About the Blog..

My blog title, Ossessione, American Style, is taken from a movie by Count Luchino Visconti, who borrowed the plot of his astonishing debut film, Ossessione, from James M. Cain's novel, The Postman Always Rings Twice. Unfortunately, Visconti never paid for the rights and his film was not shown in the U.S. until many years after its release. The star of the movie, Massimo Girotti, would be People's "Sexiest Man Alive" many years running had the zine been around at the time. We first see him as a truck driver in a filthy sleeveless athletic undershirt, another of my obsessions: remember Paul Newman in an a-shirt (e.g. Hud or Cool Hand Luke)? Nowadays, they cheapen this garment who confuse it with something tank troops wore in World War I. The a-shirt is an undershirt, usually with thin bands over the shoulders; a tank top is a shirt without sleeves, akin to a "muscle shirt," only with wider bands over the shoulders. But, I digress....)

The purpose of this photo/comment column is to present a record of my obsessions. These are wide-ranging and diverse. This blog is not intended to be pornographic. The only pornography today is in politics.

Wednesday, November 21, 2012

My Next Beautiful Blond Obsession: Hint: He Inspired the First Diet Cola Drink

The next beautiful blond man that caught my eye after Carlton Carpenter was Arthur Andrew Kelm.  Little did I know that the rumors about him were true and that photos of Tab with the late Tony Perkins. (I say "late" lest you think that the theofascistic current Tony Perkins, head honcho at an organization the Southern Poverty Law Center has put on its "Hate Groups" list.  They spend small fortunes on efforts to stop same sex marriage, but they lost the battle before they started it.)  I have to think I first saw Tab in the war movie, Battle Cry, which outdid The Passion of Christ and The Last Temptation of Christ in pre-release publicity.  The scenario went kind of like this:

Fellow Student: Hey, man, have you seen that new movie, Battleground?
Student: No, why, is it good?
Fellow Student: It's really cool.  It's this war movie and there's a scene in there where one platoon is saluting the other platoon.  Giving them the finger, man.  No movie's ever shown that.






And I do not think any other movie had shown that.  Indeed, it comes well into the film, when some exhausted new recruits stop to rest only to see another, rival platoon march by, and if you know ahead of time to watch for it, one of the resting troops gives the Holy Trinity to the passers-by.  But to me, the irony is in Tab Hunter working with the All Man macho moviemaker, Raoul Walsh, and the irony of my not knowing until reading a biography of Tony Perkins (the guy who acted in Psycho, not the psycho dissing same sex marriage for the obscenely named Family Research Council) that the two men would go on studio-arranged double dates.  Just in case the tabloids, always lurking the wings, shot photos that night.
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