The Sleazy Reader #8

[dem bones]

Justin Marriott [ed.] - The Sleazy Reader #8 (Paperback Fanatic, Feb. 2019)

Back cover painting: Rik Rawling

Justin Marriott - Cult Fiction: Books and Comics featuring Mansonesque Themes
John Harrison - Manson on the Rack. Manson and the Family in Magazines
Justin Marriott - The Whole Horror Show: Manson and the Family in True-crime Paperback
Justin Marriott - 1978: A Cheap Holiday in other People's Misery. True-crime and Jonestown
Gallery: Cults as seen on the covers of Men's Adventure mags, from the collection of Bob Deis
John Harrison - From the Grindhouse to the Prime Time: Drinking the Cinematic Kool-aid that is Jonestownsploitation
Interview with serial collector Howie Pyro

I've a lot of catching up to do with PF publications, so will drift up the TOC's of recent issues over weekend with anti-review/ commentaries to follow.

This gets my vote for the sleaziest Sleazy Reader to date, possibly the all time most beautifully ugly Fanatic publication, too. If you've not seen a copy, then TOC gives you fair warning that this one is essentially a Manson family-Jonestown Massacre special encompassing books, mags, comics, even - surely a first for Fanatic publications? - grindhouse movies. Credits page includes all important polite request, "Please, no correspondence on Charles Manson."

Am*z*n.uk

Am*z*n

Thanks Justin

[helrunar]

This particular issue seems "sleazy/tacky" in a truly epic way. "Interesting," to be sure!

A couple of months ago, a trailer for a film version of Sharon Tate's murder by these "Satanic hippie dope fiends" surfaced. I found the trailer so "horrific" in a very different sense of the word that I was unable to get through it. I read a review of the movie that said that it juxtaposed the re-enactment of the events leading up to her death with scenes from some bizarre "parallel universe" type thing where she survived the night and lived on. It seemed like a very druggy kind of thing.

H.

[dem bones]

Jul 12, 2019 15:38:15 GMT helrunar said:

This particular issue seems "sleazy/tacky" in a truly epic way.
H.

You are not wrong. I'd also rate it as the most accomplished Sleazy ... to date. Gloriously illustrated, plenty to read, it all fits together so well.

Issue eases us in with the briefest entry on three Holloway House 1970 Satanic Cult titles. Of possibly infinite more importance, it reproduces the striking cover photography. One unforgivable Satan's Slaves poster and a gleefully depraved Chic Stone painting later, we hit the real meat and bones of #8, a round up of lurid true crime and fictional titles inspired by the Manson murders. Sandwiched between the editor's alluring book reviews, John 'Hip Pocket Sleaze' Harrison provides the low-down on contemporary/ contemporary-ish magazine coverage of Charlie's attempts to secure a record deal, fear and loathing on the Spahn ranch, the Tale-La Bianca Murderers, and even 'Sex Capers of the Manson Jury,' this last courtesy of someone or something called Jeanne Voyeur writing for Uncensored magazine in August 1971.

Rounding off the Bloody hippies content, a covers gallery compiled from Bob Deis's Men's Adventure collection, depicting torture-loving psycho bikers and flower power sex freaks up to no good versus innocent chained women. Personal pick of the paintings are Marti Ripoli's Hells Angel branding a hippy chick with the peace symbol and his biker types tormenting a gal in shredded costume (Men Today, World of Men, both March 1973), while the shrieking banner titles are a definite plus. SKEWER OUR GUTS ON THE DEVIL'S STAKES: I PAY OFF IN LUST - CONFESSIONS OF AN ORGY GIRL: WE'LL TAKE THIS CHIC THE HARD WAY: ARE YOUR SEX DESIRES ABNORMAL?. 10 WAYS TO TELL IF YOU'RE SEXUALLY MALADJUSTED: 10 HANG-UPS THAT CAN MAKE YOU A SEX WEAKLING: and a morale boosting NEW HOPE FOR THE HOMOSEXUAL.

[More to follow ...]

[dem bones]

Another for the Manson file.

William Harrington - Columbo: The Helter Skelter Murders (Forge, 1994)

Dan Gonzalez

Blurb:
“Just one more thing..."
For over twenty-five years, Columbo has been the most popular and persistent detective on television, drawing thirty million viewers a week. In his hit hardcover debut, Columbo. The Grassy Knoll, the rumpled sleuth cracked the JFK assassination conspiracy. Now he returns in an all-new mystery to face the legacy of one of history's most infamous killers.

