Horse Guard set added to Archive

Royale Studio's Tom Manlick as a Horse Guard

As part of the work for setting up the gallery entry for 'Football Ballet' I have posted a new Index entry for the model Tom Manlick and a post at the Gallery covering his scandalous photo-set depicting a member of the Royal Horse Guard's Regiment semi-naked. Full details and link at his Index page.

I've also undated the Horse Guards Collection with two added entries

Royale's 'Joke' Names

 Confusion about model names abounds in vintage beefcake photos. Models often adopted pseudonyms for publication. Sometimes they used different names for different studios. Royale Studio seems to have had more than it's fair share of confusion.

Tibor Urgay and Brian Lamprill in 'Gym', April 1960

I relate elsewhere at this blog the confusion of Tibor Urgay's identity with the US Model Ray Andersen (see above) because they looked so alike. Brian Lamprill was also inexplicably given the name of another British model, Gerry Haywood (not Gerri!) in this caption. By the way, I love the idea that this image (actually from the Urgay v Lamprill set) was an impromptu session created by models 'waiting assignment'.

Trim 16 March 1960

Communication problems might be the explanation of this earlier mis-naming of Brian Lamprill as Brian Campbell in Trim magazine in  April1960. In the 60's contact between Royale in London and Trim in Washington DC with attendant clock differences was reliant on slow letters and unreliable phone lines. In the index of Trim Studio Quarterly No 26 he's called Brian Lamphill.

Vim Nov 1960

Poor Brian Lamprill was also tagged as Brian Lamphrille in Vim later the same year. This hardly seems like a simple mistake, a typo or misspelling. It's as if some wag deliberately turned the name into a suggestive pun. (Say it out loud if you don't get it!). It probably wasn't Vim's doing, they took themselves very seriously as a body building periodical. In fact, Royale seemed to make a regular practice of giving models 'joke' names.

The Cast of 'Navy Gash'

Lamprill was primarily a 'straight' body builder for Royale and able to use his real name (or at least his competition name) but Royale often using serving members of the armed forces for their racy, uniformed storyettes and they probably adopted false names which were often not particularly subtle. Thus the trio above from 'Navy Gash' were named (L to R) Ned Willy-gan, Percy* and Tom Hard-ing. (To be fair, Tom Harding could be a real name)

*Percy is a common UK euphemism for penis, (as in 'I'm off to point Percy at the porcelain').

I have also related elsewhere at this blog the confusion surrounding the names Ned Willigan and comedian Spike Millican in Navy Romeo Identities which I suspect is another jest by the people at Royale.

Royale seemed to pick a well-known, French surname (top left) at random to identify Yves Grangeat in this feature at Body Beautiful 9. Presumably they couldn't remember or couldn't pronounce his real name in their communications with the magazine. In fact Yves suffered a multitude of misnamings in his short career, see the Yves Grangeat Index Page.

In those days in the UK making fun of foreigner's names was perfectly normal and Tom Manlick's improbable, saucy 'moniker' was possibly derived from an original Central European name.

Peter George as 'Harold Andsbury' in Gym 3, Jun 59

Gym Magazine were complicit in dubbing Peter George as 'Harold Andsbury' in this feature. Abbreviating Harold to 'H' produces the name H.Ands-bury, highly suggestive of FF fetish. Coining sobriquets like this for other people was a popular pastime for certain gay men in those days and some were very good at it. It's more likely a jest about Peter's memorable backside rather than titillating information about his actual sex life. 

Stan Free giving a caning to a youth in' TEDS'

Renaming models was not confined to magazine appearances, Stan Free was called 'Barry Cutts' in the Royale Catalogue listing of 'TEDS' but I've not found that name used anywhere else. I've speculated that this is another joke  in his Solo Sets Post

~

More casual mistakes crop up even in Royale's own catalogue - 

David Reid was called David Reed in the blurb for the Bullies storyette.

Whip Duel added to the Archive

 

The dramatic 'Whip Duel' storyette has now been added to the archive.

There's an interesting background to this set which is developed at the Whip Duel index page

There's a connection with the film 'Song of Scheherazade', described in the previous post.

'Whip Duel' - inspired by 'Song of Scheherazade'

 In his blurb for the Royale Studio, photo storyette, 'Whip Duel', Basil Clavering compares the dramatic quality of his imagery with the Whip Fight scene in "Scherezade". This is a reference to the 1947 film 'Song of Scheherazade' starring Yvonne de Carlo and Brian Donlevy. It's a romanticised fantasy about a young Rimsky-Korsakoff being inspired to write his well-known musical suite whilst on a visit to Morocco when he was serving in the Russian Navy.

This contemporary poster includes an image of the whip fight (top right) between the young Rimsky-Korsakov and one of his shipmates over the honour of 'Cara', whom he wants to take back to Russia with him. The scene featured heavily in the official publicity stills and posters at the time (some of which are reproduced below) but for some reason, current synopses of the plot don't even mention it. I had to look up the film itself to find out more about it.

