Tuesday, June 25, 2013

Ferenczi et Fils, Artheme Fayard & Studio Piaz Policiers & Grand Guignol Mysteries, 1930 - 1940

























These evocative & deliciously morbid covers of 30s French mysteries were, with one or two exceptions, composed & shot by the great Studio Piaz, most famous for deliriously glamorous portraits of film & theater stars (their Josephine Baker photographs are particularly compelling). These covers apparently allowed them to indulge their darker proclivities. Though, In the 1920s & 30s, wherever you found elegant, tinseled glamour portraits in Paris, you would also find all manner of specialty fetish porn.  I'm especially fond of the Marcel Allain titles, which seem mostly to involve cleaning ladies & harlots discovering severed limbs & heads in poorly-concealed boxes & trunks. Thanks goes to Video Watchdog's Tim Lucas for quite inadvertently sending me on a quest to find as many of these covers as I possibly could.

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