Movie Millisecond: Teen Wolf

Teen Wolf (Rod Daniel, 1985).

Jeremy Levine, why do you not call.

Enough said.

Girls of Summer: Teddi Smith, Miss July 1960

Photographed by William Graham and Edmond Leja.

Bill Graham and Ed Leja do an absolutely beautiful job with this spread. Check out especially the use of color and warm, ambient light in the exterior shots — just gorgeous and really striking. I wish the same could be said for the write-up, because Ms. Smith (not her real name but I will refer to her by it) is a fascinating, ambitious, creative and exciting woman, but it is not at all reflected in the text that accompanied her gatefold. It is one of those write-ups. The ones that make me resort to made-up epithets and food-item-substitutes for swearwords. Pop a dramamine and check it out:

I adore her expression in this picture. A lot of her shots from this spread feature an almost amused, frank and confident openness on her face. Almost catlike, almost equally curious about the lens as it is about her.

The delights of yachting are too well-known to require exhaustive comment here, but potential yachtsmen should be apprised that it’s possible to find a First Mate for a trim craft who is a trim craft herself.

(“Ship Shape.” Playboy, July 1960.)

Such a one is Miss July: Teddi Smith, a nubile native of Van Nuys, California. Weekdays she works as a receptionist, but every weekend, she undergoes a sea change and turns into the sweetest of sailors, manning a tiller with the best of them and showing the coast line’s shapeliest pair of sea legs in the process.

(Ibid.)

Franklin Delano Roosevelt, what a pile of yam fries and appleslaw! Worse than usual, even — bleah. Can you believe that sassy molassy? It’s possible they did it because Ms. Smith’s birthdate was September of ’42 and, as this gatefold appeared in July of ’60, and experience tells us the spread was photographed well ahead of its publication and distribution, then, barring some fuzzy math, Ms. Smith was rather obviously at least six months under 18 at the time of this shoot.

If that makes you feel hinky, just scroll past this gal, but do remember that in plenty of states in the U.S.A. at that time, 17 (and, in some states, younger) was the age of consent, so call me old-fashioned or statutorily perverted but I’m kind of live-and-let-live ambivalent on this one.

I know, I know: the argument is, what I just said was wrong about justifying the pics via the ol’ “but that was legal consenting age back then” line because what if it was, I don’t know, horrific nudie pics from the 1800’s of a 12 year old Apache girl getting dp’d by evil cowboys or some shit, right? Sure, there was no consenting age then but holy jesus I would be as outraged as anyone to know of such a thing, absolutely. Dreadful, expository, predatory garbage like that, reflective of only darkness and pain and violent degradation, should of course not be disseminated no matter what. That would be awful, yes. Straight abhorrent child porn. I am not arguing that at all!

But I’d pray that those cases are hopefully rare (I couldn’t sleep if I thought they abounded, so please do not tell me if you know otherwise) and you do have to draw a line somewhere with pornography laws. Look at this spread: Miss July looks happy, openly participatory, and at her age was not exactly a novitiate to puberty.

I knew exactly what I was doing at 17, as I suspect most folks of either gender do now and always have at just that age. My feeling is this: 16 is pretty dang sketchy, headed proportionally toward screwed-up based on the further the wooer is from that age, 15 is sailing in to some deep “this is really wrong — you should seek help” waters and 14 and < is straight-up NOT COOL, go directly to jail and do not collect $200. But, really, 17-18? Meh.

Hot fricasse, am I going to get arrested for saying all that? This may get edited later when I got time to look up laws. Eek… So, back to Teddi Smith and this spread: what happened was two years earlier Hugh Hefner had landed in hella hot water for using an underage girl in the magazine, despite her mom’s permission — the mother ended up prosecuted, too, under contribution to minor delinquency laws.

Elizabeth [Ann Roberts]’s pictorial was a significant one in the history of Playboy because she was only 16 at the time her photos were taken. Her pictorial was titled “Schoolmate Playmate.”

