Singin' In The Rain

The forecast for the Gold Coast tomorrow is for rain over most of the weekend, so this week's Friday pin-up is dedicated to summer showers.

Which is just as well because our lovely lass (looking a little like a young Geena Davis) has discovered it's not a good idea to take off one's wet clothes until after one is indoors.

Unless what's falling in this picture is the fallout after an early experimental version of the nude bomb.

No Fault

The Australian summer tennis season has started with the opening new Brisbane tennis centre at Tennyson.

Well, it was an excuse to use this pic.

Cute huh?

Racy Red Head

Lovely pic.

Nora doesn't know where Nick found it, but it's fab.

Our red headed lass is not a piece of track side eye-candy. She looks like she really knows how to handle a stick shift.

So to speak.

The car looks too early to be a Cobra, perhaps someone with better eye for detail can help illuminate.

Artists' Revealed

This week's pin up comes from an artist which has become one of the Charles' favourites - Gil Elvgren.

Right up there with Alberto Vargas, Elvgren specialised in the classic pin-up style popular from the 1930s to the 1960s.

While Elvgren was the top of the tree but, as Lileks has noticed, there were other artists who just didn't 'get it'.

Art Frahm was one of those artists (oh yes, completely safe for work). Click for James Lileks' social history on this interesting artist.

Hook Line and Sinker

No wonderful shoes on this week's pin up - just fabulous makeup and an interesting story.

The artist is Edward Runci, an Italian born, US-raised artist best known for his pin ups of the 1940s and 1950s.

If you notice a theme with his girls, it's because his wife Maxine was the model and inspiration of these rather sweet pin-ups.

In fact Maxine was an accomplished artist in her own right. There's a lovely background (including a lovely portrait of Maxine) right here.

Rose By Any Other Name

Nick and Nora are rather fond of the classic pre-1970s pin ups, the water colour nymphs who tease rather than display a gynaeologically detailed view of their, um talents.

The girls are fantasy images in the purest form - flawless skin, delightful figures, lush settings but still friendly and approachable.

Nora's particularly enamored of the shoes...

So, enjoy, the first of a series of classic pinups for Thursday.

The Past Is A Foreign Country...

Content Advisory: This post and some of the linked articles discuss adult themes that may be unsuitable for children. However, they do not contain any 'adults only' photographs. Except perhaps the picture of Madonna and Britney.

Nora's mum, avert your eyes - this is where Saucy Saturday goes hard core, though in terms only of the subject under discussion. The accompanying image has been suitably censored to salve the sensibilities of viewers, not to mention protect us from infringement of our good host Blogspot's terms and conditions.

The subject is Danish pornography publisher and film producer-distributor Color Climax Corporation which had only been legally in existence a mere six years before the pictured edition was published in 1975.

Prior to that, company founders Jens and Peter Theander, described by Wikipedia as 'brothers who shared a common interest in pornography and easy money' had operated from 1966 clandestinely printing a black and white magazine (would that have made it the Black and White Climax Corporation?) in the face of Danish anti-pornography laws. When Denmark legalised 'porn' in 1969, the brothers switched to colour and found an eager market in other European countries where their product was still illegal.

In its list of 'Pornographic Sub-Genres', Wikipedia defines vintage pornography as 'generally pre-1970s pornography, especially early twentieth-century black and white photographs and stag films'. In effect then, the illustrated edition is not vintage but it does find a place in the hearts of 'admirers of so-called "classic pornography"'.

However, if by 'classic pornography' one means substandard printing and male participants who look like Blakey from On The Buses, you can keep it.

The slim volume, with descriptive text in English and German for those lacking in imagination, features two photo sets: one a pair of young females doing what a pair of young females in such a magazine do and the other a bride dismayed by her husband's passed-out drunkenness on their wedding day accepting the 'commiserations' of two male members of the wedding party.

The former has, of course, been a staple of pornography for as long as it has existed; the latter is today a sub-sub genre that has dispensed with the flimsy pretext of a newlywed husband's inebriation to see a portion of the wedding party willingly adjourn straight from the reception to hotel room orgy.

Such are the mores of the day, which, after all, also see Madonna and Britney not within the pages of Colour Climax but live on stage in London. Ones disapproval of the current state of affairs is not so much behaviour as context.

What is genuinely shocking, however, was the discovery in researching this entry that:

Although generally not mentioned by the multi-national corporation of today, it is notable that Color Climax was one of the only large-scale commercial producers of child pornography in the modern history of erotica to openly advertise the fact. Though participation by such a mainstream studio was unique to Denmark, it generally did not reflect a wide-spread societal acceptance of child pornography in the country at the time.

Such participation was apparently made possible by legal definitions of the time that permitted sexualised images of children to be taken, distributed and possessed provided laws relating to the age of consent and sexual assault were not broken and that the children were not harmed.

