More than meets the eye!

The 10th Victim (La Decima Vittima, Italian; 1965)
Director: Elio Petri

Riding high on her fame as Honey Ryder, 1962 Dr No's Bond Girl, as the Ultimate Bikini Goddess, Ursula Andress continued making movies banking on her sex symbol status. She also appeared in the 1967 Bond spoof 'Casino Royale' as Vesper Lynd, whose grave we saw in 'No Time to Die'. In between, this Swiss vixen also found time to act in this B-grade Italian movie. 

'The 10th Victim' is a futuristic movie set in the 21st century, where the world enjoys peace as society has managed to put a stop to wars. Man's predilection for violence is curbed by having society-sanctioned killing. Each person has the opportunity to kill ten people in a computer-drawn programme named 'The Big Hunt'. In five of the hunts, the selected play hunter and the other five, he plays the hunted. The hunter is given all information about his target but not the hunted. The hunted is clueless about who the assassin is. One who survives all ten hunts get loads of money. In between, the advertisers piggy-bag on the televised hunt.

The Bikini has come a long way since its introduction in the
1946 Paris catwalk. It was named in honour of Bikini Atoll,
the site where the US hydrogen bomb was tested.

The two main characters in the movie are Caroline and Marcello. Both of them are nine-time winners. Marcello is in a massive financial quandary trying to pay alimony to his ex-wife and sustain his expensive mistress. Winning the competition would mean a lot to him. He is chosen as the victim. Caroline is an American who lands in Italy to hunt her prey.

Despite being a brainless movie with plenty of eye candy and blatant flaunting of the female anatomy, the film seems to make reasonably accurate social commentary of the 21st century. It showcases a time where reality TV is a craze and advertisement drives people to sell out. Advertisers are more worried about their sales than the value of human lives. Marriages are a farce. Marcello had been married eleven times before.

The iconic bikini scene from Dr No skyrocketed the sales of bikinis.

In 1965, she was asked why she posed nude in Playboy. 

Her answer was, "because I am beautiful!" 

At one time, Ursula Andress was referred to as Ursula Undress.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

In the interest of science, they say!

Radio Bikini (1988, Documentary)

In the interest of science they say....

The above is a trailer of a series nuclear bomb blasts (2 of them) in Bikini Atoll in the Pacific Ocean in the summer of 1946. I saw the full version of it over the Sundance channel recently. And it left a bad after taste. 

After the success of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the US and its allies decided that there was a dire need to learn more about this deadly weapon, hence was born Operation Crossroads to test the catastrophic effects of the A-bomb.

The film starts with the actual footage of transmission of propaganda radio from Bikini Atoll. it paints a very cheery picture of the army and the locals gaily enjoying the sea, sun and the outdoors. The visitors managed to convince the Bikinian leader, Kilon Bauno, to coax his people to uproot themselves from their homeland to the Marshall Islands for the purpose of the experiment. The inhabitants never ever returned home to their homeland as it was finally deemed worthless for cultivation and potentially harmless for human inhabitants later. The events of the operations were narrated through the experience of a former American serviceman, John Smitherman who was very sick during time of the documentary shooting and succumbed shortly afterwards due to cancer.
The days leading to the blast off was met with opposition by the American public and the Soviet Union. With the touch of American diplomacy and propaganda, everything proceeded as planned.

Man checked for
radioactivity hours
after an atomic blast
at Bikini

5 war ships with various animals and experiment materials were strategically around the intended site of blasts. Tonnes of film rolls were shipped in to immortalize the event. The navy crew viewed the whole event from a distance wearing only protective goggles; no protective suits or shoes!
The footage shown after the mushroom cloud was not a pleasant one.
The steel war ships were riddled with hole and the metal aboard were twisted around like coil wire. The sheep on board were roasted, some miraculously were still alive but very very sick. The technicians were seen aboard were the clucking Geiger-Mueller counters. The soldier attire and even their bodies tested positive in the counter. They were still seen swimming and washing using the sea water.
The later part of the film suggested, but did not admit, that atomic power should only be used for peace on Earth, not to destroy Earth.

Bikini killer

Back in 1976, I remember reading about a serial killer in a Sunday newspaper. Somehow, the story got stuck with me. Over the years, I have been periodically coming across this person's escapades (misadventures) in the dailies. I think it felt exciting and got stuck on to most people's grey matter because of the inclusion of the prefix 'bikini'! Now, with Google, every piece of information on this notorious psychopath is just at the tip of everyone's fingertip.

A few years ago, I visited one of the friends I know (not too many friends I have, anyway), whose wife had just delivered a baby boy a few days before that. I almost choked on the cordial drink that he cordially offered to me when he said, “We named him Sabhraj. What do you think?” I answered, “Fine! Nice name.” not wanting to be a wet blanket. I was just chuckled to myself and hoped that he never found out that he named his son after a serial killer! (A little bit too late to change as the child’s name had already been registered with the National Registration Department). Now, you know why I do not have many friends!

For the sane people who have no clue or fetish interest in serial killers and their fixations, here is a little introduction to this literally high flying bourgeois lady killer who moves amongst the high society. 

Hatchand Bhaonani Gurumukh Charles Sobhraj was born on April 6, 1944, to an unwed Vietnamese mother and a Sindhi (Indian) father who absconded. His mother befriended a French Lieutenant, and Charles became a Frenchman. He grew up in Paris, being involved in petty crimes and imprisoned many times. He escaped incarceration from France with a fake passport and a pregnant Parisian maiden to Bombay. His curriculum vitae expanded to gambling, smuggling and heist. He dodged imprisonment in India by faking illness and landed in Afghanistan with another fake passport. He was caught here for robbing tourists but got away by drugging hospital guards. And his adventure brought him to Iran and many Eastern European countries with many stolen passports. His spate of murders started in Thailand to sustain his lavish lifestyle and his clan of followers. He is sometimes known as 'The Serpent'.His trusted lieutenant, Ajay Chowdhury, was also sent to Malaysia on a gem-stealing mission.

After being arrested a couple of times and escaping police custody, he was sentenced to 20 years jail sentence by a Nepalese court on 31st July 2010. He is a celebrity of sorts - TV shows and books have been penned on his antics.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Sobhraj

http://www.rediff.com/news/2003/sep/22sld1.htm
If you want to read the whole book on the life and times of Charles Sobhraj, look no further... (Be warned that it is 382 pages long!
http://www.scribd.com/doc/94694/Life-And-Crimes-Of-Charles-Sobhraj
http://blog.ekendraonline.com/1788/sobhraj-finally-convicted-life-sentenced.html