She literally had a note from her mother giving her permission to pose, but both Hugh Hefner and Roberts’ mother were arrested and charged by Chicago authorities with contributing to the delinquency of a minor. The charges were eventually dropped on the grounds of lack of evidence that Hefner had known her true age.

(the wiki)

My conjecture is that following that debacle, the understandably gun-shy editorial staff may have figured it was best to roll with a meaningless “nothing to see here, folks” line of purple prose that had nothing to do with Teddi, so no one would be too curious about her when the gatefold went to print. I’ll assume that is why the write-up blows when she is so cool a chick who deserves such better explanation.

Anyway: I’m trying to be in a good mood about humanity and “Ms. Smith” went on to do lots of really cool and interesting stuff, so let’s focus on that (and the eye-popping colors captured by Leja and Graham in this pictorial) and never speak of that awful, awful write-up again.

After this shoot, Teddi Smith went on to work as a bunny at the original Chicago Playboy Club, like so many of the rad gals we’ve highlighted over the months, and also posed for a number of Playboy covers throughout the 1960’s. Click on any cover below to see it large. They are beautiful and frequently clever, good examples of cover work from the magazine’s heyday.

After winding down her long and successful modeling career in the late 1960’s, Ms. Smith concurrently received her education and embarked on extensive and fascinating travels, including spending some very special time in Tanzania.

Inspired by the crafts of the native Tanzanian women with whom she lived, Teddi Smith became interested in the integration of tribal weaving with modern textile and organic decorative arts. This was while she was working in a research camp with scientists who were following and studying the habits of elephants. Totally awesome — but get this.

She also made and kept a candelabra that she fashioned out of a lion skull. Um, who’s a BAMF? Teddi Smith is a BAMF! Crazy-rad!

I know, right? Totally eleventy gajillion miles away from the hot fudge pickles about yachting and secretarial work suggested in her fluffy write-up! Today, “Teddi” is in the creative decorative professional field and was formerly headquartered in New York City. It appears she is semi-retired now, I’m sure well-earned. A woman who can make a candelabra out of a lion’s skull in Tanzania can I’m sure make a silk purse of the slummiest sow’s ear in a loft in Hell’s Kitchen — I’m sorry, “Clinton.” (Gentrification makes me laugh with a mouth full of blood.)

She now maintains offices in Texas and San Miguel Allende, Mexico. Teddi is on the right in the above picture, getting friendly at a B&B with Tootsie the parrot, a kitten named Harle, and a lovely German shep called Chespita. You can see she has not lost her sense of adventure or her frank, direct gaze at the camera. To the left of Ms. Smith in that picture is a Topanga, CA-based woman who is also active in textiles and decorating.

Edit: Scratch that, reverse it. Teddi’s on the left (our left) and Miss Carpets is on the right (our right). I am an adult and freely admit I still do not know my left from my right. I mix them up all the time.

If you like, and have ginger ale handy in case your stomach gets rocky, you can click above and below to read the carrotsticks and shenanigans of Teddi Smith’s original gatefold. The b&w shots are very good and the writing I guess is not that bad. It’s not “redundant-clumsily-worded-psychosexual-teenage-fantasies-by-a-crazy-virgin-cat-lady-from Utah” bad (subtle vampires-suck dig — booyakasha), just not up to very high par. Enjoy!

Daily Batman: Demi-chat, Demi-femme

Demi Moore photographed by Matthew Ralston.

Irena: Some nights there is another sound. The panther. It screams … like a woman. I hadn’t realized how dark it was getting. I like the dark — it is friendly.

(Cat People. Directed by Jacques Tourneur. Screenplay by DeWitt Bodeen. RKO Pictures, 1942.)

I rented this from the library when I was 14 and it rocked my world. Super-hot. Not in a “furry” way — in a just-before-the-censors went nuts way. Sexy dialogue, dark and mysterious clouds coming out of sewers, thick bangs, blondes and brunettes, light bdsm and love triangles. Like, wow! And it’s all at Your Local Library.

The truth about cats and dogs. Simone Simon with a statue of Anubis in a still from Cat People.

