 The gun is dangerous but the shoes are killer. 
Above: a second cool promo image of Welsh born Irish actress Peggy Cummins from her 1950 b-noir Gun Crazy. We recently shared some photos of her as pre-Princess Leia. To see those just click here.
 I just insured them for a million dollars. You think I'm actually going stand on things that valuable? 
Trivia time, vintage Hollywood fans. Our subhead tells you all you need to identify the person in this photo, even though she's upside down. Give up? It's Betty Grable, whose famous gams were allegedly insured with Lloyd's of London for a cool milly. It's was her studio Twentieth Century Fox's doing, though some say it was a publicity stunt. Either way it worked. The free ink the insurance (or insurance fairytale) produced was priceless. It continues even today, obviously, as nearly everyone who writes about Grable mentions the policy. Grable once said, “I became a star for two reasons, and I'm standing on them.” But not in this photo.
 I've got the wardrobe. Now I need a ship, a crew, and a parrot. 
 Above is a fun photo of U.S. actress Gay MacGill, who looks a bit like a pirate here on International Talk Like a Pirate Day, but is actually costumed as a Slaygirl from her only movie, the 1966 Matt Helm spy adventure The Silencers. The Slaygirls appeared in all four movies in the Matt Helm series, though they were barely there in the second entry Murderers' Row, and in The Wrecking Crew, the last movie, they became Slaymates. In either case, you can see some examples we shared from The Ambushers here, and another from The Silencers, here. And of course—arrrrr.
 Laced up tight and ready for action. 
British actress Jacqueline Jones appears in the above promo image made for 1965 her comedy/thriller The Intelligence Man. Jones accumulated about forty credits during her career, appearing in such movies as Jungle Street Girls and The Cool Mikado, and on television shows such as The Avengers and The Scales of Justice. This is a great shot, bouffant hair, lace top, pink background, and all.
 People aren't into books like they used to be. I'm just trying to make it enticing again. 
The only movie we've seen with German actress Andrea Rau is the low budget production Robinson und seine wilden Sklavinnen, aka Robinson and His Tempestuous Slaves, and she made that otherwise uninspired effort worthwhile all by herself. She works similar magic, above, on a pile of books, including a Rowohlt Verlag edition of Henry Miller's Sexus. Rau appeared in about twenty films, and after the cinema made the time-honored transition into television, where she acted until 2008. The above photo came from a 1974 cover of the magazine Rex, and we took the liberty of removing the text. For a couple more shots of Rau check here and here.
 She always got the juices flowing. 
We ran across the above photo of mid-century burlsque queen Lili St. Cyr today, and it was all we needed to decide it was high time to repost her. She's looking particularly picturesque here. We have many entries on her, and certainly will have more, but as a service to you (clicking keywords will let you see everything), we'll make your work easier by pointing to two favorite images here and here.
The practice of burlesque resides in a cultural gray area. The simmering debate is whether it is merely an artful exploitation of women's bodies, or is basically feminist in nature because of the agency the dancers possess. People more serious than us will decide that. We just think she looks cool, and we regard her on the terms she chose: as a dancer and model. Life can be so simple when you let other people do the worrying. 
 I'm going out for a spin. If you need me just look for the brightest light in the evening sky. 
There's a common assumption that Swedish actress Anita Ekberg began her acting career in Europe and later appeared in Hollywood productions, but the opposite is true. She debuted onscreen in 1953's The Mississippi Gambler, and her first credited role was in Abbott and Costello Go to Mars, for which the above promo image was made. She had competed in the 1951 Miss Universe Pageant, and as one of six finalists been awarded a contract with Universal Studios. In Abbott and Costello Go to Mars she played a member of the Venusian Guard (Abbott and Costello's ship landed on Venus by mistake). By 1955 she was a regular supporting player, and by the next year was earning $75,000 a movie. Not a bad way to fly.
 We'd probably regret it, but in this situation we'd take a good long look before running. 
Yes, it's Gloria Hendry again. We've shown you a couple of her famed Uzi packing promo photos made for the James Bond flick Live and Let Die. In this image, also made for that film, she's ditched the rattling heavy weaponry for something a little more ergonomic. But based on appearances alone, we doubt she needed armaments of any sort to be seriously problematic for anyone who needed their behavior corrected. Her chisled body type was not the norm back in 1971 when the photo was made, but these days, in an era of numerous women action stars, she'd fit right in. See Gloria and her Uzi here.
 Maybe it's silly, but I feel more lethal when my gun makes a tremendously loud noise. 
Peggie Castle is equipped with a pistol and silencer in this shot made as a promo for her 1954 mystery The Long Wait. Some of you out there are undoubtedly saying to yourselves right now that silencers are a movie invention that don't really exist. There are only suppressors, and using them still makes a fair amount noise. You're right, but let people have fun, okay? We saw Castle not long ago in western mode, so we thought we'd bring her back as a legit femme fatale. She wears the look well.
 If you think these are big you should see the sack I carry them in. 
This photo features pre-Code actress Doris Hill in a shot made by photographer Eugene Robert Richee. She looks about to bowl, but we think she's holding balloons, not balls. Anything else would be too heavy. Usually when we say someone is pre-Code we mean they got famous before the Hays Code took effect and continued acting afterward, but in Hill's case everything she did was pre-Code, with her entire career spanning 1926 to 1934. Among her films: Thief in the Dark, The Studio Murder Mystery, and Darkened Rooms. We thought because of the unusual background on this photo that we'd be able to pinpoint what film it was made for, but we had no luck. But we can tell you the date. Most sources say it's from 1929.
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The headlines that mattered yesteryear.
1964—Warren Commission Issues Report
The Warren Commission, which had been convened to examine the circumstances of John F. Kennedy's assassination, releases its final report, which concludes that Lee Harvey Oswald, acting alone, killed Kennedy. Today, up to 81% of Americans are troubled by the official account of the assassination. 1934—Queen Mary Launched
The RMS Queen Mary, three-and-a-half years in the making, launches from Clydebank, Scotland. The steamship enters passenger service in May 1936 and sails the North Atlantic Ocean until 1967. Today she is a museum and tourist attraction anchored in Long Beach, U.S.A. 1983—Nuclear Holocaust Averted
Soviet military officer Stanislav Petrov, whose job involves detection of enemy missiles, is warned by Soviet computers that the United States has launched a nuclear missile at Russia. Petrov deviates from procedure, and, instead of informing superiors, decides the detection is a glitch. When the computer warns of four more inbound missiles he decides, under much greater pressure this time, that the detections are also false. Soviet doctrine at the time dictates an immediate and full retaliatory strike, so Petrov's decision to leave his superiors out of the loop very possibly prevents humanity's obliteration. Petrov's actions remain a secret until 1988, but ultimately he is honored at the United Nations. 2002—Mystery Space Object Crashes in Russia
In an occurrence known as the Vitim Event, an object crashes to the Earth in Siberia and explodes with a force estimated at 4 to 5 kilotons by Russian scientists. An expedition to the site finds the landscape leveled and the soil contaminated by high levels of radioactivity. It is thought that the object was a comet nucleus with a diameter of 50 to 100 meters.
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