These posts review the photographs of the British, 'Royale Studio' of the 1950's/60's which specialised in depicting men wearing tight, sexy clothing, especially military uniforms, designed to show off the male figure, often with a disciplinary or fight storyline attached.
This post covers 'Navy Romeo', a storyette (as Royale described them) of some 36 pictures. This is the best picture I have from the series (courtesy of 'Sailor Al' as you can see). It shows two Sailors spying on a comrade as he dresses up to go to 'The Dance'. If you are a bottom fancier then it's probably fair to say that this image hasn't lost much of it's power to attract the eye in the 60 years since it was taken. In fact Royale used it themselves to illustrate this series in their catalogue (below).
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Royale Catalogue image for Navy Romeo (NARO)
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The legend 'NARO' is the ordering code for customers wanting to buy the 'Navy Romeo' pictures by post (no internet in those days!). The story was published in 2 distinct parts which I will cover in separate posts. This is Image 7 of Part 1. I have 12 of the Part 1 pictures and 19 of Part 2, that's 31 out of the advertised total of 36. Sadly most of them are only thumbnails which a previous enthusiast must have extracted from a Royale Catologue sheet, so they are not of the same quality as the top image above, but you still get a good sense of how they looked and the added compensation that many of them are numbered which assists sequencing the storyline (although these numbers are a mixed blessing for that, as we will see).
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In my original mitchmen reviews of Royale Studio, I included the image above in a post entitled 'The Itch' with a storyline which suggested that the piggy-backing pair had played a prank on their colleague by putting itching powder into his underpants. I got this story from the website of 'Sailor Al' (now defunct) but I now know that the images I presented there actually came from two different Royale series - 'Navy Romeo' and 'Navy Gash'. Neither of them were called 'The Itch', nor is any itching referenced in the plot summaries provided in the the Royal Catalogue, which simply says of Romeo Part 1:-
"R.N. matelots Tom and Spike watch Ted, a ladies man, strip and change into whites for The Dance. Behind a screen they take the mickey out of him as he preens himself as he dresses".
However there is a plausible support for the itching powder idea in the imagery itself which I will point out as we go.
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Royale Studio - Navy Romeo 01? or 02?
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Tom and Spike peer over a screen to spy on Ted in his underwear which is of the white, high-waisted variety (possibly Y-fronts) which were the norm around 1960. This image gives a reasonably good impression of the erotic appeal of that garment on the right man. The image reflected in the slightly tilted mirror cleverly exaggerates his thigh size, if only we could see the rest a bit better! Ted is clearly admiring himself, but we can only speculate about where Tom and Spike's interest lies.
I don't have a numbered version of this image but Ted's underwear and the upright pose of the spectators seems to place it in front of No 3, shown below. I don't know if it is 1 or 2, the other is missing.
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Royale Studio - Navy Romeo 03
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Ted holds up his white bell bottoms to inspect them. They cast an odd shadow on his crotch - or is that a stain? It gives us a teasing clue to his contours. Tom and Spike crane closer to watch and their own bottom-hugging trousers make a sexy sight (remember they have been dampened to promote clinging!).Their interest certainly reflects the 'official' storyline of them mocking the vanity of the unit's 'Romeo'. It also fits the 'itch' scenario with Ted here having noticed an itch and checking if it's his trousers causing the problem. Perhaps the missing image 2 showed him scratching!
Both scenarios are erotic in their own right but the underlying theme of them watching Ted dressing and undressing was powerful stuff in itself back then. Even to admire another man's naked body was considered a disgusting perversion in polite society (except in the non-sexual context of a body building competion and even that was dubious). Royale uses the boisterous cameradery of men in the forces to disguise this 'hidden eroticism' in the images.
I have a smaller, thumbnail version of this image, explicitly numbered '3'. Where I am not certain of the numbering I have put a question mark next to my guess in the picture captions. I have also attempted to enhance some of these images by reducing the gamma but the lighter originals can be found in the mitchmen archive file for this series along with the thumbnail versions.
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| Royale Studio - Navy Romeo 04 |
The story wanders into deeper waters here as Ted lowers his underpants and exposes his bare bottom. It's not clear what exactly he's doing, but it obviously involves his groin area. In those days 'the itch' was a euphemism for a sexually-transmitted disease and to me it looks as if Ted might be getting something to 'sooth' or treat the area in question. You might prefer an explanation that he's fragrancing it in anticipation of success at The Dance but either way his credentials as a (straight) sexual adventurer are enhanced.