Simone Simon, and the picture itself, have developed something of a cult following over the years — this is a coy understatement; there are like just under sixteen hundred blogs I’m sure dedicated to how to most precisely masturbate to the technical prowess of Tourneur’s Cat People — and the popularity of her portrayal as Irena in the film has not left the character of Catwoman untinged. In the 1966 Batman movie, “the Catwoman” (not series regular Jul-Newms, who was washing her hair, but rather your Miss America 1955 Lee Meriwether) poses as a sexy woman from the USSR named Miss Kitka Karenska, employing vaguely the same hairstyle and Romany-rich Eastern European accent used by Simone Simon in Cat People.

I can has intense sexual cult following?

More importantly, after DC’s Infinite Crisis, which-kind-of-but-not-really restored a lot of the retconned into obsolescence storylines that were wiped out in Crisis on Infinite Earths, in One Year Later, Selina Kyle uses the name Irene Dubrovna when she must hide out in the underworld, having temporarily sort-of-retired from her Catwoman vigilante duties due to her pregnancy with Helena, her daughter. (This Helena is not the Helena Wayne of Earth-Two, nor the Helena Kyle of Earth-2, but a Helena in general, of whom what will become — eventually taking up the Huntress mask? tracking down her father for suresies? something else? — it remains to be seen.)

Daily Batman: Nolite te bastardes carborundum repeat by way of bookfoolery

Originally posted on October 13, 2009 at 12:33 pm.

Attaboy. Roll just as fly as you please and fuck ’em if they can’t take a joke.

by Eliza Gauger.

Sorry for the re-tread on a Sunday and not on a Flashback Friday or Take-two Tuesday, but I’m nearly through my major June series which I have done every summer for nine years because of that there ol’ deathiversary due to my crushing unbearable survivor’s guilt and repressed rage, then snap! it’s almost time for my much-more-voluntary-and-less-moody yearly re-read of The Handmaid’s Tale, and then over Fourth Of July I do The Tommyknockers. I must reach the part where Ruthie McCausland blows up the clock tower on Independence Day on the Fourth of July in my own time for true Summer synchonicity to occur, and the times I haven’t done I’ve felt all kinds of crawly about it, so why invite trouble? Then I will wind things down with the Doomsday Book, which, entering my life in 2004, is a comparatively recent addition to my duties.

Librarian-type girls are hot. I’m saying that I’m hot.

Also somewhere in there I’m to become at least glancingly conversant with Elisabeth Kübler-Ross’s work on grief because my aunt said it’s time we try facing up to how we feel Ways About Things and try to let go. I’m all like, “Okay! if you think that’s best,” but really I mean, “WE’LL SEE,” or even, “NO.”

When I’ve attended to all my obligations, which should be done in about a month, THEN I am hoping to get started on this awesome book the Gentleman is loaning me about Abraham Lincoln hunting vampires, which is appropriate because as we all well know vampires suck and werewolves are going to the dogs.

See? Hot! The Bookworm knows. (Another retread; you may remember this picture from the “Enter the Bookworm” post a bit back.)

Christo brought the vampire hunter book down for me the night I went to the house to watch the finale of Lost with Gorgeous George, but I declined, telling him to loan it to someone else because I knew I’d be tied up for a while. But soon! I’ll let you know how it is!

Movie Moment: Jennifer’s Body

Jennifer’s Body, 2009. Directed by Karyn Kusama (Girlfight) and written by Diablo Cody (Juno).

Nerdy, reserved bookworm Needy and arrogant, conceited cheerleader Jennifer are best friends, though they share little in common. They share even less in common when Jennifer mysteriously gains an appetite for human blood after a disastrous fire at a local bar. As Needy’s male classmates are steadily killed off in gruesome attacks, the young girl must uncover the truth behind her friend’s transformation and find a way to stop the bloodthirsty rampage before it reaches her own boyfriend Chip. (the imdb)

“Jennifer’s Body” is not only a fantasy of revenge against the predatory male sex, though the ultimate enactment of that revenge is awfully satisfying. The antagonism and attraction between boys and girls is a relatively straightforward (if, in this case, grisly) matter; the real terror, the stuff of Needy’s nightmares, lies in the snares and shadows of female friendship.