When the wife of a wealthy Los Angeles department store owner is found murdered in bed with her lover, the words Helter Skelter painted in blood on the walls, Columbo must ask himself whether the horror of the Manson Family’s massacres could return - and whether Manson himself is ordering a fresh new round of atrocities from his San Quentin prison cell. Suspicion falls immediately upon the murdered woman’s secretary, a former cultist and lover of Charles Manson. But to solve this case Columbo will have to face evil incarnate: the madman known simply as “Charlie."

WILLIAM HARRINGTON former criminal lawyer, is co-author of several mystery bestsellers. He lives in Connecticut.

It's Columbo, so we know. We know the identity of the killer/ killers, we know that Columbo knows who they are, too, we know it is only a matter of time before he puts a puncture in their watertight alibi. What some of us probably didn't know was that "I was one of the detectives who worked on the Tate-LaBianca murders. Yeah, I met Charlie. And the rest of them." The lieutenant in the shabby raincoat interviewed the killers - Manson nicknamed him 'Crisco' - and gave evidence at the trial ("his testimony established minor but essential points.")

The night of 9th August 1994, Mulholland Drive, Santa Monica. A brutal triple murder at the home of Yussef Khoury, the world famous multi-millionaire department store owner and movie producer. Victims; Arlene Khoury, 54, wife of the above; Steve Heck, 45, Hollywood hustler and set designer on two of the four Khory movies, Spaghetti sci-fi Galactic Revolt and Lingering Melody; and Sergio, the hapless houseboy, an illegal who happened to be on duty at the wrong time. Much to the delight of journalists everywhere, word gets out that Heck was in the process of giving Mrs. Khoury one when the killer(s) struck. Even better .... the assassin/s painted 'HEALTER SKELTER' and 'POLITICAL PIGGY' on the wall in the victims blood. All this on the 25th anniversary of Sharon Tate's murder.

To any normal detective, everything about Cathy 'Puss DoGood' Murphy, secretary to the late Arlene, conveniently screams 'I DID IT!' - but Lieutenant Columbo is not a normal detective. Cathy, 46, a member of the original Family, has the lengthy criminal record to show for it. Twenty-five years on, 'Puss' is still loyal to ex-lover, Charlie, whom she regards as God. She writes him on a weekly basis (on such occasions he is capable of a reply, Manson encourages her to keep doing what she's doing). Yussef was fully aware of her past (and present) when he promoted Puss from sales clerk and, until now, she's given him no cause to regret doing so. Smartly dressed, diligent and capable in her work, so what if she lives on a commune with leftover Mansonites and flower children who smoke dope all day and night? But Arlene never saw it that way. Furious that her husband would hire a "Manson girl" - an attractive one at that - she insisted Cathy work under her, and duly treated her abominably. For her part, Puss privately regards her employers as "Pigs" whose luxury goods cater to "moronic extravagance" while a third of the world's population go hungry.

It's clear from the outset that Mrs. Khoury's affair with Steve Heck was common knowledge. It doesn't seem to have troubled her husband in the least, but then Arlene had long passed her trophy wife sell by date and, besides, Yussef is getting it on with Kimberley Dane, lingerie model, beach-volleyball enthusiast and aspiring actress. Even Columbo rates Miss Dane in the top one most beautiful women he's seen in his life.

The cops raid the commune. Puss, and fellow Family loyalists Warren 'Bum Rap' Douglas and Jenny 'Kid' Schmidt, are arrested for drug possession, though the newspapers prefer to run with a "Satanic Plot?" angle.

Columbo pursues the real culprit/s .....

To be continued

File under ...... "tasteful."

[Dr Strange]

With it being the 50th anniversary of the Manson Family murders, there's at least 4 films in the pipeline -

One Upon A Time In Hollywood - directed by Quentin Tarantino, screened at Cannes this year. A (very) fictionalised version, with some very big names (as you'd expect) - Leonardo DiCaprio, Brad Pitt, Bruce Dern, Al Pacino, and with Margot Robbie playing Sharon Tate. Sounds like a typical Tarantino action-comedy-drama that completely rewrites actual history.

The Haunting of Sharon Tate - Hilary Duff plays Tate in this one, the plot is supposedly derived from an interview Tate gave a year before her death where she said she had dreams about her house being haunted and about being murdered by a satanic cult. I'm guessing this is more of a "horror" film than the others, and is probably the one that Steve saw the trailer for.

