Royale Studio No 2c, Navy Romeo, The Cast

 One of the puzzles of the Royale, Navy Romeo series is the bewildering changes in the appearance and build of the actors from one scene to another. For example, is the handsome Ted (far right in picture 14 of Part 1) the same person as we see emerging from the car in picture 16 (Part 2)? Is Spike, seen also in picture 14 (centre) the same Spike we see taunting Ted in picture 28 and later departing the scene in picture 36? Are any of the men in Part 1 actually the same as those in Part 2? Or were these Parts produced separately and married together which the discontinuities in style and plot seem to suggest?

Even allowing for the imperfect quality of most of the surviving images, we rarely see clear, close-up pictures of the men's faces in this series, despite their military pedigrees they don't even have tattoos, which are normally a great aid to identification.

However, Royale also published a series labeled 'DTS' which they said featured the same 3 men (see catalogue note below). It consisted of 20 pictures, but most of them seem to have been lost

Royale Studio - 'DTS' Catalogue Thumbnail Image, DTS01

In the thumbnail you can see they are wearing similar uniforms to the men in NARO with one in boots and gaiters

Royale generally used the initials of the actor's/model's names in set ID's, except when it had a story code, like NARO. There's no obvious clue to such a title in the DTS catalogue blurb (although it might mean Drilling Three Sailors, I suppose). S here could represent Spike and T Tom or Ted but who is D? It serves to seed a more doubts about identities

 

Royale Studio - DTS02 Garden Trio

Tom, (on the left), presents fewest ID problems, we see a lot of his face in Part 2 (pictures 17, 18, 32) and it's clearly the same man. He's also wearing the same distinctive white shoes.

Ted (in the middle) is plausibly, the same Ted we see being pulled out of the car (in 16) and being manhandled in 17and 18. His face is not really seen clearly after that in Part 2 apart from the NARO thumbnail (numbered as picture 23) but that Ted isn't obviously the same man, despite his similar curly hair and the distinctive gaiters and boots.

Spike (on the right) is a pretty good match for Spike in 17, 31and 36, complete with white shoes.

Having linked names to faces, if Ted is 'D', Tom is 'T' and Spike is 'S', then the left to right sequence of the men in the thumbnail photo at the top of the post exactly matches the title, DTS. Convinced? No, I'm not sure either!

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Spike has a slightly different look in the water-throwing pictures in Part 2 (e.g 24, 25), where the slicked-down, dark hair at the back of his head doesn't seem to fit with the light curls we see tumbling from under his cap in the front views (just above). However his eyes in 24do match those in 31. In this and other pictures of Spike in Part 2, (e.g. 21, 22), he does have curls at the front, but it's layered elsewhere and fairly well greased (perhaps with a contemporary product called Brycreem) which would explain the darkening. 

1950's Hair Care (featuring cricket star, Dennis Compton)

The water-throwing images also seem to feature a different-looking Ted. I suppose it's conceivable these images were re-shot with different models but I can't find any obvious clues for that, except perhaps the strangely altered roping in 28where Spike's face also appears particularly different. However there is a detail in 28 that does link Spike from NARO 2 into the DTS group and it is brought out in the better quality version below

Royale Studio - DTS03 Three Bare-Top Sailors

This is a version of the thumbnail picture with the legs cropped out. Ted and Tom look a bit glum, like criminals in a line-up. Perhaps it's those wet trousers to blame, Ted's are particularly unflattering although they do all look nicely laundered in this image.

Spike is the only one who seems to be keen to make the most of breaking into the world of modeling. Notice that he has a characteristic way of resting his left hand on his thigh, hooking his thumb into the front flap of his sailor's trousers. It helps to accentuate his 'bulge' here of course, but Spike in NARO 2 strikes the same pose in 28and in the 'gloating pictures'31and 32. 

Linking The Cast Members In Parts 1 and 2

Spike's hand-on-thigh pose also appears in NARO Part 1, in picture 14 and the DTS picture above gives us other circumstantial evidence for linking to Spike into both Parts 1 and 2 – it's the tiny tear on his right thigh (which I pointed out in my Part 2 commentary), it's visible in both NARO 1 (10) and NARO 2 (21) as well as this DTS picture. Having said that, Spike is not the only man who wears these split trousers, more of that in later articles.