(“Hell is other people, especially the popular girl.” 18 September 2009. Scott, A.O. The New York Times.)

The relationship between Needy and Jennifer is rivalrous, sisterly, undermining, sadomasochistic, treacherous and tender. …

Ms. Cody and Ms. Kusama take up a theme shared by slasher films and teenage comedies — that queasy, panicky fascination with female sexuality that we all know and sublimate — and turn it inside out. This is not a simple reversal of perspective; “Jennifer’s Body” goes further, taking the complication and confusion of being a young woman as its central problem and operating principle. (Ibid.)

In this movie, hell is actually two girls, embroiled in the fiendish complexity of a deep female friendship. The fact that one of them is a boy-eating demon is, believe it or not, secondary.

(“Jennifer’s Body: Megan Fox Is a Man Eater.” 18 September 2009. Pols, Mary. Time.)

Female empowerment would have been the obvious message here, with Jennifer’s bloody appetites stemming from a take-back-the-night scenario gone terribly awry, so it was a pleasure to see Cody and Kusama delving instead into the frequently disempowering effect of female friendships. (Ibid.)

[Jennifer’s Body’s] depiction of the ways in which women like Needy are willing to compromise themselves to indulge an ultimately less secure friend is spot-on. (Ibid.)

As a comic allegory of what it’s like to be an adolescent girl who comes into sexual and social power that she doesn’t know what the heck to do with, [Jennifer’s Body] is a minor classic.

(“Horror-comedy with feminist bite.” 18 September 2009. Rickey, Carrie. The Philadelphia Inquirer.)

“There is within Diablo Cody the soul of an artist, and her screenplay brings to this material a certain edge, a kind of gleeful relish, that’s uncompromising. This isn’t your assembly-line teen horror thriller. The portraits of Jennifer and Needy are a little too knowing.” — Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times.

Kusama and Cody’s collaboration is a wicked black comedy with unexpected emotional resonance, one of the most purely pleasurable movies of the year so far.

To quote Courtney Love (whose song “Jennifer’s Body” gave the movie its title and whose music plays over the closing credits), Jennifer Check is the girl with the most cake.

(“Jennifer’s Body: One of the most purely pleasurable movies of the year so far.” 17 September 2009. Stevens, Dana. Slate.)

“At least nobody’s falling in love with a brooding hunk of an eyeliner-wearing vampire in this movie. Come to think of it, I’d like to see Jennifer get transferred to that Twilight high school and shake things up.” — Richard Roeper. (I never thought I’d agree with him on anything, but holy cannoli, Richard Roeper. Have mercy! A quote like that gets a gal hummin’: I may yet have your stupid, studio-ass-kissing baby, after all.)

Megan Fox, whose previous roles called on little more than her ability to successfully straddle a motorcycle, nails this tricky role. She does more than look sensational—she shows us what it feels like to be a sensational-looking young woman and to wield that as your only power. Fox seems to understand the key gambit of Cody’s script: Her character is less a teenage girl turned monster than an exploration of the monster that lurks inside every teenage girl.

(Stevens, Slate.)

Needy: I thought you only murdered boys.
Jennifer: (shrug) I go both ways.

The negative early reviews with which “Jennifer’s Body” has been greeted are puzzling. Critics seem irked that the picture’s not a full-on horror film or a straight teen comedy or a familiar satirical combination of the two. But the movie has other intentions: It’s really about the social horrors of high school for adolescent girls.

The picture has a tone — smart and slashingly sarcastic — that’s all its own. It’s actually kind of brilliant.

(“Jennifer’s Body: Girl Trouble” 18 September 2009. By fucking KURT LODER. MTV.com)

Chip: I can take care of myself. I’ve been using the bowflex.

Needy: You know what? You were never really a good friend. Even when we were little, you used to steal my toys and pour lemonade on my bed!

