Too Many Turtlenecks

In 1971 Christina Lindberg aka Cristina Lindberg starred in a dramatic, something of an hallucinatory melancholic film, "Exponerad." The film debuted at the Cannes festival and manifested a following for the busty young Swedish skirt. This film marked her third credited role, and was directed by Gustav Wiklund, who I commend with this post. 

From the beginning of the film, with Christina's "Lena" on the lam from who knows what, there is an heir of subtle intrigue, much like hinting at why the chicken crossed the road. We never fully understand why she's running, or from what/whom, but she runs. She runs from demons the entire movie, demons both in her mind and in reality. The premise is that of atypical teen hijinks. A girl's parents leave town for the weekend, she gets bored and decides to become a prostitute for the duration, never really informing her pseudo-mate, "Jan," who is initially upset to the point of violence, but gradually morphs into a lamb for the rest of the story, forever adorning ribbed eggshell turtleneck*. The pimp, who decides to blackmail Lena with nude photographs, is the demon in reality, and a well-acted villain. Everything else is the demon of her thoughts, which are related to the viewing audience as foggy, scary visions of worst-case scenarios. Why does your mind haunt you, Christina? Your fans would like to know. She was no stranger to the seedy side of sex (is there one?), the dark side of erotica, even the silly.

Of the few films of Lindberg's I have been able to sit through (exploitation often has its limits), this one and its director have captured the starlet in her most China Doll glory, with those pout pink lips never fading from the sun it seems, glistening like a lake of blush wine. Her skin is possibly its creamiest, but her bones and soul perhaps most fragile, and Wiklund clearly understands what few before him have about the young actress, exercising her talent, not Cro-Magnonymously focusing on her other "talents." Her breasts are and have always been amazing on camera, coupled with the fact that her gentle heroine is the object of desire in make-believe land, it's no wonder her stardom in the real world skyrocketed. The woman herself is as quiet as her fictitious alter-egos, but just as alluring.

The speaking parts are short but poignant and keep the film from becoming simply a music video for the kick-ass psychedelic blues/jazz soundtrack. The music alone merits buying/renting the film wherever you can...psych! Lindberg's sex sequences, and they are like sequences as opposed to scenes, are brief and enticing, with the aroma of sincere passion, and among the best she's done. There's fucking merit. One gets the notion that Lindberg may stand as the bridge between modern porn and classic exploitation.

*- nearly all of the cast is at one point costumed in a turtleneck.
*b- author claims no ownership of photos represented. This one /\ is from the Christina myspace. 

What the Shit Happened to Joyce?

She's known, or was, as Gabrielle and Joyce and Joyce Spaeth and Cherie Pinegar and Joyce Grable (trying to evoke another glamor girl?) and the list probably goes on. Pre-XXX and XX and X publications (mags, books, film), the models used their real names or perhaps a stage name, and the names generally varied by way of adjusted spellings - see Betty Page, Bettie Page, Betty Paige, and even as Gaby. But then the "artist's handbook of models" become "Busty Babe" with not even a wink to the photographer or the possibility that the customer might actually be an artist for art's sake. So a few years after the blowup of pinup and fetish models, straightforward soft- and hardcore glossy-cover magazines saw light. Magazines the size of magazines! The digest day ended. Black-and-white was still in, and today virtually only in fashion magazines, but the use of color photography to really illustrate all the contours, shadows, freckles, moles, stretch marks and hair follicles to the prospective artist began to take hold, and this issue of Parliament's "Busty Babe," volume one number two, is a perfect example. But who is, who was Joyce? For the money, five bucks for nearly 130 sets of breasts and almost half as much cooch, Joyce, a Denver-ite, was one of the shapeliest of the 1970s solo pinups. Maybe she was a pinup on the pegboard toolbox walls of auto shops. Maybe not. I pin her up here. We don't know a lot of the career of this well-endowed half-Native American woman, nor much of what came before and after said career. I have only seen a handful of publications that might possibly have an image or two of Joyce/Gabrielle/Cherie, but this particular Parliament issue has to be her single best contribution to the world of nude photography. Suddenly I ponder the statistic of nude photography preference when presented with professional, well lit but mood-lighting lit studio photography of elegant nude models, and professional, daylight-lit comfort of your own house kind of studio photography of exaggerated porn-star prototypes. A head nod goes to Candy Barr for the legit prototype, though. Fun fact.

Digressing, most of the photographs in this issue are black and white, and many of them show the pocahontas with headband and long dark hair. Thankfully, the producers left out the bow and arrow bit. This is one of the more accessible shots taken of the hot, slender squaw. 

Tan-lines were in, obviously, and the contrast really motivated the soul of the black/white still, and really punched with color photos. Joyce's negative spaces hold true, but somehow stir her aura of Native American mother-type into So-Cal beachcomber. It's the thought that really counts. Joyce knew what she was doing, and she knew what the trends were of the affluent tit and ass models who stop short of hetero-homo coupled photo shoots. She was solosexual. The best ones were. Another Joyce who came a short while later began solo, and gradually went over the fence, and is a good example of the evolution of the solosexual. But why mess with perfection? Make some flatbread, jewelry and shawls, don yer headgear and strip down to the stockings and make a few dollars. Surprising is the method of appearing and disappearing with such haste nude models of the 70s and 80s employ. 