Not harmed? Good grief!

How times and the law have changed - thank goodness - though this Wikipedia entry examines the can of worms opened by judicial efforts to expand present-day protection of children to cover 'pseudo-photography' made possible by digital technology, legal definitions of which could, at a stretch, render a snapshot of many classic works of art illegal.

Once again, it's all about context.

Postscript: Sincere apologies to actor Stephen 'Blakey' Lewis.

The Widow's Fund

Kitsch, crass or collectable? Probably all three in varying degrees.

But the pottery stripper mugs that were so popular as barware some decades ago have an honourable history, originating apparently in much more seriously 'arty' form from Laguna Beach artist Dorothy Kindell.

This group - a 'metric set' of five plus (unpictured) a differently and rather more gaudily coloured repeat of mug #3 - were seen in passing and purchased from the unlikely locale of a dental technician's shopfront. Turned out the false teeth fitter's long-time receptionist had taken up pottery as a pastime after being widowed and had molded several sets of the mugs for fun.

These were the last and were had for, if memory serves one correctly, a mere 15 bucks AU.

So, assuming the full set was six, which stage of the stripper's routine is missing? Perhaps there's a clue in that she progresses abruptly from bestockinged to barelegged. Who knows?

Before They Were Stars

The cover states 'Lilliput is a man's magazine' - and it certainly is.

There's nothing within the pages that could possibly interest the woman of 1956 - and pictorially little that would interest the man of 2007.

Founded in 1937, the British magazine at this time featured a single two page photo spread of its featured starlet, cover girl Jill Ireland, and but two other exceedingly demure photos of attractive up and comers in the film world.

Ms Ireland went on to a successful acting career in film and television and married actor David McCallum the year after this magazine was published. They were divorced in 1967 and she wed actor Charles Bronson the following year. The Internet Movie Database reports that McCallum had introduced his wife to Bronson when the two men were co-starring in 1963's The Great Escape.

Ireland died in 1990 of breast cancer, having undergone a mastectomy in 1984. Her death left husband Bronson bereft and he did not remarry for eight years, an eternity in Hollywood terms. Bronson passed away in 2003.

Whether Lilliput generally had the inside dope on just who was going 'to make it' amongst the filmland hopefuls they featured is unknown but they certainly scored a hat-trick with this edition.

Judi Boutin was a young Ice Follies star who turned to acting after a series of accidents - including breaking her back - forced her out of skating. She went on to success on a series of TV shows under the name Judi Meredith. She's still alive but her last acting role appears to have been in 1973.

Sara Shane was hardly a young starlet in 1956 - she was already 30 and had bit parts in Easter Parade (1948), Neptune's Daughter (1949), Sign of the Pagan (1954) and Magnificent Obsession (1954). When featured in Lillput, she was working on The King and Four Queens with Clark Gable and her film career peaked with the Jane-like role opposite Gordon Scott in Tarzan's Greatest Adventure (1959). She moved into TV after that but retired from acting in her late 30s. IMDB reports:

She turned to writing and began to devote herself to the study of pharmaceuticals. She wrote two books "Zulma" and "Take Control of Your Health and Escape the Sickness Industry," the first one a work of fiction and the second a book promoting healthy living. She eventually moved to Australia to avoid the Los Angeles pollution and, at age 80, still lives happily...and healthily...on her 5 acres of land.

The rest of the magazine devotes itself to such men's issues as
'Improve Your Control' with hints on dribbling and ball handling but not in the realm one might expect from later titles - it's a pictorial 'how to' on soccer featuring Fulham FC Captain and England international star Johnny Haynes.

Otherwise, the magazine is repleat with war and adventure stories, articles on the right raincoat to wear to the races and ads for cigarettes, electric shavers and such indispensible after-market auto accessories as Smith's Car Heaters.

Wikipedia notes that Lilliput was merged in August 1960 with Men Only magazine 'which only later became pornographic'. Certainly in 1956, the Jill Ireland centrespread contains nothing to offend anyone but ones prudish maiden aunt and the hint of negligee in the picture of Judi Boutin is offset by the friendly domesticity of her expression - more the young wife suggesting hubby stop reading 'The Blag At The Bailey' and come to the marital bed than the hussy revving up for a romp. Indeed, the only place you'll see a bare breast or bottom is in the cartoons.

Nonetheless, it's a fair bet a chap didn't read Lilliput outside the privacy of his own home or perhaps down the shed.

A mere 14 years later, in 1970, the first topless 'Page 3 Girl' (Wikipedia entry) appeared in British newspaper The Sun and within a few years were openly ogled on the buses.

-- Nick

A New Dimension

The person who would challenge and push the boundaries of what is considered 'decent' by the mores of the day had best not hope to live too long afterwards lest they are disappointed when someone else, following their example, pushes those boundaries further to the point where even the first challenger considers the situation 'indecent'.

