Glad Tidings - Vol III

Today's round of peplum-flavored beefcake comes from the 1957 film The Goddess of Love, which starred buxom and beautiful British starlet Belinda Lee, stationing herself in Italy for a time to get away from some of the tarty parts she'd done in which unkind comparisons to Diana Dors were drawn. Most of the skin, apart from hers, that appears in Goddess belongs to one Jacques Sernas, who had just the year before portrayed the headstrong, lovestruck Paris in Helen of Troy (1956.)

The film begins with Sernas emerging from the ocean after a swim. He, a Macedonian, and a few of his countrymen are then attacked by some Greek soldiers.

Shot in the calf with an arrow, he is eventually dropped from his horse into the sand along the shoreline.

He briefly awakens to the vision of a beautiful female frolicking in the surf, but soon passes out again.

He is next seen recovering in a bed within a palatial house in the hills.

He awakens again to the sight of a beautiful young woman, but again before it can really register, she is gone again!

Much of the first 20 minutes of the movie seems to be devoted to shooting Sernas' barely-clothed body in widescreen (Totalscope) in a variety of poses!

We soon discover that Sernas is being cared for by a famous Grecian sculptor, Massimo Girotti, and his curvaceous model, Belinda Lee.

Girotti wonders if one of his big phallic statuettes might aid Sernas in his recovery (!) - I am not making this up...

Sernas achingly shuffles out of bed in order to look for something he's interested in.

Girotti realizes that it's his sword he's after and so he gives it to him.

The two then share a friendly chat while Sernas feasts on the spread that his host has put out for him. (Sernas, in some long shots and in this outfit, almost resembles the first blond Tarzan Lex Barker.

The Greek soldiers are still hunting him down and they come to Girotti's house to search every room. Lee, who has by now grown fond of her patient, distracts the soldier with a little topless action, which Sernas is also treated to as he hides behind a curtained alcove.

Needless to say, he is quite taken with his makeshift nursemaid.

Girotti is currently using Lee as a model for his latest masterwork, a large statue of Aphrodite, the goddess of love.

He (who is secretly in love with her quite deeply) promises Lee immortality through her participation in his sculpture.

Sernas has designs on her himself, however, and begins to pour on the charm in order to win her heart.

Once the bandages are off, he's ready to rock 'n roll again!

After joining her for a rather perilous swim in the rocky surf (which the actors appear to be doing themselves!)...

...the two salt-soaked sweethearts finally take the plunge and explore their affection for one another.

There's a fly in the ointment, however. The strapping soldier who once saw Lee in a topless state has designs on her himself. He arranges with no small amount of determination to have dinner at Girotti's place where he and his band of merry men can glimpse this statuesque beauty.

Now in a pique because he knows that she's in love with Sernas, Girotti sells her out and informs the Greeks that she is in love with... gasp! ...a Macedonian! He then tries to weasel out of it by pretending that Sernas is long gone, but...

...when the soldier tries to get too familiar with Lee, Sernas springs on him and the two wrestle and spar to the death.

The already rather homoerotic tussle is overseen by a nude male statue whose genitals have been discreetly draped over with a piece of blue fabric! (Most of the female statuary is permitted to be seen in all its labial glory...!)

Sernas is able to defeat the hunky soldier with a knife to the shoulder blade (and a shin the groin, apparently!)

Lee's problems are far from over, however. She and Sernas flee, but he is slain by the arrow of another Greek soldier and before long she is approached by a rather icky older man who wants to marry her only to drive Girotti crazy.

Unable to face that situation, she instead turns to prostitution (!) for a jewelry-clad madam, servicing various soldiers in a grimy tavern. One night, she sees one who reminds her of Sernas and is about to take him upstairs when Girotti suddenly appears.

He is stunned to see his inspiration for the "goddess of love" toiling away as a whore with scads of swarthy men and tries to take her away with him.

She runs outside to a fabric merchant who had previously offered to take her as his own and four of his diaper-clad workmen load her onto the wagon, but when Girotti protests, he is beaten up by the quartet of brutes.

Soon after, the area is overrun by Macedonians and a group of them enter Girotti's estate and slay him en masse. (Ain't there anyone here for love?!)

Lee is helping to entertain these same soldiers and is stunned to hear them brag of killing her onetime benefactor. She departs for his home, to see what has happened. (By the way, the gents outnumber the ladies here by one...)

...and during this scene, one of them seems to be offering another a bite of his apple... or something!

