Penthouse December 1974

Penthouse

December, 1974

December, 1974. Taking a look at the Weekly Top 40 for the week ending December 14, we see Carl Douglas's 'King Fu Fighting' sits atop the chart. Also in the top 5 are some 1970s gems: 'I Can Help,' by Billy Swan, and 'Angie Baby,' by Helen Reddy. The Soul contingent is represented by The Three Degrees. Back in '74 I was unimpressed by Harry Chapin and 'Cat's in the Cradle,' and I still am now in 2025.

 

 

The December issue of Penthouse magazine is on the stands, with December Pet Cathy Green featured on the cover.  

 

These last days of 1974 are not the happy, self-indulgent, hedonistic times that modern-day observers might imagine they were. The American economy was still reeling from the 'energy crisis,' which had kicked off more than a year previously, in October 1973. There was a recession, widespread unemployment, low wages, and in the Rust Belt, where I was living at the time, young people were fleeing for the Sun Belt.  

 

The departure of Richard Nixon left Vice President Gerald Ford in charge of the presidency, a task Ford was ill-suited for. The lead nonfiction article in the December issue is 'Going Broke,' by Scottish-born writer Alexander Cockburn. 'Broke' paints a grim picture of a USA caught in financial entropy, with Cockburn referencing economists such as Keynes, Geoffrey Barraclough, and the Soviet Union's Nikolai Dmitriyevich Kondratiev, in predicting things would get worse, much worse, before they got better.

 

Interestingly, Cockburn married Leslie Corkill Redlich, the daughter of Christopher Redlich (1915-2000), a tycoon who was instrumental in the worldwide adoption of container shipping. The actress Olivia Wilde is the daughter of Cockburn and Redlich...........

 

Also in the December issue is 'Child Bride,' a comedic short story by William Kloman, about a hillbilly girl named Janey Tully who marries a young marine named David Bowers. Another character in the story is a Southern Boy named Pickle, who sells 'marry-wanna,' gobbles Darvon, and has an anecdote to tell:

"I one time had to cut a bullet out of a man's shoulder - hunting in West Virginia," he said. "We poured half a quart of corn whiskey down him, and he didn't even squirm. It was pretty messy, though."

"Oh, my God," Janey said.

"My daddy said children should be seen and not heard," David said. "And the best way to keep a wife was barefoot and pregnant."

Pickle laughed stupidly, spilling beer down his shirt. 

 

The Penthouse Interview is conducted with the Who's Pete Townshend. Pete comes across as more than a little fucked up, distractedly alluding to his guru (at the time), the Parsee mystic Meher Baba (1894 - 1969). In the interview we learn that the Who song 'Baba O'riley' is a tribute of sorts to none other than Meher Baba ?!
 

Well, you've got your hard times and your economic despair, but cheer up, for the December issue does deliver Bob Guccione's contribution to Seventies escapism: lots of soft-focus nudies ! 

 

Ms. Green (or whoever it was on staff who handled the text blurbs for the portfolios), lets readers know that she's all about 'size', and I'm sure Penthouse readers absolutely had no qualms about their ability to meet Ms. Green's expectations.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lest readers still were depressed after viewing the shapely Ms. Green's portfolio, well, Guccione presented a portfolio with yet another brunette, this one the sylph-like Terri Saunders:

 

 

 

 

 

That's how things were, in those strange days of 51 years ago........

Book Review: Immoral Tales by Cathal Tohill and Pete Tombs

December is Trash Cinema Month at the PorPor Books Blog

'Immoral Tales: European Sex and Horror Movies 1956 - 1984'

by Cathal Tohill and Pete Tombs

 

'Immoral Tales' first was published in the UK in 1994 by Primitive Press. This U.S. edition (272 pp.) was published in October, 1995, by St. Martin's Griffin. Another UK edition was released in 1995 by Titan Books.

 

All editions, being long out of print, have pretty steep asking prices, with used copies, in acceptable or good condition, starting at $30 on up at amazon and eBay. One speculator / bookjacker is asking for $191 for their 'new' copy ! 

 

As of the time of the writing of this post, an eBook or digital edition of 'Immoral Tales' has yet to appear.

 

'Immoral Tales' is one of two volumes on trash cinema authored by Tohill and Tombs, the other being 'Mondo Macabro: Weird and Wonderful Cinema Around the World,' published in 1997 (there is available a Kindle edition of 'Mondo').

 

I remember picking up my copy of 'Immoral Tales' late in 1995 at the Borders Books and Records in Towson, Maryland, a suburb north of Baltimore. Yes, those were the days before online purchasing when, if you wanted a book, you went to a brick-and-mortar bookstore......

'Immoral Tales' starts off with a declaration:

 

During the 1960s and 70s, the European horror film went totally crazy. It began to go kinky - creating a new type of cinema that blended eroticism and terror.

