrayer, and starts in the Mexican town of Rio Bravo where the partner immediately turns up dead. From there the hero delves into local corruption, crosses the border to Texas, uncovers a human trafficking ring, meets a cantina dancer named Arden Kennett, deals with a dangerous wife, watches murders pile up and the police begin to suspect him, and learns that knives can be thrown just as effectively as they can be brandished.

The book was published in the U.S. as an Ace Double in 1959 with Paul Rader art and bound with Charles Fritch's Negative of a Nude, but the rare edition above is from Aussie imprint Phantom Books and appeared in 1960. We can't identify the artist, which is an affliction we've been dealing with quite a bit of late. But don't blame us—as we've mentioned once or twice before, including just a few days ago, Phantom didn't credit art, possibly because much of it was copied from U.S. editions. Many of the covers do, however, look like the same hand, so hopefully someone will be able to ID the owner of that hand at some point in the future.

The best poster for the movie The Asphalt Jungle was, beyond doubt, the one we showed you a while back painted by the Italian artist Angelo Cesselon. But that one came a bit later. The above poster was made for the film's initial release in 1950. We think it's very nice as well, if remarkably different from Cesselon's masterpiece. As for the movie, we could tell you it's a top effort, but you already know that. If you haven't seen it, definitely do. It's showing at the Noir City Film Festival tonight, but even at home it's worth a screening.

The National Police Gazette asks on a cover from this month in 1950 “What Will Happen to Joe Louis?” It's a poignant question. Louis had earned more than $4 million during his boxing career (about $40 million in 2016 money), but thanks to predatory managers and slimy handlers had received only about $800,000 of it. However, his gross earnings left him with a huge tax bill, forcing him to fight past his prime in an attempt to pay off the debt. In September 1950 he met Ezzard Charles and was thrashed. For his pain he earned just over $100,000—not nearly enough to pay off the government. Left with no choice, he decided to shoot for another big payday. First he notched several wins again club level fighters, then booked a bout against another top boxer. That boxer was twenty-seven year old Rocky Marciano, and the meeting ended with Louis being knocked clean out of the ring. So, getting back to the Gazette's question: "What will happen to Joe Louis?" What happened is he retired and became an exhibition fighter, still carrying that heavy debt, and he never paid it off.

Anastasia Reilly began her show business career tap dancing in New York City at age fourteen, by seventeen was nationally famous as a Ziegfeld Girl, and in this Strauss-Peyton (Benjamin R. Strauss and Homer Peyton) image is on top of the world in a $50,000 string of pearls. That would be about $680,000 today, which sounds like a lot until you learn some pearl necklaces top $2 million, including an $11 million ruby-studded collar that once belonged to Elizabeth Taylor. The above shot was made when Reilly was appearing in the Ziegfeld musical Louie the 14th, which ran for more than three-hundred performances at the Cosmopolitan Theatre through most of 1925. Her role was minor, but we daresay her visual impact was major, even in costume.

This novel has a rather funny title—Vide ton sac... hé means “Empty your sack... hey!” It was written by Louis de la Hattais for the Allo Police series published by SEG, aka Société d’Editions Générales, 1957 copyright. We didn't know who painted these covers when we first posted from this series, but now know it's Auguste Liquois, who did a lot of work for SEG. Learn more about de la Hattais and Allo Police here.

The Rode Vampen Serie, or Red Femmes Fatales Series, was launched in 1963 by the Dutch publishing company De Vrije Pers, with a new entry unveiled every two weeks. Above are ten nice examples. We would love to read Strip Tease Bar, but Dutch is not one of our tongues. See more from De Vrije Pers here and here.