Liberace On RetroYouTube

Here’s the King of Bling back in the early days when playing the piano was quite enough for his exhibitionist extravaganza. Video found on RetroYouTube, a site full of delightfully old videos, everything from classic Disney and ads to movie trailers and music videos.

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Travelling Posters

I’ve just upploaded my travelling poster collection to Picasa. 310+ images sorted in four different categories. Places, People, Seasons & Transportation. 

Travelling Posters  – Places
Travelling Posters – People
Travelling Posters – Seasons
Travelling Posters – Transportation

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Lost Splendor

 
The findings/rambling of a collage student,  New Yorker and russophile who is chasing nostalgia – enjoy.   Lost Splendor

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Gypsy Purple Loves

 
In the owners own words: Capturing all the things that I love and appreciate and all the visual eye candy  that inspires and motivates me……although I am totally captivated by all things French and vintage, this blog will be more about my bohemian side and all that visually stimulates my art…….

Gypsy Purple loves

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Historiful

Historiful is dedicated to all things historical. Articles, pictures, and tidbits from the past can be found here.  Historiful focuses primarily on the early twentieth century (1900-c.1940), with regard to film and theatre, gender roles and etiquette, art, and popular fashions. Other periods, especially with regard to artistic trends, are sometimes explored.

Worth a visit. Go there!

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A Breath Of Stale Air

 
I found this wonderful ad at “Kitchen Retro” a marvelous blog that in their own words provides:”A little something kitsch and retro, every day!” And their making a good job of it. Just check out for yourself

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the Yankee Clipper

 
Hitler’s armies marching across Europe had not put a stop to the dream of commercial trans-Atlantic air traffic. The idea was not new, but Germany and the Allied had other things on their mind, so it was no surprise to any one that the Americans was the first open up a route.

It took Yankee Clipper, seen on the intro picture above, 24 hours to cross the Atlantic from Port Washington to Southampton and from London to New York. At first the flight was done once weekly, later four times a week. A sister plane, the California Clipper had already started on a route across the Pacific to the far East.

Every thing was done to see to the passengers comfort. Soft boiled eggs were boiled for 12 minutes in the altitude the Yankee Clipper usually cruised in. The cook had checked that during the last test flights before the plane entered regular traffic.

The parachutes are brought on board, each bag contains 10. Over open sea, which means most of the journey these may have provided a meagre comfort, but they were the lifebelts of the flying "ship"s in those days. Here is a view of one of Yankee Clipper’s two bathrooms, there were one for ladies and one for gentlemen. Your hand would shake only slightly should you happen to shave as the aeroplane cruised along doing 300 kilometres an hour, 6000 feet above the ground.   The stairs between first and second deck in Yankee Clipper was the first ever built in an aeroplane. Elevators, like the ones they had on the big steamers was not thought necessary, may be because the second deck was only used by the crew. The passenger’s cabins were all on the  first deck.

The captains cabin was provided with the finest navigation instruments the world had to offer at that point in time.   Yankee Clipper could take 50 passengers and had a crew of 22. The salon on the first deck provided comfortable seats and a spacious midsection. Several windows gave a view of the sea and the clouds. During the night the seats in the passenger’s cabins converted into beds, just like in a train cabin.

This piece on the Yankee Clipper is based on an article dating from June 10th 1939 featured in a Norwegian magazine called "Bilder".

The magazine was not regarded as nazi friendly enough to survive the German occupation during WWII  -Ted

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My first bike – The DBS Crossmastrer

When I was eight years old I got a bike like this for my birthday from my parents. I guess my dad was the one that picked it out, he knew what having a bike that stood out in a crowd ment. And stand out it did, it was released that year and I was the only one around who had one.

I rode that bike till I was 16 and bought myself a 125 cc Honda Benley for money I’ve earned  bringing the morning paper around in the wee wee hours of the morning. Pedaling around lost its charm that day and I was nearly forty before I sat on bicycle again.

 

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Swedish Lingerie Ads from the fifties

When I was a kid images of nudity and lightly dressed women was not easy to come by. There was no internet and no pay television, no top shelf magazines and no Baywatch. But there was always the ads in our family magazines. Lingerie and swim wear advertising became our source of imagery and the food for our imagination.

I’m a guy blessed with a very good memory so any old ad of this kind still brings a reminiscing smile to my lips. This is my tribute to those drawn and real ladies of the ads.

Here is an ad from the Swedish Spirella Salonger.