Jennifer: And now I’m eating your boyfriend. See? At least I’m consistent.

Needy: Why do you need him? You can have anybody that you want, Jennifer. So why Chip? Just to tick me off? or is it because you’re just really that insecure?

Jennifer: I am not “insecure,” Needy. God! Wh–? That’s a joke! How could I ever be insecure? I was the Snowflake Queen!

Needy: Pffft. Yeah. Two years ago — when you were socially relevant —

Jennifer: (draws in breath) I … am … still … socially relevant.

Needy: — and when you didn’t need laxatives to stay skinny.

Jennifer: (full monster morph time)

Man. Frenemies always know the right buttons to push, amirite?

I think Needy’s relationship with Chip was really, really threatening to Jennifer. I think it is why Jennifer claimed to need to find talent outside of Devil Kettle and why she fixated on that Nikolai tool to begin with — she wanted Needy’s attention back, and she needed to create drama to get it, by going for a guy she knew her friend would have qualms about. She thought Needy would be jealous and want to ride to her rescue. Except it backfired because not only could Needy see through the so-called punk’s ridiculously fake exterior and the desperate, shallow need for everyone’s adulation that was his true inner core, but Jennifer’s pursuit of him exposed the same hollow innards in herself. That’s my take on what tipped the action in to play. Seaquest out. Back to the pros.

Not since Brian De Palma’s Carrie has a horror movie so effectively exploited the genre as a metaphor for adolescent angst, female sexuality and the strange, sometimes corrosive bonds between girls who claim to be best friends.

(Jennifer’s Body.” Rodriguez, Rene. 18 September 2009. Miami Herald.)

Driver: So. Why you headed east?
Needy: I’m — I’m following this rock band.
Driver: Wow, must be one hell of a group.
Needy: Actually … tonight’s going to be their last show.

Most stills courtesy of One Movie, One Day on the tumblr. Thank you so, so much for all your awesome, superfly screencaps!

NSFW November: Serria Tawan, Miss November 2002 inadvertently brings out the rabid ANTM commentator in me — whoops!

Playboy’s Miss November 2002 was actress and model Serria Tawan, seen here in the centerfold posed as a voyeur.

Photographed by Arny Freytag and Stephen Wayda

Note how the light glinting off of the leg of the telescope in the foreground points up a strong diagonal beginning from the bottom left of the composition, that is then intersected by a cross diagonal from the upper left created by her posture and her hand holding one of her braids: together they make an arrow which draws the eye to the undressing couple in the window of the building across the street, who are positioned just above and to the right of the focal attention point of her breasts, making it even more difficult to miss them as the final critical element of the photograph. As your eye moves from left to right, reading the composition, it tells a story: there is a girl. There is a telescope. The girl is using the telescope to look at the couple.

The centerfold was a really good composition. The rest is all over the damned place. Any type of theme with set dressing, poses, or costuming is almost totally absent. Maybe the raincoat is to hint at her being a flasher to boot? Not sure. But it doesn’t get picked back up again even though it’s a fun little kicky erotic detail. Missed opportunity in my book.

From her data sheet

WHEN I GET OLDER:
I want a harem of guys like Hef has women. I want them all diverse. Variety is the spice of life for me.

Get it, girl! I like this lady’s style. If you’re looking to join that harem, you can contact her via her profile on the myspace. In several places on that page, Serria directs you to a website, http://askserria.com, but it is not up and running yet, as far as I can tell.

While the braids are lovely, I like her even better in the above pic, with a gently relaxed weave. She looks younger and very soft and romantic. Even without the bangs, I think this look works better for her than the long braids, and it seems she agrees, as she is apparently rocking it on the reg these days (see below). The only trouble is that it makes her look a lot like phony-evil-queen-witch “ANTM” Cycle 9 winner Saleisha Stowers, who my sister-in-law, husband, and I all unilaterally despise.

Left: Serria Tawan. Right: Saleisha Stowers.