Charlie Says - set 3 years after the murders, it focuses on three of the female Family members in prison, and has Matt Smith (one-time Dr Who) playing Manson in flashbacks.

Tate - has Kate Bosworth as Tate, and follows the last few days of Tate's life, but doesn't depict the murders. This one has the "official backing" of Debra Tate (Sharon's sister).

[dem bones]

Mention of films in questionable taste leads us seamlessly back to Sleazy #8 which, atypically, ventures beyond dog-eared paperbacks, comics and magazines to include John Harrison's appraisal of exploitation movies inspired by the final days of the Reverend Jim Jones, who, in November 1978, strong-armed 900+ devotees to commit "revolutionary" mass-suicide by drinking cyanide-laced grape juice. Fastest out of the blocks was René Cardona Jr.'s low budget but impressively cast Guyana: Cult of the Damned (1979), swiftly followed William Graham's made-for-prime-time TV docu-drama, Guyana Tragedy: The Story of Jim Jones, and Umberto Lenzi's salacious Eaten Alive! - sisters fleeing a jungle cult fall foul of cannibals - which, from Mr. Harrison's synopsis sounds, and no doubt is, a particularly ghastly watch. Cinema ain't my thing, but if pushed to select a standout article of the issue, From The Grindhouse ... would be in with a strong shout.

The several paperback cash-in's rushed out in the wake of the Jonestown tragedy include Suicide in Guyana - "THE SHOCKING STORY BEHIND THE BIZARRE JIM JONES DEATH CULT!") - by M. E. Knerr of Sasquatch repute. According to the editor, this is one of the least essential accounts of the horrifying events, and it is better to go for the pair with the gloating, corpse-strewn cover photo's, namely George Carpozi Jnr.'s The Suicide Cults (Manor, 1978) and John Maguire & Mary Lee Dunn's Hold Hands and Die ("by the authors of The Patty Hearst Story," Dale 1978).

Issue closes on what initially seems an incongruous note, an interview with veteran collector of trash culture memorabilia, Howie Pyro. Mr. Pyro, 58, actively pursues items of "extreme weirdness in all fields," has done so since childhood. From the impression gleaned over six too brief pages, his home must be some kind of alt-Ackermuseum for the terminally seedy.

For this reader, #8 is quite the most accomplished, consistently entertaining Sleazy to date (in interests of transparency, have yet to read six and seven), but no need to take my word for it. As satisfied customer 'Harvey87' enthused in a recent Amaz*n review; "Useless and a complete waste of ten dollars."

You need further endorsement?

[dem bones]

Columbo: The Helter Skelter Murders (Cont.)

Macabre Coincidence Or Satanic Plot In Khoury Murders?

The crimes are revolting, and a trip to San Quentin to interview an insane, leering Charlie is no joy ride, but, for the most part, the Lieutenant has the time of his life investigating this one. During the course of his inquiries, Columbo is wined and dined at a lingerie catalogue launch (Kimberley Dane on the catwalk), ogles a beach volleyball game (Kimberley volleys the winner), even attends movie rehearsals (a steamy tit-sucking scene, unforgivably devoid of Kimberley's participation). His wife - one sexy woman, according to the author - does OK out of it, too. Kimberley gifts Mrs. C. the underwear she wore for her first ever model shoot.

As seems invariably the case in the TV episodes, the killers are ultimately tripped up by their own superiority complex. Irked that Colombo shows no enthusiasm for pinning the murders on Puss - even when she wearily volunteers to confess - they over-elaborate, implicate fangirl Family hangers-on, Boobs and Squatty, in the crimes, hoping the police chief will pull rank for the sake of a convenient arrest. Captain Sczciegel is under immense pressure to have the case solved last week, but stays loyal to his Lieutenant. If Columbo reckons the Manson girl is innocent, she's innocent. Later, when the real culprits are safely under lock and key and everything's been explained to him, Sczciegel remarks that the killers weren't so bright after all. Columbo's having none of it. "I'd say they were too smart. If they hadn't been so clever making false clues and giving false leads, they might've got away with it. If they wanted the police to believe Puss Dogood did it, they should have left us a little work to do to figure it out."

Really enjoyed this. Anyone read Harrington's Columbo's #4 and/or #5: The Game Show Killer and The Glitter Murder?