Back at Girotti's house, Lee is staggered to find that Sernas is, in fact, alive, and had been lingering after the battle to see if he could locate her! She's had a few miles put on her chassis since they first fell for one another, but he convinces her that they can put all that behind them and begin anew...

And now a few bonus pics and factoids...!

Young Sernas had already endured enough drama for two lifetimes by the time his acting career dawned. Born in Lithuania to one of that country's leaders, his father died when he was one and his mother raised him in France. During WWII, he fought in the French Resistance and was captured and sent to Buchenwald concentration camp! He entered movies in 1946 and was brought to Warner Brothers a decade later for Helen of Troy.

His time in America was short, however, and he was soon back in Europe filming roles in which his costumes were often smaller than his leading ladies' and in some cases his makeup heavier! He ended a sixty-year acting career with a role in Pope John Paul I: The Smile of God (2006) and passed away in 2015 just weeks before his ninetieth birthday.

In his day, Italian actor Girotti was also one very handsome man. Having entered the movies in 1940, he was already making a mark by 1943 with Ossessione, a smoldering drama based on James M. Cain's novel The Postman Always Rings Twice.  He worked for many of Italy's most notable directors while also portraying numerous heroic figures like Spartacus and Sebastian in the sword & sandal epics of the time.

Other films include Senso (1954), Teorema (1968) - in which he was seduced by Terence Stamp, Medea (1969) - opposite Maria Callas, and Last Tango in Paris (1972.) He died in 2003 at age eighty-four of a heart attack, having starred that same year in Facing Windows.

Lee was but twenty-two when she filmed Goddess of Love and had been married since 1954 to a Rank Organization photographer. While in Italy, though, she fell in love with a married papal prince and their affair was a major scandal. Both of them attempted suicide and he lost his title from the Pope over it all.

Having made a huge splash as a peroxide blonde babe with endless photos of her in circulation, many taken by her husband, she had to struggle for legitimacy as an actress. Two years after her 1959 divorce, she joined her newest love, Italian playboy and producer Gualtiero Jacopetti, in Las Vegas where he was making a saucy documentary. En route to Los Angeles, the speeding driver lost control of their car and she perished from a fractured skull and broken neck. She was only twenty-five years of age.

The End!

Fun Finds: German Caricature Movie Star Cards

Hot on the heels of our not-too-long-ago Fun Find featuring Mexican TV and movie star cards, we're back today with some other oddities. These are some German cards from (presumably) 1960, give or take, featuring famous movie actors and actresses. It's quite an international selection. The sometimes-clever caricatures tend to focus on either the performer's notable physical traits or perhaps a recent role of theirs that made an impact. I hope you find them interesting!

First up is Marlon Brando in a clear reference to his role as Napoleon in Desiree (1954), but with modern dress.

Next we see German-born actress Lilli Palmer (whose striking, porcelainic features I have always enjoyed seeing.) Appres po of nothing, her 1976 autobiography "Change Lobsters and Dance" is an engaging, eventful, well-told read.

French actress Leslie Caron gets quite a unique treatment! Anyone happen to know why she's depicted as a simian in a tree holding a banana?!

Screen tough guy Richard Widmark is shown after a particularly rough battle of some kind, holding his own dismembered left arm in his right hand!

Curvaceous, blonde French starlet Mylene Demongeot could so easily have joined the pile of leftover beauties whose careers dried up when their age crept up, but she went on to enjoy a six-decade-long acting career that continues to this day!

Perpetually-smiling Austrian actress Maria Schell only made a limited number of American films (1958's The Brothers Karamazov and 1960's Cimarron among them) but kept busy in Europe for many years.

Legendary English character actor Charles Laughton is given a very simple, but instantly recognizable, treatment on his card.

Kim Novak (who recently made a very startling appearance at the Oscar ceremony) is shown in her familiar 1950s style of hair and dress.

Italian bombshell Gina Lollobrigida is shown, literally, emerging from a bombshell. She's knitting a booty, I think, though her only child was born in 1957.

Dahlinks, Hungarian starlet Zsa Zsa Gabor (an early example of one of those "famous for being famous" types who now seem to cover the globe) is depicted beating to her own drummer (on her rear end!) Our poor girl, always known for her sly wit and glittering glamour, is now ninety-seven and confronted with endless health woes, bless her heart.

Clark "The King" Gable is spotted in the midst of making a female fall down in rapt desire.

Austrian star Romy Schneider is shown cavorting with a sprig in her hand (is it Edelweiss?)