Unfortunately none of the model's faces are seen clearly in Part 1, many of the pictures show only back views and the rest are mostly oblique angles or otherwise obscured. 

The best shots of Spike are 09and 14but these are not very helpful in identifying him as the man in the picture above (apart from the curly hair in 09). However the eye and cheek area seen in the rear, three quarter views in 03and 04could credibly be the same man we see in the gloating images of Part 2. The tiny glimpse of his face reflected in the mirror in 08is also unexpectedly persuasive, when seen in the original image.

Incidentally, Spike is wearing dark shoes in the Part 1 pictures e.g. 08, 14 and in the DTS thumbnail above. But he wears white shoes in the Garden trio also above and throughout Part 2. This tiny discontinuity supports the theory that Parts 1 and 2 were created in separate shoots.

Tying Ted into Part 1 is also problematic thanks again to the lack of clear, full face shots. There are two glimpses of him where there is a fair amount of similarity, however - in picture 05and in the mirror reflection in picture 02. Like Spike his dark hair is confusing here (again possibly the result of using a greasy hair product like Brylcreem!). There is other circumstantial evidence linking his appearances in Parts 1 and 2 - the gaiters, of course, but also Ted's chunky build in picture 04is a good match for his figure in No 34 in Part 2. His very different appearance in 14, which first triggered my doubts on this identification issue, also pairs reasonably with well with the way he looks in No 31.

Tom's identfication is easy in Part 2 but in Part 1 it is the most difficult of all to verify. The nearest we get to a decent shot of his face is a series of indistinct profiles (e.g. 03) in which he looks much more lean and youthful than the frontal images in DTS and NARO2. However we can see his dark, curly hair and there is something of that lean look in the rear view of him seen in 19from Part 2 (extreme left). 

But just when the identity issue seems (more or less) resolved up pops this...........

Royales Studio - DTS04 Sailors Sitting On A Bench

This is the only other DTS-like image I have found and you can spot Ted (left) and Spike (centre) right away, However the man on the right is scarcely recognisable as Tom apart from his hair. Spike's dark shoes link this photo to the NARO 1 shoot, where Tom did appear to have a relatively gaunt appearance, but he doesn't look like this at all in the DTS thumbnail at the top which is also linked to NARO 1. 

It's possible this is just a trick of the lighting, I guess. You can see he's strongly lit from one side. There could also have been a different shoot with another man in Tom's place but that doesn't seem likely, Perhaps he's simply a 4^th man who happened to temporarily join in the DTS shoot, a technician or visitor perhaps who wanted to try his hand at being a wet sailor! This might even be a previously unknown shot of Basil Clavering or of Scott the photographer, who knows?

~

Royale Studios - Catalogue Thumbnail for set TOH

Like other Studios, Royale produced solo sets of most of their models and we have a thumbnail (but nothing else) from the one that Tom posed for, labeled 'TOH'. The photographer has cannily chosen an upward looking viewpoint to make the most of the carefully-prepared crotch area. This open legged stance, very masculine and suggestive of confrontation and simmering belligerence, is typical of Royale's output

The catalogue blurb tells us that the model's full name is Tom Harding and he appears in several other Royale sets as we shall soon see. Tom's wearing his Navy kit again here but these solo shoots were often pure beefcake sessions in swimming trunks or posing straps and these sometimes turn up on vintage beefcake sites, sometimes under different model names. However, I've not found any examples of Tom in this form yet.

Royale Studios - Catalogue Thumbnail for set SPM

This thumbnail is supposedly for Spike's solo set, full name Spike Millican. Despite the corroborating evidence of the catalogue entry below, it's very hard to see this man as the boyish Spike from the closing scenes of NARO 2 although he does have the same tousled hair at the front and the same distinctive cleft chin. 

His gaunt look here is rather like “Tom's” shocking appearance in the bench trio but I'm pretty sure it's not that man. It's the same side lighting effect though and unusually for Royale, his whole crotch area is hidden in shadow bar a suggestive 'ridge'. From his face and stance it looks almost as though he's just had a bucket of water tossed over him. Or perhaps it's his modeling - or romantic - aspirations which have just been doused.