That girl and a competitor, Bianca Golden, were unbelievably cruel to standout contestant Heather Kuzmich of Valpariso, Indiana, who had Asperger’s Syndrome for crissake and still mopped the floor with their jealous asses until Go-Sees, which she only blew because she was not being properly aided. Yes, I have every detail of every cycle of the Tyra Banks reality show “America’s Next Top Model” memorized, and may the good god strike me dead if I ever stop loving the parade of tears, catfights, and girl-girl showers that comprise that gory but gorgeous grand guginol.

Anyway, Saleisha and Bianca were rude, catty, and sneaky about Heather, not to mention super-jealous and totally ignorant of the qualities that made her outshine them week after week, and their insecurities drove them to taunt her and talk about her behind her back like they were twelve and not on national fucking television. Because of that I will forever despise their fake sticky-sweet smiles. Although I was on the Bergie’s website a while ago — just window-shopping; like I could possibly afford something from their store right now — and I know for a fact I recognized Heather modelling some of the dresses in the pictures, so in their snotty, sabotaging, difference-hating faces: time has told, success-wise.

Wow, I think I might need to write some more about Top Model another day. It would appear I have Things to Say.

In other news, Kristy Swanson was on the cover of this one. I have never even seen one episode of the television series, so to me it is she who will always be Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Even though vampires are lame, passe, and ridiculous as all hell, that movie is so great.

Music Moment – “Zombie Killer” by Leslie and the LY’s

That last post got me hecka down for all kinds of reasons on which I am afraid to get totally clear, but all I know is, super-down. Leslie Hall, aka Mother Gem, always makes me feel better! Seems like the trend pendulum — oh my god, trendulum?! yes? feeling it?? let me know. — has swung in recent years from pirates to zombies and vampires, and might have recently begun edging back to the zed-word with the success of Zombieland. Here’s hoping it goes firmly back and stays.

Pirates are over-entitled stealing rapists and vampires are not as hot as you think they are. Especially teenaged ones. Bleah. Like, you could not put two things together in which I could possibly have less interest than a lameass damned vampire and a frigging teenager in love. Maybe … maybe if it was a movie or book about economists who wear socks. Those are two other things that alternately bore and annoy me (economists are in it for the money and socks are for CHUMPS). Anyway, here’s Leslie and the girls, doin’ their thing Romero-style!

i’m surprised to find
the dead are walking around
hell is full
they’re back in action
hungry for brains and
they seek some satisfaction
we must not fear
what we do not guess
acid rain or laser jets
but good advice
seek guns and/or hammers
lots of wood
and silky pajamas

shoot them in the brains
if you want to live
shoot them in the brains
even the little kids
if you want to survive them eating your flesh
i suggest you shoot them in the brains

not as basic, like buffy,
there can only be one
you must gather your strength
shooting them can be quite fun
take note, they don’t run well
and they’d rather be back
in their homeland of hell
the bloody ones shoot at first
the smell alone ain’t worth the hurt
nop drama here
just straight up survival
the damned are back
so you can beat box your bible

shoot them in the brains
if you want to live
shoot them in the brains
even the little kids
if you want to survive them eating your flesh
i suggest you shoot them in the brains

you zombie killer
you zombie killer

stuck together strangers
forever united by the killers in the streets
bloody and vicious
our minds delicious
never enough to eat
bullets by the hundreds
we aim for the heart
but dot your shot right to the smart
lets watch zombie heads explode
shot pop lock and load

shoot us in the brains
even the little kids
shoot us in the brains

if you want to survive them eating your flesh
i suggest you shoot them in the brains

you zombie killer
zombie killer

Yes, I acknowledge that it’s probably a problem that, brought down emotionally by an indie quasi-quirky-romantic flick which delved into Feelings, I turned instantly to a genre of shoot-’em-up horror movie known for its brainless hordes. I’m working on it. How many times must I say this?

Per mi amica: Chelle edition

“What, you don’t like rice? Tell me, Michael, how could a billion Chinese people be wrong?” –David (Keifer Sutherland in Lost Boys)

If I ever get the truly full-length director’s cut edition, I will try to screencap me Just For You, my dear Mrs. Griggs!