Tom grabs the top of the screen in his eagerness to see more (but of what?). Spike puts his hands on his hips in a manly stance which creates a great view of his backside and broad shoulders. This could be seen as him standing back, hands well away from anything naughty, laughing to himself at Ted's predicament. However, his pelvis is thrust forward, a typical expression of sexual male bravado and it's directed towards Ted's ass, suggesting an imaginary coupling.
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| Royale Studio - Navy Romeo 05? |
Here, Tom gets up on Spike's back. This piggy-back pose links the next three images together although only one of them is numbered - No 7. The other two fit neatly into the gap between 4 and 7 although it's not obvious which way round they go. I have used the increasing curiousity of the two Peeping Toms to sequence them here.
Ted has now put his trousers on and is changing into his best boots which can be seen on the floor below the chair in the previous picture. I have a suspicion that Spike may have provided them for him as he seems to be wearing only dark socks in some of these pictures. Anyway, we get a glimpse of Ted's hairy pecs but lower places that might be considered to be of unseemly interest are discreetly obscured.
Instead, the main erotic feature is the continuing 'bottom fest' provided by Tom and Spike. Their bent over, receptive poses, intimately entwined, make a very sexy image indeed, emphasising their close, boyish friendship but also suggesting a mutual interest in Ted that goes beyond playing 'tricks' on him*. Their double-decker display of eagerness, vying for 'pole' position, is a tribute to Ted's desirability (and the boy's desperation!) Spike's butch pose in the previous picture adds to the intensity of this swirl of masculinity.
*Even in the 1960's, trick was common parlance for a casual sexual partner.
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| Royale Studio - Navy Romeo 06? |
Ted kneels here with his trousers lowered as though making an adjustment and displays a bottom cleft that goes way beyond the merely erotic. Suddenly we realise that he seems to wearing no underwear on at all. You can attribute the decision to 'go commando' to his preferred seduction technique with the ladies or the itching powder, whatever you wish.
You can strongly sense Spike and Tom's heightened excitement at this development and that's thanks to the photographer's visual crafting:- he has got Spike to hook Tom's legs round his hips in the traditional piggy-back style and that has pulled them into a wide open and very sexy position. Spike's own legs have also shifted into a wider, slightly couching stance and the result is that both men's trousers are stretched so tightly across their bottoms that they look like tights. It's like purified porn.
Now look at the reflection in the mirror. It seems to show all three men stacked astride each other. This might pass as playground-style fun to the innocent but by this point in the story, the implication of sexual involvement is unmistakeable. It is so sad that the creative talent behind this remarkable image has been largely forgotten.
I haven't been able to think up a convincing narrative for what Ted is doing here. He seems to be trying to manouveur his trousers over his shoes (a challenge most of us have attempted with jeans!). However this doesn't seem to fit very well with the previous image. There seems to be a case for reversing them but although I don't have a numbered thumbnail of image 06?, but Ted's bare bottom and his position in front of the mirror provide very good continuity into image 07 below. If anything, image 05? above seems to fit better between 07 and 08, which we are just coming to. It's possible Royale may have decided to leave it out of the numbered set as not being interesting enough. That would leave room for an image 5 that shows Ted discarding his underwear. Yum! Shame I don't have it.
Of course, we can't assume that Royale's numbering is strictly correct, nor that these sets were photographed in a strict chronological sequence. Doubling back to produce 'in-fills' or insert extra pictures is always likely to result in continuity errors. There's another anomaly like this in Part 2 of this series.
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| Royale Studio - Navy Romeo 07 |
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The full-size version of this image appears at the top of this post so I've used the numbered thumbnail here
Ted pulls up his trousers and is caught in a peek-a-boo position that is classic 1950's naughtiness (but only as a pose for women of course). It seems to confirm Ted's no-underwear dress decision. Spike and Ted are nearly falling over themselves to get at this peachy sight, feast on those yummy buttocks!
This time the reflection in the mirror shows them creeping up, unseen, behind the unsuspecting Ted. There's a touch of menace in this which parodies and exploits the widespread, then view homosexuals preying on innocent men and seducing them into their vile, unnatural ways (and make no mistake, those were exactly the sort of words that were openly used about men like us).
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MITCHMEN AUTHOR'S NOTE
To be continued. I will publish an updated version of this post shortly with the narrative for the remaining images of Part 1, some of which are previewed below
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