Living Venus (1961) Girlie Mag Sexploitation Noir

"The rise of Pagan Magazine"

Directed by  Herschell Gordon Lewis. 

Written by David F. Friedman, William Kerwin, Herschell Gordon Lewis, and Jim McGinn, and based on an original story by as James McGinn. 

Starring William Kerwin as Jack Norwall, Harvey Korman (Blazing Saddles (1974), History of the World: Part I (1981)) as Ken Carter, Danica D'Hondt as Peggy Brandon, Jeanette Leahy as Margo, Lawrence J. Aberwood as Max Stein, Linné Ahlstrand as Diane, Robert Bell as Harry, Lee Hauptman as Geoffrey Page, Andrew Lindhoff as Diane's Father, Edward Meekin as Benson, and Herbert Graham as Jim. 

Director Lewis a native son of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, is best known for creating the "Splatter" subgenre of Horror. Known along with Italian director Lucio Fulci as one of the Godfathers Of Gore. Lewis' early roots were in the Exploitation explosion that occurred towards the end of the 1950s and early 1960s in the subgenres juvenile delinquent and here the nudie cutie. He got his start directing TV commercials in 1953 for a small production company in Chicago.

Quote AllMovie, "With his better-known gore films, Herschell Gordon Lewis was a pioneer, going farther than anyone else dared, probing the depths of disgust and discomfort onscreen with more bad taste and imagination than anyone of his era."

Living Venus in comparison in very tame and is loosely based on a Hugh Hefner type story arc. 

"In January 1952, Hefner left his job as a copywriter for Esquire after he was denied a $5 raise. In 1953, he took out a mortgage loan of $600 and raised $8,000 from 45 investors (including $1,000 from his mother—"not because she believed in the venture," he told E! in 2006, "but because she believed in her son") to launch Playboy, which was initially going to be called Stag Party. The first issue was published in December 1953 and featured Marilyn Monroe" (Wiki)

Monroe posed for the stills in 1949 during her desperate to be in the movies starlet wannabe period. It was just after that period of her life of being a teenaged bride moonlighting as  WWII "V" girl (a hooker) on the side 

That could someday be another great Noir film if anybody had the guts to film Ted Jordan's Norma Jean: My Secret Life With Marilyn Monroe.

The Story

Jack Norwall (Kerwin) an editor at Newlywed Magazine quits his job over a quarrel about a controversial cover shot by freelance photographer Ken Carter (Korman). Declaring "I know what the public wants and I’m gonna give it to them!" he storms out of the office. 

 William Kerwin as Jack Norwall quitting his job

Gets drunk. Takes it out on his overly possessive wife, and drinks some more. 

While stumbling down the street he spies a Venus de Milo statuette in a antique/2nd hand store window and shoplifts it. The statue inspires him to create an adult men's magazine called Pagan.

In another bar Jack "discovers" his real life Venus, Peggy (D'Hont) who is hustling drinks as a cocktail waitress. Jack tells her she's beautiful, jokes and bullshits a bit telling her that he'll make her famous. 

Jack Norwall and Danica D'Hondt as Peggy 

Of course his line has the desired effect. All she has to do is pose for some cheesecake photos, don't all stars start out that way? With stars in her eyes Jack takes Peggy over to Ken's studio, wakes him up and does a session first with Peggy clad in a stola. Then more daringly in the nude. Jack and Peggy become an item.  Jack, with those photos of Peggy developed by Ken, peddles his concept magazine around the town publishing houses for financing, and Jack gets a contract from a major magazine distributor to carry Pagan.

Jack and Peggy become an item.  Jack, with those photos of Peggy developed by Ken, peddles his concept magazine around the town publishing houses for financing, and Jack gets a contract from a major magazine distributor to carry Pagan.

Peggy ecstatic about all the attention, happily poses for even more cheesecake/and daring art studies.

Harvey Korman as Ken Carter

Pagan is huge. Peggy is celebrity famous.

Both Jack and Ken want Peggy. Peggy agrees however to marry her career "guru" Jack. As a result Jack and Ken part company. Ken is replaced but Jack now becomes very possessive of Peggy and he does not want her to pose nude any longer. 

Ken and Jack break up partnership

Ken, Peggy, and the new photographer

Jack and Peggy husband and wife

Jack makes Peggy promotion manager. Jack expects Peggy to entertain potential advertising clients, clients who want to be seen out on the town with "The living Venus." 

Peggy starts drinking even more when Jack starts to "interview" new potential Venuses. Jack wants her to be even more friendly with the advertisers basically piping her out to them. 

Of course it all goes Noirsville.

Noirsville

Tailfins

This is is one of the better Nudie Cuties with a decent story, but quite amateurish actors including  Harvey Koran in his second film in a low budget production with some nice Black & White cinematography of gorgeous nude studies come to life but it is what it is, and the overly long nude photo sessions would be todays equivalent of the term the "male gaze." How noir of them. But Its the whole point of the film from a commercial standpoint, Screencaps are from a Something Weird streamer. 6/10.