The scene starts with Rimsky-Kosakoff (right) trying to negotiate a way of smuggling his girlfriend aboard the ship to take her back home with him. His shipmate refuses to play ball and in the argument that follows he insults her, calling her a 'pick-up'. I think the whip he's holding (there's another one somewhere!) is connected with the mandatory 'ballet sequence' (see below).

Having got themselves thoroughly worked up, the protagonists prepare for the fight by standing nose to nose and taking it in turns to progressively discard trappings such as caps and sword belts, which they dramatically fling aside. This procedure is not without erotic overtones of course. Sadly though they don't get as far discarding any interesting clothes, not even their shirts, although bare chested fights weren't uncommon in movies of this era. 

Clavering may have been moved to emulate this introductory, confrontation scene in his storyette, the sailor's cap can certainly be seen lying on the floor in one picture, but I haven't found any pictures that explicitly confirm the existence of  such a sequence.  

If you want to see beef in this film you have to wait for the fantasy entertainment scene, which shows Yvonne de Carlo impassively seducing a sexy sultan, just a Scheherazade does in the 'Tales of the 1001 Arabian Nights'. The unsavoury sexual context and institutional, honour killing that underpins the story is usually glossed over in books for kids of course, but it finds a disturbing, modern echo in the 'honour' row that fuels the sailors' whip fight in this film.

The only other beef on the menu is Brian Donlevy who plays the Captain of the ship. Apparently he was told by the director to shave his chest for the bare top scene. That's an interesting exercise of power that is not without erotic interest in itself, particularly when the man ordered to shave has such a macho image. His incongruous, unshaved arms seen here - a protest perhaps - highlight what a fool he has been obliged to make of himself.

Donlevy looks much better with his clothes on, but the film's portrayal of the Captain is a weird mix of butch, sophisticated (an avid chess enthusiast) and plain camp (cigarette holder and frilly bed hangings - not to mention the hand on hip pose!). No wonder his crew are given to extravagant romantic gestures.

The whip fight itself is a spirited affair, recognisably Hollywood in style with wholesale destruction of the surroundings. It's dramatic nevertheless and reasonably convincing with a couple of blows seeming to land realistically. There's a still on the internet that shows Jean Pierre Aumont (who plays Rimsky-Korsakoff, right) being taught how to handle a whip for the film.

At one point Rimsky-Korsakoff is knocked to the ground by a blow and is unable to defend himself against some ruthless blows. Clavering's interest in corporal punishment is evident in much of the Royale Studio's output and documented in the biography of John Barrington (source ref 101), so it's easy to see how he might have got excited about this imagery. 

Unlike Royale's storyette, no clothes get torn by whip lashes in the movie, but a wall hanging does. That little detail might have helped to inspire Clavering although it's not clear whether he actually saw the film. His storyette description suggests he took his inspiration from stills published in the 'Picture Post' (probably those shown here). His job as a cinema manager would lead you to think he must have viewed such a notorious scene at the time it first appeared, but in 1959, 10 years later, it would have been next to impossible for him to view it again unless it popped up on TV and even then, in the absence of video recorders, he would have been obliged to rely on those magazine clippings and his memory to compose his visuals for 'Whip Duel'.

This poster was dedicated to a less explicit crop of the 'grounded' image. Clearly the film's publicists also saw the scene as a useful bit of sensationalism which they could exploit. The film was a success at the box office but a critical failure. 

Read about Royale Studios 'Whip Duel'

2 Models Fleshed Out

Yves Grangeat - nude by John Barrington

 The Yves Grangeat story has been fleshed out with the addition of a group of pictures of him posing naked with his friend Gino, these join the 'Barrington Nudes' set. 

Also pictures of him with clothes on in a tidy-up of the Yves Grangeat index page

Pete Beale posing as a PT Instructor

The images in the Pete Beale solos set have been further enhanced to improve the presentation 

and there has been a complete overhaul of the Pete Beale Index Page to match the standard format.

His PBTI set with Tibor Urgay has been added to the Gallery.

Updates to the Brian Lamprill story

 A new set - Brian Lamprill in Costume for Hussar has been added to the Archive

In addition, several pictures have been added to Brian Lamprill's Solo Sets for Royale

Visit Brian's Index Page for the latest list of his appearances.

Nude set of Yves Grangeat released

 A set of photos of Yves Grangeat in the nude, shot by John Barrington in the South of France has been added to the Royale Studio gallery. Not truly Royale images but they complete the picture of this model who was in the Royale catalogue (look him up in the model listing in the right sidebar).

Unfortunately I'm away from my PC and can't give a direct link but most of the posts will take you to the gallery via index pages.