Eight Day Halloween Advent Calendar - Final Day!

For the final entry in our eight day Halloween advent calendar, I've found a painting that is a little bit racy - but a mile away from the usual witch on a broomstick pin-ups.  I wish that I could be sure of the identity of  the artist who painted this particular illustration, but I haven't been able to track down an artist name, nor the year in which it was painted.

It's a pretty intricate image, complete with the removable witch mask, lacy undergarments, crow, and haunting license. Judging from the style of this witch's flaming red hair I would imagine this painting is from somewhere in the mid-sixties.  This would also help explain the move from the leg shot to a cleavage baring pose.

Happy Halloween everybody!

Eight Day Halloween Advent Calendar - Two More Days...

Tomorrow is the big day...

In the meantime, we're sticking with the witch theme by offering up what is easily the most common Halloween pin-up pose - a bewitching bombshell astride her broomstick.  The lady in question is a familiar face round here, one of my personal faves- Miss Ava Gardner.

This picture demonstrates an interesting bit creative posing, as Miss. Gardner is clearly sitting on some sort of platform that has a broomstick attached to it.  The moon and cat look to be decals stuck to the wall behind Ava.  It's sort of sloppy and ingenious all at the same time.  What I really enjoy is the beaded tassels on the dress.  There's nothing like a chic witch.

Eight Day Halloween Advent Calendar - Three More Days...

Only three more days left, and today I have a retro advertisement from the mid-sixties, for Hidden Magic Hairspray.

It looks like the folks at the Hidden Magic company decided to go very literal equating their product with witchcraft.  However, the inclusion of a women in a pointy witch hat, covering the very hair that we are to assume she used Hidden Magic on seems pretty counter-intuitive if you're trying to sell hairspray.  I'm not a fan of the cape that she's wearing either since it pretty much blends into the background and makes it very difficult to figure out what she's doing.  From that darling at the end of her sentence it would seem that the Hidden Magic witch talks like Zsa Zsa Gabor.

But at least there's the handy three paned demo of the hidden magic's powers on the bottom of the page to show us the way.  You too can make your bangs look like a croissant.

Eight Day Halloween Advent Calendar - Four More Days...

Only four days left in our Halloween advent calendar, and today I've posted another pin-up photo.  This one featuring sometime uncredited actress and model, Lillian Wells.  I would write more, but there is literally nothing on the internet about Wells but this picture and a very brief imdb.com profile. 

Halloween themed pin-ups are a dime a dozen, and about 85% feature a beautiful women dressed as a witch.  I chose this one, because it bucks the trend, and shows some really interesting expressionistic lighting.  I dig the cat silhouette, but what's really neat is that tiny grinning pumpkin to the left of Wells.  She really nails the coy pin-up expression. 

Eight Day Halloween Advent Calendar - Five More Days...

Today's Halloween flavoured surprise is a vintage advertisement from 1947.  It stars Dorothy Lamour, who is probably most famous for starring opposite Bob Hope and Bing Crosby in their "Road" movies, and playing a saronged beauty in a variety of different jungle themed movies during the 1930s.

Here she'd ditched her sarong and decided to use a jack-o-lantern as an ashtray.  Perhaps a seasonally appropriate cigarette case?  It was very common for popular actors and actresses of the day to shill for cigarettes. Chesterfield often relied on celebrity endorsements.  Given that this is before people knew that cigarettes caused lung cancer, you can't really look down on Lamour too much.  I'm more disappointed that they didn't make her wear a more Halloween-y costume.

I also wonder what Chesterfield means by cooler smoking. Do they make you look cooler?  Do they burn at a lower temperature?

Eight Day Halloween Advent Calendar - Six More Days...

For today's advent calendar surprise, I've found a very early Halloween pin-up photograph.

I'm not sure who the lady in the picture is, or the exact year that this picture was taken, but the shoes, hairstyle and make-up scream late twenties/early thirties to me.

While this woman's headpiece and dress featuring various popular Halloween symbols is rather fascinating, I'm really digging the backdrop she's standing against.  While I'm not completely sure if those bat wings are supposed to look as though they are attached to her or she's just not blocking a giant bat, I like the way it looks.  Very simple, yet effective  in a quaint sort of way.

Very cute.

Eight Day Halloween Advent Calendar - Seven More Days...

Today's surprise in our Halloween advent calendar is this little gem of an ad, from way back in 1955.

I chose it because I'm a sucker for food related puns.  I had no idea that anthropomorphic corn stalks fed off the blood of Milky Way Bars.  And what about that slightly menacing clown child looming behind ol' Corny?

  Perhaps this was the prototype for It's the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown, but in this version instead of waiting all night in a pumpkin patch, kids have to make a caramel filled sacrifice to the Great Corn Stalk (who incidentally only has one tooth left, the rest casualties of too many Halloween nights eating himself into a diabetic coma).

I already like my version better.

Eight Day Halloween Advent Calendar - Eight More Days...

... 'til Halloween...
                       ... Halloween...
                                             ... Halloween...

Sorry about that.  The title immediately made me think of that obnoxious Silver Shamrock jingle from Halloween 3: Season of the Witch.  To celebrate I thought that I'd post some sort of Halloween themed image or graphic until the big day arrives.  So without further adieu here's your first eight day Halloween advent calendar treat.

 I'm not sure the exact age of this photo, but it would have to be sometime after 1928, since this was the year that Minnie Mouse was first introduced.  I would say with confidence that this photograph was probably taken sometime before World War Two broke out, judging from this woman's hairstyle and the distinctive sepia tone of the photograph.  I kind of like the ghostly apparition of a framed silhouette portrait to the left of this woman.  It's kind of spooky.

I wonder where she was going dressed like that.