It’s time to go on a Girl Hunt! It’s 1957, and girl hunting is normal; in fact, it’s all the rage! I’m pretty sure the girls love it. Nothing seems to indicate to me that they don’t, except when they say stop, and don’t, and other jokes that I ignore. Don’t worry, this article won’t be a bummer. It’s about quaint old-timey porn. The kind of porn so adorable that it made me yearn for a time much worse for women.
The premise of Glamour Photography’s The Great Cross-Country Girl Hunt was that three photographers set out on a journey to photograph girls. Back in 1957, girls didn’t have much to do other than hang out by the side of the road, gazing in a mirror and seductively rubbing their legs, or leaning forward and contemplating how much they’d like to be photographed by a big, strong man, or humping a tree.
As a representative of the wacky girls, I just want to say, they’ll never catch us. We’re far too fast, and we’ve trained for this. The three photographers are Tasker, Turtz, and Willard. Tasker is a husky commercial photographer, Turtz is a small town portrait photographer, and Willard is a fashion photographer. They are the Larry, Moe, and Curly of photographing scantily clad women. Wow, even my references are going to be retro this week. We follow Tasker, Turtz, and Willard on their cross country journey to hunt women as they talk about them in the exact same way a serial killer would.
Ostensibly, the point of Glamour Photography Magazine is to teach men “the technical and philosophical aspects of photographing pretty girls.” That seems like more of a folksy little story to explain why there are so many girl butts, shoulders, and thighs in the magazine.
The articles don’t discuss lighting, posing, or what cameras they’re using specifically. They mostly talk about how they managed to dupe all of these beautiful women into posing for them, and the answer is mostly that they asked. It was 1957, no one had TikTok to browse, so they were like, “Sure, I’ll flash my butt for $25, which is also enough money for a two-bedroom home.”
The women in these stories are…pretty improbable. Supposedly, the above squeaky clean farm girl was wandering down a country road with a pie in each hand. The photographers convince her to let them photograph her pies. Then they end up getting shots of her in just a towel and that stupid Wendy’s logo haircut that only a woman auditioning for the role of wandering pie sex girl would ever wear.
In 1957 photographers were allowed to pester women anywhere. They don’t have to wait for a girl to wander out of her mental institution/bakery. They go to a beauty school and find a bunch of girls hanging outside after class, convincing them they want to take photographs of a makeup tutorial. They meet a waitress in a cafe who sees them discussing past pictures they’ve taken. They stand outside of a cupcake factory! It’s a very dessert-based sex economy.
Basically, Girl Hunt is a fantasy story about three wily little guys tricking very stupid women into showing them a glimpse of their upper thigh. They also get free cute pictures with their dog though, so who is actually winning here? It’s designed to present the women as rubes, but I know who the rube is. Not the girl who owns this cute dalmatian, that’s for sure.
This woman didn’t mysteriously decide to strip down in the middle of the park for three camera-wielding perverts. As punishment for not exposing more than a jaunty glimpse of bare wrists, the photographers called her “the girl with the pixie puss.” She’s forever immortalized in this magazine for arty perverts as pixie puss and not the girl with the sweet dalmation. Some men at a park complimented her dog and took her picture and now she’s pixie puss. Let that be a lesson to you ladies about leaving those wrists exposed around photographers.
Another poor decision many of the women who appeared in these photos made was crawling into a U-Haul to change clothes. This rickety U-Haul is the site of many sexual escapades throughout the magazine. It’s the only backdrop they used consistently. According to the magazine, women were absolutely tripping over each other to get into this rickety horse trailer and get nude. U-Haul really owned the pervert rental market in this era, whereas today we all think of the classic white Budget rental van as a pervert’s preferred mode of transport.
Many pages after introducing the U-Haul they have another photoshoot with a woman who crawls on the roof like a sexy little raccoon. Yes, it’s mostly an excuse for her to show her underwear, but it’s also adorable. Look at the composition on the sex raccoon. I’m really learning a lot about how to photograph beautiful women, one of the most difficult tasks in photography!
They even conclude the magazine with a much glamorized drawing of women in the U-Haul. I guess it’s better than humping a tree by the side of the road. It makes taking your clothes off in a roadside U-Haul because hotel rooms were too expensive for the photographer seem almost glamorous. Almost!
While the U-haul is central to the story, it’s certainly not the only location where women posed glamorously. Here’s a collection of some of my favorite non-U-Haul photos. One lady went bozo pants and boobs out in her living room.
There was a woman who cheekily hid her nudity with a rusty mule. It looks like knowing the location of this mule will be important for detectives later.
At the beginning of the magazine, when it’s still explaining the concept of girls, we are hunting them; they included a map layout with close-ups of women’s faces on it. Some of the women are in ecstasy as you would expect, but one lady is pissed, and I love her. How did you sneak into the porn magazine, Gladys? She looks like she’s saying, “No, I will not show you my feet.” Something the photographers are so used to hearing. They’re truly representing all women in the magazine, even the women who specifically asked not to be represented in this magazine.
Of course, Glamour Photography isn’t just about the many photos of women crawling around in a U-haul. People really bought it for the articles! The headlines are mostly understandable, but there’s a lot of old-timey sex language in this that is truly mystifying. I’m pretty sure this paragraph is an old code that activated a Cold War Russian spy family. What do we think, “a steel-wool sex quality” could possibly mean? Was steel-wool different back then? Did people fuck it? Is everybody fucking steel-wool but me?
Part of this paragraph, where Harvey Turtz wonders how to get a woman out of a phone booth so he can ask to see panties, reads like Spanish to me. I can understand what’s happening from the context, but also what does a garter belt have to do with anything?
He ends up taking a photo of the woman’s extended leg and running away, which was apparently not a crime? Either that or President Eisenhower pre-pardoned every Glamour Photography employee because he has a real thing for half-dressed women in rickety rental vehicles.
Everything wasn’t as easy as snapping a photo of a gal’s gams and then dashing. There are some complaints in this magazine about how times are changing. Picking up female hitch-hikers isn’t as easy or sexy as it used to be! Most female hitch-hikers are doing it for fun now, not desperation. What a bummer! Damn you, thriving economic times.
Do you feel a little more glamorous? Do you understand how to undertake the arduous task of photographing beautiful women? Remember, just ask them; if they say no, do it anyway, and if they say yes, find something old and rusty for them to crawl around as nudely as possible. That’s how you do photography!
This article was brought to you by our fine sponsor and Hot Dog Supreme: Victor Malevankin, who just wanted to see more photos of that cute dog.