A Night in Hollywood (1953)

A Night in Hollywood is a 1953 burlesque movie.

This was an odd genre. These were actual burlesque shows, filmed in actual burlesque theatres but without an audience present (presumably because that would have caused major sound recording problems). They’re a chance to see what classical burlesque was really like. Burlesque was a mix of songs, comedy sketches and strip-tease routines.

The songs were usually terrible. The comedy was invariably atrocious. This was the so-called ”baggy pants” style of comedy and it’s an ordeal to sit through. There was only ever one reason for seeing a burlesque show (or a burlesque movie) - the strippers. Fortunately the strip-tease artistes were often excellent.

How much the girls could reveal varied from city to city and varied over time. In some cases the moment the girl took her dress off the police would move in and arrest everybody, in order to protect America from the mortal danger posed by half-clad women. In other cases the girl could strip down to a G-string and pasties. In rare cases they might get away with losing the pasties. They generally took off as much as they could get away with.

Since the girls were not naked they had to rely on provocative dancing to generate the necessary erotic heat. The things some of these girls could do with their hips and their posteriors can only inspire awe. These women played the female body like a musical instrument.

By 1953 when this film was shot burlesque was almost dead. Strip-tease would survive but old-time burlesque finally succumbed to the twin challenges of legal persecution and the rise of new forms of erotic entertainment. That makes watching the burlesque movies (mostly filmed between the very late 1940s and the early 50s) a rather poignant experience.

Nothing seems to be known about where this particular movie was shot. The fact that it’s partly in black-and-white and partly in colour suggests it was filmed on two separate occasions, possibly in different burlesque theatres.

It’s notable mainly for featuring two of the legendary burlesque queens, Misty Ayres and Tempest Storm. There are half-a-dozen strip-tease routines. Tempest Storm’s routine is by far the most daring.

My advice is to fast-forward through the songs and the comedy.

These movies do have enormous historical interest. This is a fascinating uniquely American art form now totally extinct.

Modern attempts to revive burlesque can never work because classical strip-tease relies on the tease. It relies on the fact that at a particular historical moment seeing pretty girls in very very skimpy costumes was a genuine erotic thrill. I have no moral problems with strip shows in which the girls take everything off but if the strippers end up fully nude it’s not burlesque. It’s no longer a tease. It has become something different. Not necessarily better or worse, but different.

A Night in Hollywood is perhaps worth seeing for Tempest Storm but there are better burlesque movies.

This movie is included in Something Weird’s six-movie DVD set Strip Strip Hooray. I’d recommend some of the other movies in this set such as Everybody’s Girl (1950), Midnight Frolics (1949), B Girl Rhapsody (1952) and French Follies (1951) much more highly than this one. Image quality is acceptable.

The A-B-C's of Love (1953)

The A-B-C's of Love, released in 1953, is one of the six burlesque movies included in the Something Weird DVD boxed set Strip Strip Hooray.

Lillian Hunt is the credited director and she’s credited on a lot of these burlesque movies. I know nothing else about her and I have no idea of the precise nature of her contribution to these movies. Directing a burlesque movie must obviously have been quite different to directing feature films.

In the case of most of the movies in this set we know which burlesque theatres were involved but in this case that information seems to be impossible to ascertain.

The burlesque movie had a brief blossoming in the late 1940s and early 1950s. These were actual burlesque shows filmed live in actual burlesque theatres. Although usually shot without a theatre audience what the movie gives you is exactly what the audience would have seen. This obviously gives these movies a great deal of historical importance. We don’t need to speculate on what a real burlesque show in the golden age of burlesque was like.

This is both the strength and the weakness of these movies. They show burlesque as it really was, both the good and the bad.

The good is represented by the strip-tease routines which offer a kind of innocent naughtiness and cheerful sexiness, qualities totally lacking in popular culture today.

These strip-tease artistes would have been horrified to be told they were part of the sex industry. They considered themselves to be in show business. They could dance and they devised and then worked up their routines the same way that any other live theatrical performer would have done. They were not just taking their clothes off. They were putting on a show.

For the most part they were quite unembarrassed by the taking off their clothes part. They were never completely naked. They would strip down to a G-string and pasties.

Having said that, how much the girls could get away with varied enormously from city to city. It was entirely up to the whims of the local authorities. On the rare occasions that they could get away with dispensing with the pasties they would do so. On even rarer occasions audiences in some places might get a “blink and you’ll miss it” glimpse of the girl without her G-string.

In a burlesque movie it’s G-strings and pasties. While considered somewhat scandalous at the time if released today these movies would get at most a PG rating.

The strip-tease routines have plenty of nostalgia value and some are pretty impressive.

The bad in burlesque is represented by the other entertainments on offer. The strip-tease routines were just part of a burlesque show. There would often be straightforward musical numbers and dance routines (this movie offers us a frenetic fully clothed tap-dancing routine).

The songs were usually not very good. Some of the dance numbers are OK.

But the worst part of burlesque was the comedy, and there was a huge amount of it. The comedy was usually provided by what were known as “baggy-pants” comics. There were dirty jokes but they were not the problem. The problem is that this style of comedy was excruciatingly unfunny. You wait for the punchline is these sketches but usually there is no punchline. Sitting through the comedy routines is an ordeal.

