Ebay must-have alert

Are you a fan of the sketch "Low Budget Tales of Cliched Horror" from the Ben Stiller Show (1992)?


Well, here's your chance to own a piece of it:

"This is a pair of latex gloves made for the BEN STILLER SHOW. The show ran from 1992-1993 and was a comedy TV show starring Ben Stiller and Andy Dick. These gloves are a one of a kind pair sculpted and made for Ben Stiller to wear in a skit in the show. There was only one pair made and the mold was destroyed. There will never be another set. They are in used/unaltered condition. Would be a great addition to your TV / Ben Stiller memorabilia. Comes with a certificate of authenticity."

 Starting bid $79.99!

The Diana Dors Code

An interesting mystery about this blog's current cover girl, British bombshell Diana Dors.

Illustration by G. Foulard

From Wikipedia:

Before she died [in 1984], Dors apparently hid away what she claimed to be over £2million in banks across Europe. Eighteen months before her death, she gave her son Mark Dawson a sheet of paper, which she told him was a code that would reveal the whereabouts of the money.

Her widower, Alan Lake, supposedly had the key that would crack the code. But Lake committed suicide only five months after Dors died, leaving Dawson an apparently unsolvable code. Dawson, however, was determined to discover his late mother's fortune. He sought out computer forensic specialists Inforenz, who recognised the encryption as the Vigenère cipher. Inforenz then used their own cryptography software to suggest a ten-letter decryption key, DMARYFLUCK (short for Diana Mary Fluck, Dors's real name).

Although the company was then able to decode the entire message and link it to a bank statement found in some of Lake's papers, the location of the money is still unknown. Some speculate whether there may have been a second sheet, whose information might have led to the discovery of the money. Channel 4 made a television programme about the mystery and created a website (now removed) where users can read more and help solve the mystery.

Sex Kittens Go Crazy

I just "won" a movie poster from Ebay from a relatively unknown fifties movie starring a minor actress/pin-up model from the time. This starlet was never thought of as a great actress, but is fondly remembered for being in movies where she screamed and helped fight against a giant spider, a giant scorpion, and a giant flying turkey. (really)

After I'd already paid for it, I got an email from Ebay saying that the listing had been removed due to it either 'not fitting their guidelines' or violating copyright laws. I found this weird and emailed the seller to ask what was up, and he replied that he would send me the poster and said "[former starlet] has no legal right to stop this sale".

Apparently she (or some family member) has gotten the idea that any old poster or image with her photo on it (even an old poster from 50 years ago) is her intellectual property. Now, this isn't true, because then no one could ever sell any old photo or poster or magazine with anyone's picture on it. However, she's got her own website, where she sells autographed photos of herself, and has probably gotten a little greedy. I think this is one of those cases of 'a little knowledge is a dangerous thing', or at least a semi-dangerous thing.

One final funny detail--the main picture on the poster is a painting of a girl in a scuba mask--it's not even a recognizable photo of [redacted]!

p.s. It wasn't Debra Paget.

p.p.s. I checked my old emails and saw she did the same thing when I tried to buy the same poster last May! At the time, I just thought the seller flaked out...and since I hadn't gotten to pay for it yet, I had no motivation to pursue the issue.

Der Tiger von Eschnapur

Take a peek at this nifty poster I just got from Ebay! It's for an American release of two of the great director Fritz Lang's last films. They were released in Europe as two movies called The Tiger of Eschnapur and The Indian Tomb, or Der Tiger von Eschnapur und Das Indische Grabmal. Both of them star Debra Paget and a bunch of German or European actors. They're basically juvenile adventure stories, with things like cobras and maharajahs. The only thing that makes them 'adult' is Debra's hotsie-totsie dance, which you can see below. Other than that, they're basically like a Tintin comic. The films are a remake of a silent epic written by Lang and his then-wife Thea von Harbou, but not directed by him. Lang would direct one more film The 1000 Eyes of Dr. Mabuse, and then retire to tell the same anecdotes over and over to interviewers and film students.

Billboard Names 50 Sexiest Songs of All Time

Unsurprisingly, this was #1:

You can find the rest here.