Nudity sells

It is interesting how some nations are sensitive about nudity, while other are more or less easy about it. The great rush of nudity in the cinematography started in the mid 60's and now most of the movies have it in smaller or larger quantity.  Since the film nudity was a novelty in the movie theatres of the 60's and 70's and the censorship only started to loosen its grip, the film makers started to exploit the "novelty" in the various ways. Often, the nude scene still or expressive, suggestive painting was displayed on the movie poster, to tease the audience who wanted to see the "forbidden" stuff. The movie goers were usually taken for a ride and saw much less than expected. The scene was either very short, taken from another ankle or cut from the film by the censors. The modern public living in the world flooded with more or less free Internet information wouldn't understand the "good, old innocent times" of "sexual revolution". The nudity was available in very, very small quantities at the time. In today's measures, speaking in the chemistry jargon, it was present in traces. The newly acquired freedom soon took off and some of the movie makers started doing with the nudity what today's producers are doing with the special effects and cgi: overusing it! If you clogs the movie with the "special" stuff, there is no time left for the story, plot, characters, and all the other elements that make the movie interesting to watch. Over flooded with the excess nudity, the bad films couldn't become better. Indeed, they managed attracting more audience, anyway. But usually not for long. The clever way to "smuggle" a lot of naked actors and extras into the movie was to package the scenes into a comedy film. Thus, so many sexy humorous films from that time. I remember Danish erotic comedies being smashing hits at the beginning of the 70's. The so called "bedside-films" with the main male star. Later, the audience grew tired of the same old jokes and repeated stuff. Several films were produced using the "same formula for success" and basically the same plot and cast, but only a couple of first ones managed very well at the box office. The audience got tired watching stupid movies regardless of the naked actors, in a relatively short time.

Yet another idea was to make a musical with naked singers and dancers. I remember watching that rather boring musical comedy filled with nudes, shot from far away, so it   would probably even not be PG rated by today's standards. It was the American "The First Nudie Musical" (1976)
Quoting IMDB: "This movie should define the genre, with nudity and predictable plot but done in a way that the nudity is not the major theme, only spice. It would be worth watching without nudity, though it would not be as entertaining. If you like movies with stereotypical characters and lots of nudity, this is the one.
I have found only the last chorus line dancing act amusing. The rest of the film is not worth wasting time on.

The poster for the Danish sexy comedy "Mazourka in bed" bares an interesting resemblance with the poster for the "Graduate" from 1967:

 

... and there's a certain similarity with this poster for a flop starring Raquel Welch:

Some of my old non erotic cartoons

HERE ARE SOME OF MY OLDER CARTOONS (1997-98)

The new sensational Cretaceous bird

Although, I know that many birds and dinosaur-birds lived alongside dinosaurs some 125 million years ago, during the Early Cretaceous, I always get surprised by the new discoveries. How come the ancient birds looked so advanced and modern as early as  that?
The newly described Chinese fossil bird Hongshanornis longicresta wouldn't make you turn your head if it flew by you. It seemed so common. Only a closer look, a very close look, would reveal that it had tiny teeth in the front of its beak and claws on it's wings.
A couple of years ago I was engaged in a project of producing and mounting a theropod  sculpture on the famous and rich Barremian track site on the Main Brijun island in Croatia. The tracks are roughly of the same age as the Chinese Jehol bird fossil. There are theropod tracks of various sizes at the site. The largest footprints measure about 60-65 cm in length. I have also noticed a large crock footprint, iguanodontoid tracks and possibly a pterosaur footprint there.

The sculpture:

More photographs of the M. Brijun theropod sculpture 

A couple of theropod footprints at the V. Brijun Barremian site (125 mya):

Here is my restoration of the ancient bird Hongshanornis longicresta:

You can read more about the find here:
National Geographic
... or if you are interested more, here is the free scientific paper:
 A new specimen of the Early Cretaceous bird Hongshanornis longicresta: insights into the aerodynamics and diet of a basal ornithuromorph

My old gag cartoon

Here is my gag cartoon from 1999, published in French:

English translation:
- Darling, don't you think your mother's portrait would fit much better in our living room?

Forbidden planet and a mini skirt

Attractive actresses in the bold outfits or even nude, were quite often trumps in the sleeves of the movie producers, adding an additional dimension to the adventure, crime, romance, western, sci fi, history or any other type of the movie. In fact, there are more movies using that trick than those without it.
The Forbidden planet's only female star Anne Francis played the cute and sexy, and yet innocent role in the film perfectly. Her wardrobe consisted mainly of micro mini skirts, the fashion that was to conquer the World on storm, only about a decade later.
There are some nice high resolution images form the Forbidden planet on: Dr. Macro's High
Quality Movie Scans

Anne Francis died 80 years old in 2011.

