Carole Mallory Exorcises "Picasso's Ghost"

Those of you who know me well know that I don't like the e-tail behemoth named after a certain South American river. But today and today only (this is the third day, I just didn't think of doing this until now, so sue me) you can get my friend Carole Mallory's memoir Picasso's Ghost on your e-reader for free via this link!

http://www.amazon.com/Picassos-Ghost-Love-Story-ebook/dp/B00BEP6R4S

She's a real sweetheart. If Woody Allen's Zelig had been a beautiful woman, she would have been Carole Mallory. Model, actress ("the Stepford Wives," "Looking for Mr. Goodbar"), novelist ("Flash"), now memoirist, she tells the story of her amazing trajectory through Paris, New York and Hollywood, her engagement to Picasso's son Claude, and her liaisons with Peter Sellers, Rod Stewart, De Niro, Mailer and others, as well as encounters with Princess Grace, Jack Nicholson and more. 

If you miss the free e-reader, you can still but it cheap. Or better yet, go order a hard copy from your local independent bookseller!

Finally, the video....

Below is the link to the book trailer for Nocturne le vendredi, which came out November 2 in France. There will be an English version before the book comes out in the US next June. Ideally I will have  rerecorded the voice-over as I did a poor job the first time; this is all the more frustrating because Lane Davies, doing the voice of the psychopathic actor, gives a great performance.

The whole thing was edited by Jenna Marguerita, who also produced and co-directed the scenes with the actors, ably assisted by a group of students from the film department at Webster University. Thanks to them and to Jenna's company, Bitdepth Productions LLC.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RcnGPwYwQXA&feature=autoshare

(p.s.: Click the link above, not the pic below.)

A WHATload?

My friend Jedidiah "Noir Bar" Ayres has just released a very dirty book of short stories entitled A Fuckload of Shorts, or to please the prudes who police American bookstore shelves looking for msut and foul language, A F*ckload of Shorts.

 

There's necrophilia and murder and all kinds of wrong types of intercourse, social and sexual, in this here collection, for which I penned a rather excellent introduction. Two of the stories have been adapted into films, including "Viscosity" and "A Fuckload of Scotch Tape," which is every bit as brilliant as its title, which is my favorite short story title ever. You can get the book here:

http://store.subbooks.com/product/fckload-shorts

If you don't buy it, you won't be "In the Know" like the cool kids on the playground who smoke and swear!

Scandal!

In the late fifties, "Confidential" was the magazine that named the names and dished the dirt. I'd read a book about the magazine's tumultuous legal history (they got sued a lot) but I'd never seen a copy.

 That's Lana Turner on the bottom!

 Look! Edward R. Murrow had a missing tooth! And there's another one of Liz Taylor's husbands!

Queer Shenanigans! Reducing Pills! Louella Parsons! Man. Those were the days.

Perversion for Profit

While looking for public domain educational and propaganda footage for the book trailer for the second Noir at the Bar anthology (coming soon!) I discovered this gem in the Internet Archive. It's from the Prelinger Archives, and it was produced circa 1965 by, among others, Charles Keating, later a United States senator ruined by the Keating Five scandal. Back then he was an anti-porn crusader (he's a character in Milos Forman's "The People vs. Larry Flynt) and his Citizens for Decent Literature, Inc. made this sweet little picture. It's full of images of the smut it claims to vilify, and much of it is kinky stuff you'd have to have hunted pretty hard for in the sixties. The amzaingly great narrator is George Putnam, in a highly aroused state of high dudgeon.  (Click on the link, not the pic.)

You're welcome.
http://archive.org/details/0694_Perversion_for_Profit

Another Film Noir Poster from Belgium

This one's for another "White Slavery" picture. Both titles translate as "Slaves for Rio."
The English title is "They Were So Young," and the story centers on a Rio modeling agency that's a front for a call-girl ring. And it's got Raymond Burr! He plays "Jaime Coltos."

How Times Change

It used to be you had to look far and wide and go into some pretty seedy places to get this kind of material under the counter. Now they're stocking it at suburban retail establishments for all to see.

What a great age we live in!

Two Mexican Film Posters from the 50s

 The first one, "el Ciclòn del Caribe," seems to be a musical. Click on it and savor its full-size garish glory.

(I don't know why the lady is green!)

 The second, "Trotacalles," seems to be about streetwalkers (Spanish speakers, am I translating "Trotacalles" correctly?) Unfortunately it's in pretty bad shape and  it may be past salvaging. The artist's name is Vargas and I'm told he was a very prominent figure among the Mexican artists painting movie posters back in the day.