 
And you’ll find seventeen more here

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How Rumours Fly – How long does it take a rumour to spread around the world

  
Fama crecit eundo – a rumour grows as it moves.This was thoroughly proved through the alarming rumours that circulated about the Swedish king while he was traveling to his holiday on the Italian riviera. It seems a whole lot of people had "improved" upon the news, so what was told was that His Royal Highness’ carriage had been removed from the train. When the truth came to light, it seems it was quite another carriage that had been removed because of a faulty set of breaks.

So, how fast do rumours travel actually. Well, it is in fact a sort of mathematical problem, isn’t it, if one can only agree upon the different factors. But let’s say a housewife has got hold of a really juicy piece of "news" that she shares with two friends while doing some early shopping. This should take her, let’s say, about ten minutes, and let’s say she does at 08:00 in the morning. And then the rumour has started running.

The "chain reaction" speeds up fast enough to make your head spin. All we need to know is that her two friends in turn tells the "news" to two of their own friends. Apart from the first lady, there are at 08:10 two persons that "knows". At 08:20 there will be 2 X 2 = 4, at 08:30 there will be 2 X 2 X 2 = 8, at 08:40 there will be 2 X 2 X 2 X 2 = 16 and so on, with the result that at 10:00, about 5.000 people know the "news". Then about an hour later, the "news" is known by everyone interested in a town the size of Sweden’s capitol Stockholm.

By 11:45 everyone interested in the whole of Sweden knows, at 12:50 the whole of Europe knows and by 13:10 everyone interested in the whole world have the last version of the "news" dropped in a shop in Stockholm at 08:00.The lady dropping it would hardly recognize it by then.

This mathematical calculation would not hold water in the real life, of course, the "news" will sooner or later reach people who have already heard it. On the other hand there are modern communications like the telephone and the telegraph.

The terrible consequences of this uncritical improving upon and spreading a rumours have moral implications of course. Just think of al the unnecessary suffering it might add to a people already in grave trouble, for instance in time of war or natural catastrophes.

From the Swedish magazine "SE"
No 13 – March 25th 1948

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Romantic Robot Finds The Perfect Partner

This is the end of the "Lonely Hearts Club". A modern robot sees to that, together with Lee Morgan, a 27 years old American girl who has studied sociology at the university in New York. She has found the key to how to find Mr or Mrs Right. Romance in this modern age is something one finds through a robot filled with punch cards, if she is right in what she claims. In this day and age, science can fix this says Mrs Morgan, no need to go out on on miserable date after the other. The best thing is to leave nothing to chance and find the right person at once.

Lee Morgan is the leader of a scientific firm that deals in just this kind of things. By the help of trained personnel and punch machines she finds the right one for you in a matter of minutes. People who wants to marry starts with a lengthy interview with Mrs Morgan or one of her staff. As soon as they are sure that the person is of good health and are earnest in their quest, money changes hands and Mrs Morgan’s firm has a new customer. The punch cards are ready, Lee Morgan holds them out smiling happily, because these cards represents the hope and whishes for a lot of lonely people on the look out for a partner. Pink and light blue cards are fead into the robot and comes out in perfect pairs. The firm has to make a few investigations on their own of course, some customers have been married already and a lot of women lie right out about their age. And some lie about their social standing and personal economy. So after the interview, all information gets checked thoroughly and should any criminal activity turn up, the customer is dropped at once. The ones finally accepted goes through a lot of tests both through interviews and written ones, where they can give their opinion about anything from bridge to philosophy. All this information will in time be transformed to punch cards,light blue for men,pink for the ladies. And into the machine they go and after having rummaged around there for a few minutes they come out and can be sorted in pairs. If lucky the owners of the cards find the happiness they are looking for. Lee Morgan is married to a psychologist with marriage problems as specialty and she reveals that the decision on whether the two people are suited for one another isn’t entirely up to the punch machine.

In the many interviews with the customers they are given a chance to tell what sort of person they are looking for. so the last decision is taken by a group of specialists. The customers background, personality and whishes are noted down in 21 segments and these are punched into the cards before they are sent through the machine. Their firm can’t promise anything of course, all they can do is the help people with the same background and interests meet. The moon light will have to do the rest,says Lee Morgan. But during the two years she has run her firm she has learned a lot about people in search of a partner. [1] Opposites attracts one another, but it is people with mutual interests that get married. [2] Women are more realistic in their choice of men. They know what sort of man they want, what sort of man they will feel most at ease with. Men just walks in and ask for the "dream woman" [3] Men are very interested in the women’s looks.The average wife hunter wants a girl that looks like Brigitte Bardot but behaves like the girl next door. [4] Women prefers men that takes care of their personal hygiene and they don’t go for the "Casanova" type. [5] People follow the general flow of things. After the movie "Sayonara" men came asking for intelligent girls from Asia. It is a nice progress that scientists and professionals use their expertise to help people find a partner in life, Lee Morgan says, and we know our efforts gives results. Finally together, the moon light and the punch machine brought them together. From the Norwegian Magazine "Illustrert" -No24 – 1960

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Vintage air travel posters

I found this smashing poster in a great collection in Trouble in Paradise’s archives. If you love traveling ephemera as much as I do you should make sure to drop by.

