Paperback 1065: Move Over, Darling / Marvin H. Albert (Dell 5859)

Paperback 1065: Dell 5859 (PBO, 1963)

Title: Move Over, Darling

Author: Marvin H. Albert

Cover artist: TERPNING (no, really) [Howard Terpning—thanks to reader Jeff for the reference]

Condition: 7/10

Value: $8-10

Best things about this cover:

• Look, Doris Day's hair stylists did her no favors for a good chunk of the '60s but she is never not adorable and frankly that outfit is straight-up hot. I mean, your tastes may not run to the prim and purple, but that's your problem.
• James Garner, also the dreamiest, but this cover isn't really designed to showcase that.
• I hate how '60s paperback covers tend to emphasize text and often drive the art right off the page, but this cover has a nice, whimsical font, and frankly the artist gets a lot out of small details (DD's smile, her contemplative hand gesture, her dangly right shoe...)
• I love this idea that in the '60s, it was every guy's dream to have not one but two wives. "What a setup!" This runs contrary to most wife-related comedy I've heard over the years. Something about taking wives... please.

Best things about this back cover:

• See, text. It's awful.
• This is basically the plot of My Favorite Wife (Grant/Dunne, 1940). Since that is one of my favorite movies of all time, and since I have a crush on both of the actors on the cover of this book, I'm willing to give this movie a shot.
• See, TERPNING, I wasn't kidding. That's the cover artist's name. Not sure how that's a real name, but ... there it is! As I understand it, TERP is short for "terrapin," a kind of turtle. I would see a turtle-horror film called "The Terpning"!

Page 123~

"I was very excited by the island vegetation. I'm afraid I spent so much time on research that I was not very good company for your wife."

Heyyyyy, this *is* the plot of My Favorite Wife!!! Nick's first wife, Ellen, is shipwrecked for years on an island with a Johnny Weissmuller-type hunk (Adam) as her only companion. In order to keep Nick from getting jealous, she tries to pass off some ordinary-looking shoe clerk as Adam. Misunderstanding, tomfoolery, and hijinks ensue. Annnnyway, Move Over, Darling appears to be a faithful remake of My Favorite Wife, so now I'm definitely going to see it. Possibly right now. 

~RP

P.S. OMG the entire movie is summarized in just four pages of photo stills from the movie (please enjoy my leering marginal illustration):

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Paperback 1064: The Big Four / Agatha Christie (Dell 0562)

Paperback 1064: Dell 0562 (1st New Dell Edition, 1972)

Title: The Big Four

Author: Agatha Christie

Cover artist: Uncredited

Condition: 9/10

Value: ~$10

Best things about this cover:

• These objects-only covers are fairly common for Christie paperbacks of the '60s and '70s. I think (William) Teason is the name of the artist I know who has done several like this. Maybe this cover is Teason's work too, dunno. Anyway, it's very evocative ... of a certain ... criminal ... milieu ... but it's not terribly exciting.
• The pearl-handled gun is gorgeous, as is the ornamental key. The noose is awfully, uh, circular. It's all so artfully arranged, like evidence that you just know is planted.
• I'm curious about this font. And about the weird colors ... beige / yellow / beige ... that's one way to make sure the yellow doesn't pop. Then again, publishers have clearly learned to value marketing over art at this point, as Christie's name is big feature, and everything else merely decorative.
• I want all the people in the photographs to be Doing Something! Making out, killing each other, something! To this cover's credit, I am curious to know how all this detritus fits into narrative form.

Best things about this back cover:

• Back Cover Copy in C[heap pun] Minor
• Wait, four men? I thought the photos on the cover were the Big Four, but one of those was a woman, so ... now I'm *really* intrigued (I've only ever read a few Christie titles in my life, if I'm being honest)
• Bizarre to make such a superhero out of Poirot and yet depict him Nowhere on your cover. 

Page 123~

"Ernest Luttrell. Son of a North Country parson. Always had a kink of some kind in his moral make-up"

I am quite sure that what Christie means by "kink" and what I mean by "kink" are somewhat if not quite different from one another, and yet ... one can hope.

~RP

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Paperback 1056: In Case of Emergency / Georges Simenon (Dell D279)

Paperback 1056: Dell D279 (1st Dell, 1959)

Title: In Case of Emergency
Author: Georges Simenon
Cover artist: photo

Condition: 7/10
Estimated value: $10-15

Best things about this cover:

• If anything was gonna kickstart this blog again, it was gonna be a sudden jolt of "frank"ness (picked this up on Sunday at Autumn Leaves bookstore in Ithaca)
• Is there another way to be "shocking" besides "frankly shocking"? Can you be "coyly shocking"?
• I know there is the suggestion of titillation inside ("8 PAGES OF PHOTOGRAPHS") but you'd think they would've offered up a more (frankly) suggestive shot of Bardot for the cover. Yes, she appears to be naked and in bed, but it's really a rather dull still—as if she were merely eyeing the cover copy and thinking, "yeah, I guess that's OK."
• I want to live in a world where promises of JEAN GABIN photos could move books