So what happened to you, Joyce? It seems you packed your envoy, your tipi, your clay pots, your pelts, and skipped settlement. You picked some flowers along the way to remember your territory as it was yours to own, and promptly laid to rest any further development of your career, maintained your throne's host and kept your jewels straight. You left the place cozy, and blessed the couch and the foot of the fireplace with your ass and the sky with your boobs, and set a bar for successors to reach, other pocahonti, other Joyces. How could you leave without saying, well...you said enough. More than, perhaps. With a full pair, a bellybutton sometimes AWOL, and perhaps the best legs of your era, cowboys have been spurring their steeds numb. 

The magazine purports to have interviewed the buxom Chippewa, with selected quotes, stating her preferences in the opposite sex, the usual semi-autobiographical "I like men to play with my..." type of responses. Near the tail end of the journey, and indeed the flipping pages became like hunting for the three rings, Joyce says she likes to take care of her man, pamper and even mother them. There's some esoteric fetishism I will not be blogging about. Perhaps her strong Native upbringing on Roosevelt's grass-hewn buffalo prairies instilled within her the Mother of the earth. If Roosevelt had seen Joyce sitting she-style, wrapping a child's braids in agate, horse hair and pipestone, he would have left a few bulls alive. 

What the shit happened to you, Joyce of the Mother Earth? You flew the planet and left your own globes behind. And now too, like buried artifacts from so long ago, specific tools for specific purposes, we find you on our solosexual archaeological dig. Honey, we dig.

*all photos courtesy of my android and a (now) rainy weekend afternoon. If you or someone you know has any information or material regarding the model represented, feel free to contact me.

It seems the Queen was later found in the dairy aisle.

From my first alcoholic drink (Smirnoff Ice) as a young lad in a small mid-atlantic hill town, the persistency to explore the half-life of my liver has maintained a somewhat unwarranted level of interest.  After the juvenile phase wore off, and buying a six-pack of cloudy bottles seemed so last year, the next logical leap was hops and a brewing process. Drinks you slide wedges of fruit into led the way; eventually the workload was just too much. I possess no cauldron; I know virtually nothing of potions, and the apple I'd give to fair-skinned'd country dames would be simple that...an apple. So the obvious thing to do is to find the right witch to make the brew you seek so you can return with the country gal's heart in a box. Until now my journey has been rife with impostors: sharp, light-headed Spanish dancers, chalky, mouth-puckering Russian hags, and sour, attention-demanding Belgium farm girls. My lantern in the night was met with two glorious jugs, at around nine dollars apiece, of the sought libation. Double-D IPA from Old Dominion is the perfect pill to wash away life and leave a blissful daze as though a snowstorm caught under glass.

The Bomb or the Babe?

She comes with a smile and leaves me with the same, my face just as flush. The inscription on the vessel is reminiscent of certain prominent classic artisans of female portrayal, down to the garters. Naturally the allure is almost immediate, and even at the cost of a single canteen, holds nearly no apprehension to acquisition. For my money, which is modest, the best of this poison should remind the host of flowers, but flowers slowly roasting in the desert. The hootch should arouse a level of intrigue and disgust at the same time, as all things sacred should. The process should inspire the lowly henchman to become an alchemist and experience the vapors. Double-D IPA from the Delaware-based brewery accrues these securities and ends the laborious efforts manifested thus with a serious nap under glass.

Diana Dors on the cover of
Modern Man, March 1956,
 vol. V, no. 9-57

Speaking of double d's, the Queen herself became a fan of the draft and is now a baker in the B-side of town. Her hair has always been the color of buttermilk, and in later years the color of spider's silk. Her figure was at first stunning to the imagination, a hard-to-fathom 35-23-35, just shy of the Queen across the pond. She had the most tempting mouth which appreciated accordingly with age, and still held all of her subject's secrets in her lower lip. Her walk was accompanied by two fresh limbs, toting the majority of all that snow white flesh (the rest held up by our own fantasies), saving those occasions when her 22-ft-long Delahaye Continental with gold-plated panel instruments was the only means of conveyance. 

the UK Queen of Cheesecake
atop her throne.

The carriage she purchased without possession of proper operating credentials, and was later auctioned for over six figures. Her place in the court was well established and she held rule for nearly three decades, until her vices got the better of her, and she became somewhat of an extreme version of her own self. Her face rounded out (another stumper, her face was already splendidly smooth, healthy, and full), but her little pouch of secrets just under her top lip stuck proudly and may have been her saving grace, if not for a willingness to show a bit of over-the-hill cleavage and to tuck her back fat into tight black dominatrix garb. She thrilled her countrymen in black-and-white, but behind the suede curtain her knack for filling her own glass may have overcome the need to rule. She took instead to a bottle and still found a presence in the public eye, just under a different guise, and like Gale Sondergaard's portrayal of the Wicked Witch of the West, beauty and allure can not be disguised. 

Dors aka Fluck,
flucking around in the tub.

Queen Diana "The Lip" Dors, later found in the dairy aisle, clutching an exploded carton of creamer*, UK celluloid priestess for a hot minute, left the forest with a lowly henchman's heart in a box. Now he plays advanced tic-tac-toe games in his breath upon the glass. 

AUTHOR'S CURRENT TRENDS: Swedish Wildcats, The Amorous Milkman, Dors Feline, freedom of speech, Curves to Kill

* - fabricated event for the sake of this blogpost.

all photos taken from author's own collection.