Lang's and Debra's Indian Tomb

There are two exciting movies directed by Fritz Lang that I loved as a kid. The first was the "Indian Tomb" or "Journey to the Lost City" (Das indische Grabmal). It was a 1959 German-French-Italian adventure drama film directed by Fritz Lang. The other is "The Tiger of Eschnapur" (Der Tiger von Eschnapur). Besides being exotic and thrilling, the top spot in the films was the marvelous dance performed by petite Debra Paget, of course. The lousy made fake cobra she has been dancing with in "Indian tomb" was sufficiently believable for the undemanding audience of the time, which was mesmerised by Debra's bold outfit and dancing moves, anyway.

 

 

Here Fritz Lang discusses the scene with Debra Paget.

Forbidden planet's Monster from the ID

  I keep watching Forbidden planet movie from time to time. It was so good, so ahead of its time in so many ways: from the music score to the design. One of my favourite scenes is when the captain and the doctor were speculating about the shape of the monster, deducting from cast of its footprint. It is quite similar to the real task when paleontologists are trying to figure out the characteristics and features of extinct animals who left only their petrified tracks in the rock. I search for the ancient tracks on the Adriatic coast and it is a lot of research and fun.

It is also amusing that some species of dinosaurs had claws, not unlike the one from the movie, but on their three-fingered hands. Check out the cast of the finger claw of the allosaurid theropod  Saurophaganax here :
 Sauropod Vertebra Picture of the Week

My drawings of the fossil bones of some theropod hands. Above is Megaraptor left hand (manus) and below is Allosaurus left hand:

Please, note that in life, the claw would be covered with a keratinous sheath - talon (like our nails) which would make it considerably longer.

The second part of this article continues on my Mesozoic Mosaic blog:

Forbidden planet's Monster from the ID part 2

My old Tarzan cartoon

In the mid 70's I tried to publish my cartoons and managed selling them to the national TV network TV Zagreb which featured them once a week in the popular show "Sunday afternoons" (Nedjeljom popodne).
The cartoons were lost. Obviously somebody acquired them without my consent and remuneration.
Thus I have only the unpublished cartoon panels from that time. This Tarzan cartoon wasn't published:

Underrated westerns

I have a feeling that one particular western is not appreciated enough. I am referring to Marlon Brando's One-Eyed-Jacks (1961) with  Marlon Brando, Karl Malden and Katy Jurado. Although, it won the first prise at the San Sebastian film festival, it was still soon forgotten.  Running from the law after a bank robbery in Mexico, Dad Longworth (Malden) finds an opportunity to take the stolen gold and leave his partner Rio (Brando) to be captured. Years later, Rio escapes from the prison where he has been since, and hunts down Dad for revenge. Dad is now a respectable sheriff in California, and has been living in fear of Rio's return. Malden plays an unforgettable villain.
 The western is quite different from all the others filmed at the time. In the best sence.
 It is interesting noting that (as usually) the (painted) posters for the foreign markets are much better than the ones printed for the American one. I suspect they were ppainted by the local artists. The top one was for ex Yugoslavia (distribution: Croatia film), and the bottom one is for the Italy. I prefer the top one.

 

Ray Harryhausen

Stop-motion animation master Ray Harryhausen had died at the age of 92 (1920 – 2013). I am tempted to call all the movies in which he was involved  Harryhausen's movies. Because, I am afraid, that without his skills and imagination those movies wouldn't be remembered at all.

My favourite was "The 7th Voyage Of Sinbad" (1958) and Ray's giant horned cyclops. I was so terrified by those monsters as a kid, that I wanted to watch the movie over and over again. Maybe only one monster was even cooler and more sinister: the invisible monster from Id featured in the "Forbidden planet" movie.

Super heroine

A couple of my old sketches.
Wonder Woman again. This time wearing a new Summer time outfit of my design.
 Supergirl being under attack by pteranodons.

Some of my book cover illustrations

Here are some of my book cover illustrations. Some are also my design. From top to bottom:
Tyrannosaurus rex vs. Triceratops horridus - Vijesti Hrvatskog geološkog društva ( Croatian geological survey's news magazine)
A pliosaur Liopleurodon on the cover of my book that hasn't been realised (yet), but the illustration was published in a National Geographic magazine.
"Power bites", a dinosaur poster published in 1993 by Scholastic.
"The Pirates": a self-promotional experimental cover.