Best things about this back cover: 

• "Thoughts of Jean Gabin invaded her mind like ... well, like this red arrow!"
• Yes, "obsessed" with his mistress, we get it, you said that on the cover, come on, thesaurus!
• Nevermind, I just finished reading that first paragraph, put the thesauraus down, I repeat, put the thesaurus down, step away from the adjectives, please
• I know "little slut of the streets" is supposed to sound insulting but I think it's kind of cute ... also, maybe your "traitorous body" is your own problem, pal
• "Degrading," "depravity," "destruction," "desires" ... how about "desist" or "depart the D section of your dictionary, dude"?

Page 123~

"You'll see! She's got a pretty little pussy, with real blonde hair."

OK so that "pussy" is not I repeat not a cat. Frankly, I'm shocked. No, I'm being *real* frank, not boy-who-cried-frank frank. This quotation seems ... well, as explicit as anything I've ever seen in a book from a mainstream 1950s paperback publisher. I guess the French get more leeway. You know how they are.

~RP

Paperback 654: Virginia Woolf / Monique Nathan (Grove/Evergreen P34)

Paperback 654: Evergreen Profile Book P34 (PBO, 1961) (trans. from Fr.)

Title: Virginia Woolf
Author: Monique Nathan (trans. Herma Briffault)
Cover artist: photo cover

Yours for: $14


Best things about this cover:

• I got this only because it seemed so unusual—a picture-heavy mass-market paperback bio of a major English author (and not a more likely subject for such a book, such as, say, Shaun Cassidy or Justin Bieber).
• Then again, Grove Press was doing experimental, off-beat stuff all the time.
• "Endpapers" are photos of waves.
• There really are a shit-ton of b&w photos, and a short anthology of Woolf's work at the back.
• Inscription: "For Kay from Mrs. Watson / 1964"; there's a whole novel right there.

Best things about this back cover:

• Bah!

Page 123~

To find it good, lacking fame, to cloak oneself in proud solitude is not always merely a theatrical attitude. 

~RP

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Paperback 394: The Girl from U.N.C.L.E. Magazine (Feb. 1967)

Paperback 394: The Girl from U.N.C.L.E. (Feb. 1967)

Author: Robert Hart Davis et al.
Cover artist: Uncredited

Yours for: $5


Best things about this cover:

• Pretty sure the teal pen outline of the gun-toting figures is not original.
• Photo was actually lifted from publicity stills for the failed "That Girl!" spinoff entitled "That Hat!"
• There is rather remarkable definition / shading on the boobs here. Hard to see because the damned hat is so distracting, but it's there...
• Zebra skin makes the best shoes.

Best things about this back cover:

• Yet another publicity still, this one from the short-lived cover band / duo called "The Karpenters"

Page 123~

Finally he said, "Okay, Canard, but this only works once. I got friends in the D.A.'s office, too. When I get that envelope, you're a dead man."

"Sooner or later, Degna, we all are."

Yeesh, that's a line even "CSI: Miami" would've thrown away.

~RP

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Paperback 318: A New Kind of Love / Henry Williams (Dell 6329)

Paperback 318: Dell 6329 (PBO, 1963)

Title: A New Kind of Love
Author: Henry Williams
Cover artist: photo cover

Yours for: $9


Best things about this cover:

• This photo does not say "sizzling." It says "awkward last kiss before I plummet to my death."
• If you invert the book, Woodward's position makes sense. That is also the only way Newman's pose makes sense. Which raises the question — why is it upside-down? I'm sure it's a metaphor, but I can't see how making them look like acrobats/monkeys helped move any more books.
• Nice gams.

Best things about this back cover:

• "Samantha soon realized that something was missing. Like, for instance, a man." — sounds like "The Old Kind of Love" to me.
• If she was a career girl, then she was already a "new woman." She's Becoming Eye Candy, which I'm all for, but it's not new.
• Sadly, the photos are not, as advertised, "provocative." Although this one ... has potential. She looks like something out of a gay space-age western:

Page 123~

"Isn't it charming?" Felicienne said. "It's so large, it's gone beyond bad taste and come out on the other side, chic, elegant, bizarre."

You'll be happy to know she's talking about a diamond.

~RP

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LIFE magazine - searchable photo database

I just discovered (via writer Duane Swierczynski's "Secret Dead Blog") that LIFE magazine has a giant, easily searchable photo database - tons of classic greatness, which I will surely pillage for my blog(s) in the future. Here's a gem: crime fiction legend Mickey Spillane proudly posing with paperback versions of his (exceedingly popular) books:

And this ... this is just one of the greatest photos ever taken:

~RP