Our next card features the voluminously-tressed British starlet Belinda Lee, who was part of a significant scandal in 1958 when the married actress took an overdose of sleeping pills (surviving the incident) followed by her alleged lover Filippo Orsini slashing his wrists in an unsuccessful (apparent) suicide attempt. Orsini was a papal prince and the series of events led to his family being stricken of their hereditary title. Here, it looks as if the married Orsini is hiding out in her hair! Even more remarkably, this popular actress was killed in 1961 at only age twenty-five when she was hurled from a car during an accident. Maybe there should be a movie based on her turbulent, eventful life rather than one more idiotic rom-com or torture flick. I smell an Oscar nomination for somebody if they do!

Another sexpot, one with a more prominent legacy, is Anita Ekberg, shown in a sort of mash-up of her famous fountain dip from La Dolce Vita (1960) and a play on her name Ekberg/Iceberg, with icicles, a penguin and a pretty happy walrus on hand.

Next, we come upon Yul Brynner in a customary royal stance, perhaps inspired by The King and I (1956), though he portrayed several rulers as well.  His famously bald cranium is getting a dust-off by a pretty maid!

At this point, Miss Elizabeth Taylor hadn't even met Richard Burton yet (aside from maybe a brief passing introduction), but she was already embroiled in a huge scandal thanks to segueing from the death of husband Mike Todd to the marriage of his best friend Eddie Fisher (who happened to already be married to Debbie Reynolds!  Thus, the nuptials had to be put off until his divorce was final.) This is why she's shown in a black wedding dress... sort of a combination mourning-marriage gown (with her tossing a funeral wreath instead of a bouquet!)

Archetypal British gentleman David Niven is depicted all duded-out in a morning coat, with customary hat and umbrella.

His soon-to-be costar in The Guns of Navarone (1961), Gregory Peck, is drawn with an emphasis on his apparent tight lips when it comes to talking.

Volcanic Italian sexpot (later to gain acclaim for her acting) Sophia Loren is shown with steam rising from her ample cleavage!

Famous vocalist and actor Bing Crosby appears to be singing his way to the bank!

The choice to depict Italian model-actress Elsa Martinelli as an ironing board is lost on me. I don't believe she was that flat-chested, was she?  Anyone?

Portrayer of aristocrats Alec Guinness is seen in his princely get-up from The Swan (1956.)

Statuesque siren Ava Gardner is seen in a parody of her role in One Touch of Venus (1948), which was, even by then, a bit in the past for her.

German actor Horst Buchholz was just near the peak of his international stardom at this time, having costarred in The Magnificent Seven (1960) and with Fanny (1961) and One, Two, Three (1961), among others, on the horizon.

Double Oscar-winning actor Gary Cooper was near the end of his career (and life) at this time.  He passed away in 1960.  His card suggests his 1952 role in High Noon (or perhaps Man of the West, 1958.)

This card of British actress Dawn Addams seems to signify her leaving England (with her umbrella and some Chianti) for Italy, where she married a prince. The marriage lasted pretty long by celebrity standards (1954-1971) and even resulted in the birth of a son (a second son died in infancy.)

In 1959, "Ol' Ski Nose" Bob Hope starred in the comic western Alias Jesse James, hence his cowboy get-up in this caricature.

I'm afraid I don't know the significance of having French actress Michele Morgan depicted as mostly fish, though I am happy to report that Ms. Morgan is still among us today at age ninety-four!

French cinema star Jean Marais is shown mooning over someone in the distance (does it say Cocteau on his book? The director Jean Cocteau, his mentor, was his lover for many years until his death in 1963. Marais, probably best known to U.S. audiences for the 1946 version of Beauty and the Beast, lived to be eighty-four.)

The temptress qualities that could be found in many of Rita Hayworth's roles seem to be depicted by the use of spider webs in her portrait.  The dress and gloves gently recall one of those parts, Gilda (1946.)

The crackling intensity that Kirk Douglas brought to so many parts is worked into his drawing.

I worship and adore this hilarious rendition of the reclusive and rather asocial legend, Miss Greta Garbo!

Lastly, I bring you the card for Katharine Hepburn in a pose designed to point out her intelligence. The person applying her name wasn't quite so bright. It's common for people to mistakenly misspell her as "Katherine" (even the credits of 1948's State of the Union got that wrong, long after she'd attained worldwide fame!), but rare indeed to start her name with a C! Just goes to show you that you can be staggeringly famous and on your way to an Oscar record (at this time) and still not get your name spelled right in some circles!