 

....these bizarre flicks defy simple pigeon-holing. They're too lowbrow to be considered arty, but too intelligent and personal to be described simply as Euro-trash. They're a curious hybrid, milking the dynamism of popular literature and comic books, combining it with the perverse romanticism of real Art.

 

The book's second chapter, 'Sex, Cinema, and Surgery,' offers homage to the 1959 French film Eyes Without a Face, with Tohill and Tombs stating that the film was sufficiently graphic and disturbing, but also possessing an 'artistic' sensibility, thus signalling a new approach to the horror genre, a genre historically dominated by American-produced films. 

Subsequent chapter off in-depth overviews of such sex and horror films, released in the postwar era, from Spain, Italy, France, and Germany. There are brief reviews of memorable films from each country.

There are chapters devoted to major Eurotrash Cinema auteurs: Jesus Franco, Jean Rollin, Jose Larraz, Walerian Borowczk, Alain Robbe-Grillet, and Jose Benazeraf. Of course, whether these film-makers deserve reverential analysis is in the mind of the beholder.......I'm not going to trigger a debate here and now, save to say that I don't quite agree with the authors that Franco is the creative talent they argue he is.

 

 

Authors Tohill and Tombs realize they are writing for an (almost exclusively) male audience, so they wisely see to it that the book is heavily illustrated with (rather low-res) black-and-white stills of nude, lithe young women.

 

A section of color stills and movie posters is inserted into the book's middle section; these are reproduced in high resolution, and are one of the book's best features.

 

 

 

 

The text of 'Immoral Tales' is small, dense, two-column font. To their credit, Tohill and Tombs avoid getting too 'scholarly,' they understand they're writing for the trash film fan, zine reader, and midnight movie aficionado. Thus, they keep their prose conversational and devoid of pretense. 

 

The films are given concise summaries, and the role of the sociocultural milieu of postwar Europe in composing the films is described with insight and economy. Tohill and Tombs, as Britishers, understand that on the Continent, sometimes things are just inexplicable to Anglophone audiences, and accepting this makes the films a little more watchable.

 

 

'Immoral Tales' is filled with quirky little revelations; for example, in 1990 French director Jean Rollin made, on a micro-budget, a pilot episode of 'Harry Dickson: The American Detective,' hoping to persuade a French TV company to commit to producing a series. Rollin shot the pilot in Paris and enlisted, to play the role of Harry Dickson, Jean-Michel Nicollet, the artist who did memorable covers for French paperbacks, and who is well-known by the readers of Metal Hurlant and Heavy Metal magazines. It's a small world, when it comes to the fantastique.....

 

 

'Immoral Tales' closes with an Appendix, referencing major directors, actors, and production / distribution companies involved in the sex and horror cinematic enterprises profiled in the book. There also is a brief essay on European comics book heroes.

 

Hopefully, this overview will provide sufficient information for those individuals who are contemplating whether it's worth parting with $30 or more to obtain a copy of 'Immoral Tales.' If you are a hardcore fan of trash cinema then the answer is 'yes.' However, if your interest in such films is a little more casual, then 'Immoral Tales' really is not a must-have, given the presence of online resources, such as the Grindhouse Cinema Database, that provide easily accessible plot summaries, reviews and essays, of Eurotrash films.

The Terminator, Dark Horse Comics, 1990

The Terminator Comic Book series

Dark Horse, 1990

The first company to obtain a license to produce comic books for the 'Terminator' franchise was Now Comics, aka Caputo Publishing, which ran a series for 17 issues, from September 1988 to February 1990. Dark Horse took over the franchise that same year, issuing a four-issue miniseries from August to November.

 

Since that time the franchise has bounced around from one publisher to another, with mixed success. As of the end of 2025, Dynamite ended a 10-issue run.

 

I recently picked up the four-issue Dark Horse run from 1990. 

Back in those days Dark Horse still was very much an indie start-up, with a small staff, and the same creative teams handled multiple properties. For the Terminator series, the writer was John Arcudi, who seemingly wrote almost every licensed property that Dark Horse published in the late 1980s and early 1990s. The artist was Chris Warner, who also was involved with many titles in the Aliens and Predator franchise from that era.

 

The inaugural Dark Horse Terminator incarnation starts things off in Los Angeles in 2029, with another iteration of the storyline in which resistance fighters, under the direction of John Connor, infiltrate a Skynet facility with the aim of destroying a time travel apparatus.

Needless to say, the apparatus gets used; in this case, to transport both a team of resistance fighters, and a team of Terminators, to the Los Angeles of 1990. 

It's unclear if writer Arcudi had access to the script for the second Terminator film, which began photography in October 1990. But his storyline leverages the plot point in which the mangled remains and technologies of the first Terminator are exploited by avaricious entrepreneurs, thus setting the stage for the advent of Skynet and 'Judgment Day.'

The two teams engage in mayhem throughout L.A. as they vie to identify and abduct the magnate who is in possession of the Terminator remains. Having the police on their trails only complicates things, and there is quite a bit of violent action (some of it involving a ray gun that the Terminators manage to smuggle with them into their journey back in time).

