SEX AND THE SINGLE GIRL

The only way to learn it is to do it.

This is a really nice poster for the Italian sex comedy La matriarca. We watched it on Daily Motion, and Catherine Spaak plays a young widow who discovers her dearly departed kept a secret apartment reserved for his serial philandering. Wondering if her lack of sexual experience contributed to her husband’s wanderings, and spurred to curiosity about various carnal practices, she proceeds to seduce pretty much everyone she knows, absorbing lessons along the way. She becomes particularly fixated on the wisdom of Aristotle, which leads to her comically using men as horses (see below). We’re mainly interested in the poster, though, which is unsigned, but was painted by Giuliano Nistri, a conclusion we came to because he painted the alternate Italian promo which you see below, and because it’s very similar to another Nistri poster you can see here. La matriarca premiered in Italy today in 1968. If you get the urge to watch it, try this link.

It probably should have been the Tail end of her career.

Another Italian movie that premiered today is Pasquale Festa Campanile’s prehistoric comedy Quando le donne avevano la coda, aka When Women Had Tails. The above promo shot shows Austrian star Senta Berger in full costume for her role as Filli, the cavewoman captured by a clan of seven men who have never seen a woman. They quickly learn that she doesn’t, in fact, have a tail, and shortly thereafter uncover other anatomical curiosities. The movie’s so bad it’s miraculous Berger ever worked again, but you have to love this ’70s glam rock look. And if not, she appears as a normal human below. 

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HISTORY REWIND

The headlines that mattered yesteryear.

1986—Otto Preminger Dies

Austro–Hungarian film director Otto Preminger, who directed such eternal classics as Laura, Anatomy of a Murder, Carmen Jones, The Man with the Golden Arm, and Stalag 17, and for his efforts earned a star on Hollywood’s Walk of Fame, dies in New York City, aged 80, from cancer and Alzheimer’s disease.

1998—James Earl Ray Dies

The convicted assassin of American civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr., petty criminal James Earl Ray, dies in prison of hepatitis aged 70, protesting his innocence as he had for decades. Members of the King family who supported Ray’s fight to clear his name believed the U.S. Government had been involved in Dr. King’s killing, but with Ray’s death such questions became moot.

1912—Pravda Is Founded

The newspaper Pravda, or Truth, known as the voice of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, begins publication in Saint Petersburg. It is one of the country’s leading newspapers until 1991, when it is closed down by decree of then-President Boris Yeltsin. A number of other Pravdas appear afterward, including an internet site and a tabloid.

1983—Hitler's Diaries Found

The German magazine Der Stern claims that Adolf Hitler’s diaries had been found in wreckage in East Germany. The magazine had paid 10 million German marks for the sixty small books, plus a volume about Rudolf Hess’s flight to the United Kingdom, covering the period from 1932 to 1945. But the diaries are subsequently revealed to be fakes written by Konrad Kujau, a notorious Stuttgart forger. Both he and Stern journalist Gerd Heidemann go to trial in 1985 and are each sentenced to 42 months in prison.

1918—The Red Baron Is Shot Down

German WWI fighter ace Manfred von Richthofen, better known as The Red Baron, sustains a fatal wound while flying over Vaux sur Somme in France. Von Richthofen, shot through the heart, manages a hasty emergency landing before dying in the cockpit of his plane. His last word, according to one witness, is “Kaputt.” The Red Baron was the most successful flying ace during the war, having shot down at least 80 enemy airplanes.

1964—Satellite Spreads Radioactivity

An American-made Transit satellite, which had been designed to track submarines, fails to reach orbit after launch and disperses its highly radioactive two pound plutonium power source over a wide area as it breaks up re-entering the atmosphere.

1939—Holiday Records Strange Fruit

American blues and jazz singer Billie Holiday records “Strange Fruit”, which is considered to be the first civil rights song. It began as a poem written by Abel Meeropol, which he later set to music and performed live with his wife Laura Duncan. The song became a Holiday standard immediately after she recorded it, and it remains one of the most highly regarded pieces of music in American history.

Horwitz Books out of Australia used many celebrities on its covers. This one has Belgian actress Dominique Wilms.
Assorted James Bond hardback dust jackets from British publisher Jonathan Cape with art by Richard Chopping.
Cover art by Norman Saunders for Jay Hart's Tonight, She's Yours, published by Phantom Books in 1965.

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