Ultra Swank

Classic Hand Drawn Car Ads from the US

Mark Shaw’s Lost Audrey Hepburn Photos...

Where did our sense of dressing well go

As the technological miracles of the 20th Century exploded- so did our imaginations. Where would all this science take us? Up, out and beyond our normal mundane lives to New Worlds where anything was possible! The vast and limitless horizon of outer space!

In a time before television and jet airplanes the technical label of astronaut had not been invented. The men and women that plied the sea-lanes of the cosmos were “Spacemen!”. Dashing pioneers and adventurers cut in the dime store novel image. Countless books, magazines and comics sang the futuristic folk-tales. Illustrations were as lush and lurid as a twelve year-olds fevered fantasies. It was a Universe filled with monsters clutching space maidens while square jawed heroes blasted away with ray-guns.

As long as you had your secret decoder ring and a spare summer afternoon any kid could strap in and hurtle to the Ice Palaces of Pluto, save the Earth from invasion and be home in time for supper.

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The opening begins with an ominous scene. In succession, skiers descend a snowy mountainside under moonlight in what surely represents the director’s vision of the Archangel Lucifer descending into hell. Then the credits announce “Starring Frankie Avalon” as Avalon sings the theme song. Thus begins another entry in American International Pictures’ series of Beach movies.

The film proper leads off with an unbilled Annette Funicello teaching a sex education class. She explains in vain that one can “have fun without sex”. Todd (Frankie Avalon) and Craig (Dwayne Hickman) are two of Annette’s college students, pursuing their carnal desires without success. Todd wants Linda (Deborah Walley) and Craig wants Barbara (Yvonne Craig). Meanwhile, Linda, Barbara, and the rest of the female student body are swarming around Big Man on Campus, Freddie (Aron Kincaid). Todd and Craig discover that the ladies are following Freddie on a ski trip during school break, and the two Casanova wannabes make a plan to score.

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Ultra Swank takes you back in time into the kitsch, chic and swank living of the 50s, 60s and the 70s. We mainly focus on the design, architecture and the lifestyle of the happy-go-lucky and space-age-living mentality of that era – but also on the music and movies that takes you back to happier times. Ultra Swank is run by Chris, a Swede born in the wrong decade that currently resides in Barcelona. Read more

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