 

 

Over-writing was an almost universal failing of comic books published in the 1990s but Arcudi avoids, it, keeping the plot relatively straightforward, with a few twists added in the final issue signalling that Dark Horse would be continuing the series (which they did in 1991-1992).

Warner's artwork is serviceable, no better and no worse than a lot of the artwork appearing in comic books that year, including one of the top-selling titles, Uncanny X-Men (below). 

 

The color printing, as was the case for many comics of this era, is less than ideal (although in fairness, my scans of these 35 year-old pages tend to shift the red tones towards the pink end of the spectrum). 

 

Uncanny X-Men #266, August 1990, from 'Major Spoilers'

Summing up, 'The Terminator' likely will appeal to diehard fans of the franchise, but others won't see much here to get excited about. You can pick up the 4 issues for under $10 each at online comic book stores. My advice is to spend a bit more and get the best of the Dark Horse Terminator incarnations, 1992's Robocop Vs. Terminator.

Book Review: Grindhouse The Forbidden World of Adults Only Cinema by Eddie Muller and Daniel Faris

December is Trash Cinema Month at the PorPor Books Blog

'Grindhouse: The Forbidden World of 'Adults Only' Cinema'

by Eddie Muller and Daniel Faris 

 

'Grindhouse: The Forbidden World of 'Adults Only' Cinema' (158 pp.) was authored by Eddie Muller and Daniel Faris, and published as a trade paperback by St. Martin's Griffin in November, 1996.

 

I remember picking this book up from the Border's Books and Records in Towson, Maryland, late in 1996, and finding the book amusing and very readable. 

 

It holds up well when re-read nearly 30 years later.

I should emphasize that 'Grindhouse' is not an overview of trash films per se, but rather, a historical and cultural history of the grindhouse experience in American popular culture. Attention is given to the memorable cast of hucksters and scammers who produced and promoted exploitation movies, and the legal machinations from the various authorities who were in decided opposition to this brand of moviegoing.

 

Chronologically, the history starts in the late 1920s, and goes all the way into the 70s.

 

For each of the reviewed decades, Muller and Faris focus on the particular genres of exploitation films that flourished in that era; for example, the 'nudist camp' films of the 50s, the 'roughies' of the 60s, and in the 70s, the 'swinger' films.

Muller and Faris prudently avoid using a self-consciously 'scholarly' or highbrow prose style. They understand they are writing first and foremost for the trash film aficionado, and keep their narrative flowing and informative. The authors make clear that for many of the films touring the grindhouse circuit, the actual content was considerably tamer, and less titillating, than what the posters and lobby cards promised. Sleaze entrepreneurs like William Kent, Kroger Babb, and Harry Novak always had an eye on maximizing their takes from the rubes, and adjusted the distribution, promotion, and advertising of their films accordingly.

 

 

There's all sorts of little anecdotes and tidbits scattered throughout the pages of 'Grindhouse,' and among my favorites, is an anecdote about Timothy Carey, an eccentric who is best known for his 1962 film The World's Greatest Sinner. A young Frank Zappa did the soundtrack for the film - !

 

For Muller and Faris, the early 70s saw the permanent transformation of the grindhouse circuit, as 'adult' films became mainstream in the wake of the success of movies such as Behind the Green Door, The Devil in Miss Jones, and Deep Throat. Suddenly, 'regular' people, including couples, were going to XXX theaters to take in 'adults only' cinema. And then, in 1975, came the initial notes of the death knell that soon would toll for the grindhouses:

 

....the world was introduced to the video cassette recorder, a device that accomplished what God-fearing prosecutors and Bible-thumping censors never could - it closed down hundreds of Adults Only theaters all across America.

 

One thing I quickly discovered with my re-read of 'Grindhouse' is that nowadays you can access the profiled films pretty easily by going online, unlike the situation in 1996 when you had to peruse the videocasette / DVD vendors to see what they had in their inventory. And the reality is that many of the films referred to in 'Grindhouse,' when viewed outside of confines of the theaters and social mores of the exploitation era, are quite forgettable.......

'Grindhouse' features a color portfolio of film posters and advertisements in the midsection of the book.

 

With used copies of 'Grindhouse' in 'acceptable' -grade condition starting at $50, getting the book is not a trivial purchase, and perhaps is best left to those aging Baby Boomers who constitute the majority of readers interested in things like the Russ Meyer films of the 1960s. I can't see people under the age of 40 being all that engrossed in the narrative of 'Grindhouse,' particularly in our modern age of streaming video. Somehow, the experience of exploitation cinema just isn't the same when viewed from the comfort of your sofa, as opposed to the discount movie theaters and drive-ins of the grindhouse era. 

 

In any event, hopefully this overview will give you a sense of what the book offers, and whether an investment of fifty bucks (or more) is worthwhile.