It All Depends on the Pin-Up Girl of the Week So far this week we have two very different kinds of girls, but hopefully we can put some of them together soon. There are the pin-up girls with the big boobs and tiny waists, who would look just fine in a bikini and who still work great in a swimsuit. But that's it - no further use for her. There are the girls with the tiny waist, little legs and full breasts, who look great in a skirt, but will need a swimsuit. I'd love to use all of them. I'll have some more pics up soon - some that have been waiting since last week. Hopefully by the end of the week, I'll be finished with all of them, and be able to get to one that has been around forever - one of the regular pin-ups from the '40s and '50s. In the meantime, enjoy! Saturday, May 21, 2016 Pin Up Girl of the Week: Marilyn Monroe, from 'It's A Great Life' (7" x 10", September 1954) If you hadn't heard yet, a new "Pin Up of the Week" series has begun here at the blog. Every Saturday, we have a new pin-up to show you, as well as an excerpt from the song of the week, an interview with a celebrity associated with that particular girl, and a few additional bonus features. I hope to bring you more of this new feature throughout the year - please let me know if you have suggestions or think the format is either missing something or needs improving. It's a great week for pin-ups! I think it's safe to say that everybody knows about Marilyn Monroe. It seems like everyone has seen or read something about her, though in truth we don't even know how many movies she actually made. The most enduring, most successful, most imitated image of hers is the white baby-doll dress, the sling, and her long hair. The image was created by Hollywood to be a sex symbol, but I can't say I ever thought that the actual Marilyn was actually sexy. Yes, she was strikingly beautiful, but it was not the same type of sex appeal as I think people think - there was nothing overtly sexual about her (I'll come back to that in a bit). It was a look that was meant to titillate, and to this day, so many people can't believe a woman would show her sexuality this way that it's become something of an inside joke among both men and women. The pin-up version was very different, and the image appeared in at least a dozen magazines of the time. Most of the photos were obviously posed, but Marilyn wasn't always looking directly at the camera. Some of the poses were a bit daring for that time, and quite risqué for today's standards. She was a very sexual image, but not in the same way the modern Marilyn has come to represent. She was meant to be erotic, sexy, and alluring, but she never once actually showed any skin. Instead of being the pin-up she later became, her look was meant to titillate the male (and in some cases female) readers of that time, and be their naughty secret that they could fantasize about. When you look at all of her poses, you can really see the difference, and if you look at the pictures of Marilyn from her personal life, you can really see the difference. She was never sexy in the sense she is today. So, what do we have this week? This week we have the pin-up from 1954 with the pin-up for 'It's A Great Life', a romantic comedy starring, yes, Marilyn Monroe. Of course, we've all seen the movie at least once, but the pin-up had a far different feel to it. That may be due to the fact that, as I mentioned, this was before she had the same kind of sex appeal as the pin-ups of her later years. Or, that it's just not the most exciting pin-up we've ever seen. In this case, maybe it's a little of both. What we do have is a gorgeous image of Marilyn, looking like she could step right out of the 40s and go from one place to another. Her hair is down and long, and her pose is not very often seen. The pin-up version is a little more common, and is meant to be sexy and appealing. She's not wearing much at all here, and when you see the original version, you will understand why the difference is quite large. Both versions of the pin-up are fairly accurate to what Marilyn looked like when she made that movie. It's a nice pin-up, but not one that I think was ever her best. There's very little in the way of posing. There's a nice pair of legs, a beautiful face, and the body of a gorgeous young woman, but there's no posing here, nothing to indicate the pin-up is a type of advertisement for the movie. Unlike some other pin-ups we've shown, this one isn't supposed to say anything at all. There is a scene in the movie where she jumps into a lake. They must have considered her taking off her clothes and jumping in a lake as appropriate for the movie, or maybe they just thought she looked great in a white dress and decided to keep it in. This week's song of the week was 'It's A Great Life', written by Johnny Green and sung by Marilyn Monroe, among others. It seems strange that they chose that song, but it does fit with the mood and setting of the movie. It's a beautiful tune, and the video is very nice to look at. This is certainly the most famous pin-up for a movie song, with the possible exception of 'I Wanna Be Loved By You'. For our interview, we're featuring one of the many interviews Marilyn Monroe did for magazines at that time. For the most part, they were simply meant to give some insight to her personal life, but some of them also discuss her work, so this is not always a simple "Q&A" style interview. My final suggestion for you is to read her interview in its entirety, which has been uploaded here. But I have to admit that it's probably not really going to be of interest to most of you. I hope you find something interesting in it, and if you're interested, it's right here in front of you. Enjoy! Tuesday, May 10, 2016 In the last few days, I was lucky enough to have attended a Pin-Up Show in San Francisco, and so of course I did what I do - brought back tons of goodies from the event to share with you. This is the second of three posts with the photos I brought home, and what you will see here is all that was available at the show. The first day, all of the girls had white dresses, and the second day, all of the girls had black dresses. The third day was everything else. This post focuses on the two white dresses - the ones made famous by the photos taken at the photographer's home. There are three dresses in this post - one worn by Suzi Lorraine, another by Vicki Odom, and another by Sheila Vella. Some people claim that there were twelve original versions of the dress, but a little searching around online gave us five, and only three of these. Even if there were more dresses made, that's still plenty. It's always nice to have options, and even nicer when you know there's more than one version. Some of you may have some of these dresses hanging in a closet somewhere, and if so, I hope this post will offer a new perspective. There's a good reason you see the same photos over and over, and it's not because they're not interesting. I have a few more images of Suzi, and then we'll take a look at Vicki and Sheila's dresses. In the meantime, enjoy! Wednesday, May 4, 2016 For those of you who have already been through the rest of this series, there are no spoilers here. For those who haven't, know that you can avoid them by skipping to the first post of this series (on April 17th), or the last post (April 26th), and if you're really curious, you can skip to the posts in the middle if you want to see them all. For those who didn't know what a pin-up show was or what a pin-up was, these posts offer a great introduction, as well as being a good introduction to pin-ups in general. Pin-Ups of the Week There are a few things to mention about the Pin-Ups of the Week. The dates are listed at the top of the posts. These are the dates that the magazines that we're showing them from were published, not when they first hit the stands. On a few occasions, there are issues published before and after that day, but the show is on the first and second Saturday, so this is where I found the show. A few of these dates are on Wednesdays, but the pin-ups that were shown were from magazines that came out on those days. The fact that most of these were pin-ups from the mid 1940s, I find incredibly interesting. Most people today have grown up thinking of pin