SLYLY DONE

Rocky isn't exactly a heavyweight in this early sexploitation effort.

This Italian poster was made for the softcore flick Porno proibito, aka The Italian Stallion, which was Sylvester Stallone’s youthful—and probably financially desperate—foray into erotic cinema. It’s a plotless mess that actually got an X rating when released because of its explicit nudity, including Sly’s twig and berries, and various women’s honeypots. But there’s no real sex—just a lot of rubbing, squirming, and boob sucking.

The film had no Italian premiere date, but this poster shows that it played in Italy’s cinemas sometime during the 1970s. The movie was too obscure and terrible to earn a foreign release when it was made in 1970, so our guess is it rose from obscurity after Stallone had made his mark with 1974’s The Lords of Flatbush and 1975’s Death Race 2000. It could even be post-Rocky. In fact, that seems likely.

Stallone performed under his own name in the film, but on the promo is referred to as Italian Stallion—indicating a high level of fame. So let’s say 1976 or 1977 for its Italian debut until someone pops up with better information. Sly probably wishes all the prints of the film had been incinerated, but don’t feel sorry for him. The embarrassment of displaying his welterweight dick to all the world was surely mitigated by the money, mansions, and moviegoers’ adoration he later earned. We hope.

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HISTORY REWIND

The headlines that mattered yesteryear.

1961—Soviets Launch Venus Probe

The U.S.S.R. launches the spacecraft Venera 1, equipped with scientific instruments to measure solar wind, micrometeorites, and cosmic radiation, towards planet Venus. The craft is the first modern planetary probe. Among its many achievements, it confirms the presence of solar wind in deep space, but overheats due to the failure of a sensor before its Venus mission is completed.

1994—Thieves Steal Munch Masterpiece

In Oslo, Norway, a pair of art thieves steal one of the world’s best-known paintings, Edvard Munch’s “The Scream,” from a gallery in the Norwegian capital. The two men take less than a minute to climb a ladder, smash through a window of the National Art Museum, and remove the painting from the wall with wire cutters. After a ransom demand the museum refuses to pay, police manage to locate the panting in May, and the two thieves, as well as two accomplices, are arrested.

1938—BBC Airs First Sci-Fi Program

BBC Television produces the first ever science fiction television program, an adaptation of a section of Czech writer Karel Capek’s dark play R.U.R., aka, Rossum’s Universal Robots. The robots in the play are not robots in the modern sense of machines, but rather are biological entities that can be mistaken for humans. Nevertheless, R.U.R. featured the first known usage of the term “robot”.

1962—Powers Is Traded for Abel

Captured American spy pilot Gary Powers, who had been shot down over the Soviet Union in May 1960 while flying a U-2 high-altitude jet, is exchanged for captured Soviet spy Rudolf Abel, who had been arrested in New York City in 1957.

1960—Woodward Gets First Star on Walk of Fame

Actress Joanne Woodward receives the first star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, the Los Angeles sidewalk at Hollywood Boulevard and Vine Street that serves as an outdoor entertainment museum. Woodward was one of 1,558 honorees chosen by the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce in 1958, when the proposal to build the sidewalk was approved. Today the sidewalk contains nearly 2,800 stars.

1971—Paige Enters Baseball Hall of Fame

Satchel Paige becomes the first player from America’s Negro Baseball League to be voted into the Major League Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York. Paige, who was a pitcher, played for numerous Negro League teams, had brief stints in Cuba, Mexico, Puerto Rico, and the Major Leagues, before finally retiring in his mid-fifties.

Cover art by Roswell Keller for the 1948 Pocket Books edition of Ramona Stewart's Desert Town.
Rare Argentinian cover art for The War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells.

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