Thus was the case for the remarkable Horace Roye-Narbeth (1906 - 2002), better known simply as Roye.

As his London Times obituary noted:

As a noted photographer of nudes, he successfully contested the prudish obscenity laws of his day, paving the way for others to publish work that Roye himself considered to be pornographic.

Featured for your enjoyment on this Saucy Saturday is No.6 in the Roye-Vala Stereo-Glamour Series. Purchased by Nick at the annual Gold Coast Antiques Fair some years ago for $AU15, it's probably 'about its money', as David Dickinson would say, although this edition's cover is somewhat scuffed and further marred by damage apparently from a later price sticker placed over the original cover price of 3/- (that's shillings to you).

No.3 in this series is the really collectable one, featuring British glamour model and actress Diana Dors, which currently asks between GBP50 and GBP99 on eBay.

The Stereo-Glamour Series series appears to have been published in the late 1940s or early '50s (probably the latter). If anyone can clear up the publication date, we'd be grateful.

The booklets appear to use a different method to the standard double exposure 3D photo set-up (which uses 2 images taken from slightly different angles) and, frankly, it doesn't work that well. Perhaps that's why the studio offered a more traditional stereoscope viewer and photo sets on the final page.

The inside back cover features a die-cut to keep your handheld 3D glasses - or rather 'Roye-Vala-Scope' - safe from loss, although spares are available for 6d each, post free, from the discreetly named Camera Studies Club.

Despite being 24 pages plus cover, edition No.6 features only eight pages of 3D nudes with each facing page blank, but the appreciator of the female form was nonetheless compensated with numerous other photos scattered throughout the publication and several pages of illustrated advertisements for other publications.

Noteworthy of this edition is it includes a photo from the 'Tarot' session, an original shot from which is featured on the painfully arty Roye Retrospective web site. However, where the Stereo-Glamour Series 3D photo has been strategically airbrushed, the photo on the Retrospective site includes the model's, ahem, 'landing strip' pubic hair.

Earlier refusal to self-censor landed Roye in court:

Roye, who claimed to have seen more than 10,000 naked women through the lens, always helped the police when they were investigating obscene pictures, but he was himself prosecuted when he refused to airbrush out pubic hair - the convention of the time - from the image of a model called Desiree in his Unique Edition collection. He successfully defended himself in court, arguing that the representation of beauty should be untrammelled by prudery.

The British photographer's life - and death - contained more drama than 10,000 nudes and a day in the Old Bailey, however.

Fired from his job as trainee draper for 'going to work in his evening suit after a drunken night on the tiles' he left London for South Africa - and was later expelled from the country for diamond smuggling.

By 1938, he was back in London with his own studio and about to create controversy with Tomorrow's Crucifixion, a photo of nude woman in a gasmask crucified. The Retrospective site describes the reaction:

This startling picture was published in the North London Recorder in August 1938 to a predictably mixed response. Those who might have reacted with outrage in normal circumstances were forced to concede that Roye's photograph summed up the threat of Nazi chemical warfare better than any run-of-the-mill propaganda shot taken before or during the Munich Crisis. Roye had taken a bet of £100 with the proprietor of the newspaper: could Roye create an image that would result in the paper being reprinted within hours of its publication? Tomorrow's Crucifixion, the best of a series of photos taken in a North London cinema after an all-night shoot, was the result. Roye won his bet, and also succeeded in creating what has now proved to be, on its rediscovery in the archive, one of the key pre-war photographic images of the century.

Roye retired to Portugal in 1959 but was forced to flee the country following the 1974 revolution because of his 'right-wing views and support for the dictatorship'.

A life punctuated by action came to a full stop in a dramatic manner. Roye had successfully defended his Lisbon villa against Leftists in the 1970s by brandishing a shotgun but he was murdered in Morocco in 2002, 'said to have been involved in a struggle with a painter who allegedly broke into his bedroom and stabbed him 14 times with the knife that Roye kept beneath his pillow'.

Robbery 'gone wrong' or a jealous husband? Who knows?

Bottle Blonde

Welcome to the first post for 'Saucy Saturday' - a fairly common piece of 'breweriana', the Brass Nude Bottle Opener.

Nick picked up this licentious lithe lady at a swap meet or fair somewhere for only a few dollars. A-ha! Cheap as well as common. The shame!

You can find your own all over eBay for a few dollars too. There's even a gold-plated version around who plies her trade for around $US30.

As far as we can tell, the original design dates back to the 1920s or '30s though surely it must have been in production for decades, perhaps even still going today.

One might say the old brass holds her age well, though wear or the loss of detail associated with cheap castings on the face of this example has given her a rather ghoulish appearance and she's been retired from active duty since the advent of twist-cap beer bottles.