Titter

The title Titter, along with that strap line 'America's Merriest Magazine' and the slogan 'Gals, Gags, Giggles',might lead one to believe that this is one of those publications that mixed humourous stories and jokes with pin-up pictures.  In reality, the 'gags' referred to were of the other type: Titter specialised in depicting its models - all fetishtically dressed in lingerie - in mild bondage situations.  Nothing hardcore - there was no nudity, but the models were shown handling whips, or tied up, or being spanked.  Titter, which ran from 1943 to 1955, (this is the cover of the April 1946 issue), was one of a number of pin-up style magazines published by Robert Harrison during the forties and fifties.  All were non-pornographic in the sense that the models were never naked, although their poses became ever more provocative.

When these types of magazines ran out of steam in the late fifties, Harrison created the publication he is probably best remembered for: Confidential.  The mixture of sensationalism, salacious gossip and conservative politics, (bordering, on occasion, on racism), struck a chord during the anti-Communist paranoia of fifties America.  The fact that it was, in effect, peddling smut in its supposed 'revelations' about the private lives of celebrities was somehow made acceptable to conservatives by the underlying right-wing agenda.  The breathless style, full of alliteration, was mercilessly parodied by James Ellroy in novels like LA Confidential and seems hopelessly antiquated and ridiculous.  But, in its day, the articles published in the pages of Confidential damaged many a career.  After being forced into a series of out of court settlements with the likes of Errol Flynn, Confidential and its companion Whisper were sold to new owners.  In a much toned down form, they lingered on until the late seventies, but never again regained their fifties notoriety.