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An amazing collection of European moviestar colour postcards

This Flickr collection will really blow your skirt up if this is your thing.
530 postcards, decent scans and well presented. You can wallow in retro
and vintage images  here.

So what are you waiting for go there

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One can learn a lot from music

On this nifty little record here little Wendy Why Why preaches the gospel of clean and busy hands by the help of no less a nobility than Tex Ritter.

If this is from before he became popular or after his career took a turn for the worse is hard to say, but he get the message through. just look at those smiling faces and those clean hands.
 
Record cover found at LP cover lover and there is lots more to be found there

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More Tinsle Town royalties stuff uploaded on Articles and Galleries

One new article from 1960 showing Ann Blyth turn into a mermaid
and one colour and one black&white gallery of moviestars.

You’ll find the article here, the colour image gallery here and the black&white image gallery here

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Nice memory that

A bestseller from United Wool Factories in Norway for you here. The Figgjo bathing suit, from the 1954 collection. I was only one that year, so I can’t claim to remember neither the ad nor the garment. But they kept on making bathing suits till young Ted hit the beach with his family, the wool made them rather clingy when wet I seem to remember. Nice memory that.

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Meet "The One" – LIBERACE

 
WE HATE LIBERACE – CHARLIE KUNZ FOR EVER reads the protesters posters, but the few people protesting completely drowns in the hordes of Liberace fans that gathers where ever the famous pianist turns up. Marriages have gone bad, families have been split, female fans have fainted – all because of "The One".

Walter Liberace has cast a spell on American women for more than three years now and by that given their husbands a hard time.He is 35, a bachelor and got his great break when he was offered to play popular music on TV half an hour once a week.His playing wasn’t all that bad, besides his looks was great. He placed a candelabra on his grand piano and permed his hair and gave it a little gray on the sides.

Without a glance at neither keyboard nor notes and with a permanent smile on his face he looked straight into the camera melting female hearts everywhere.And he didn’t just play, he chatted away between the numbers, giving the viewers his mothers regards and telling them how much she meant to him and how much he loved her. He even started having a picture of his mom beside the candelabra on the piano, and when he kissed her portrait somewhere between the third and fourth number female hearts melted all over America.

American housewives swallow every word as though Liberace was God’s second son. He is just the perfect, charming, mother loving man they would want their husbands and sons to be.

American television showers their stars in money which have given liberace a chance to build his grand piano shaped house. Even the swimming pool is shaped like a grand piano, complete with 88 keys along the side.

My mother means everything to me, Liberace says. His brother, George belongs to Liberace’s faithful cort of course.

These girls took the chance and gave their idol a kiss through the glass in a restaurant window.

Women flocks to Liberace arrangements and the psychosis has even spread to Europe.

From the Swedish magazine "BILD journalen"
No 42 – October 17th 1956

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4 new galleries added to the gallery section

I’ve added 4 new galleries of photos, postcards, covers an ads from my own collections to the gallery section

1
A series  of collour ads from Scandinavian magazines from the fifties
2
 A series of vintage sausy postcards from British sea side resorts
3
A series of repro technically tinted black & white photos from fifties cookbooks
4
A series of magazine covers portraing moviestars from the late fifties, early sixties

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A kiss in Zulu land

The kiss is the white man’s "invention" and a practice a lot of other people find both strange and amusing. Take for example a look at the reaction from these Zulus as they see their first movie kiss in a movie theater in South Africa. They laughed till tears rolled down their faces at at this riduculous lip smacking show of affection. The whole room was an explosion of laughter and amusement. Two grown people behaving in such strange manners. They had never thought they would see such foolishness – even on a movie screen.   They hadn’t had that much fun in ages. Adult people actually standing there kissing one another.

Look!, this exited Zulu cries out as he rises from his chair pointing at the screen. From the Norwegian magazine "Aktuell" No 51 – December 7th 1963

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Eating butter with a spoon

Its been a while since you saw anyone eating butter or margarine straight out of the package hasn’t it. But back in the good old fifties fat was considered good for you and a important part of a nutritious diet. Shit, maybe it still is!

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