Comedy of course is a very individual thing. Maybe audiences of the time actually enjoyed this brand of comedy.

The burlesque movies give us the lot. You get half a dozen (occasionally more if you’re lucky) strip-tease routines but you get at least one straightforward musical number and a lot of comedy.

How good a particular burlesque movie is depends entirely on how good the strip-tease artistes are. They’re the reason you’re going to watch these movies. Everybody’s Girl (1950), Midnight Frolics (1949), 'B' Girl Rhapsody (1952) and French Follies (1951) are pretty good - the strippers are good and their routines are clever and erotic in that delightfully vintage 1950s way. The A-B-C's of Love is the weakest such movie I’ve seen so far. The strip-tease routines are not that great.

These burlesque movies won’t appeal to everyone but if you have an interest in burlesque or vintage erotica they’re essential viewing. And if like me you just enjoy oddball movie genres they’re intriguing. There are however much better movies in this genre than The A-B-C's of Love.

'B' Girl Rhapsody (1952)

'B' Girl Rhapsody is a 1952 burlesque movie. The burlesque movie was an odd phenomenon which blossomed briefly from the late 1940s to the mid-1950s. Most were actual burlesque shows that were filmed in actual burlesque theatres, without a live audience.

'B' Girl Rhapsody was shot at the New Follies Theatre in Los Angeles.

Burlesque itself was dying by this time, strangled by increasingly restrictive legislation pushed by society’s self-appointed moral watchdogs. So even in 1952 burlesque movies relied largely on nostalgia.

The burlesque movies do however offer an opportunity to get a taste of what burlesque was like, and they demonstrate both its appeal and its weaknesses. A burlesque performance certainly included strip-tease but it also included songs, variety acts and interminable painfully lame comic routines. It’s this that makes watching a burlesque movie a chore unless you’re wise enough to skip through the comic routines. The comedy is often crude but it’s embarrassingly unfunny.

Even without the efforts of moralising legislators burlesque would have died a natural death. By the beginning of the 1960s you could see a lot more nudity in girlie magazines and in sexploitation movies. The release of Russ Meyer’s The Immoral Mr Teas, the first nudie-cutie sexploitation feature in 1959, was another nail in burlesque’s coffin (which is slightly ironic given that Meyer’s first movie was in fact a burlesque movie.

One of the problems burlesque faced was that the girls were not able to show very much. It varied from city to city. In some towns as soon as the girl got down to bra and panties she’d be arrested. In other places the girls could take everything off. Mostly they only stripped down to pasties and a G-string, which by the mid 1950s was too tame to attract audiences.

The distributors of burlesque movies were also conscious of the danger of being arrested in a moral climate which considered the female body to be dangerous and wicked. As a result the burlesque movies tended to err on the safe side although they varied. In some you might catch a glimpse of a nipple, but it’s a case of blink and you’ll miss it.

The most interesting thing is seeing the girls’ dance routines which range from rather chaste to very risqué and can in some cases be remarkably energetic. And these girls can do some pretty impressive things with certain portions of their anatomies. You may have thought you seen these portions of the female anatomy jiggling but the tassel-twirling some of the girls can do is mind-boggling.

Since these movies were filmed in real burlesque houses the acton is confined to fairly small stages without spectacular stage settings. Most movies about burlesque give it the Hollywood treatment with the strippers performing on impossibly large stages with impossibly lavish props and backgrounds. Hollywood also tended to glamourise burlesque. In the burlesque movies there’s more of an atmosphere of seedy glamour with a touch of sleaze (not that there’s anything wrong with a touch of sleaze).

These movies were made on low budgets. This was the exploitation movie business with profitability depending on keeping those budgets to an absolute minimum. So these movies never did look like lush Hollywood productions.

The Something Weird DVD boxed set Strip Strip Hooray includes no less than six burlesque movies. Around seven hours of bumping and grinding. The transfers are generally pretty reasonable.

Burlesque movies are definitely a curiosity. They would even get a PG rating these days, containing in most cases no actual nudity. But burlesque was a fascinating cultural phenomenon which makes them worth a look. And burlesque does have a type of glamour that no longer exists. It’s worth seeing at least one of these movies, and 'B' Girl Rhapsody is a fairly typical example.

French Follies (1951)

French Follies, released in 1951, is another burlesque movie. Burlesque movies were simply filmed burlesque shows, shot in burlesque theatres but without a live audience. A lot of these movies got made so clearly they found an audience. And they are now our only means of seeing this odd kind of theatrical show.

Obviously the audiences at burlesque shows were there to see the strip-tease artistes but an effort was made to give the impression that these were actual variety shows, with singers, musical production numbers and comics. When you watch the comedy routines you can’t help thinking that it’s just as well the shows included strippers as well. It’s hard to imagine anyone paying for such truly dire comedy. Burlesque comedy was dominated by the so-called baggy pants comics. Most of the sketches include a considerable amount of sexual innuendo which is possibly the only thing that might have given them novelty value at the time.

The strip-tease routines are of course extraordinarily tame. There is zero actual nudity. Of course no-one today wanting to see naked women is going to watch such movies - you watch them because they’re weirdly offbeat and they’re fascinating from a social history point of view. They give us not only a look at changing tastes in risqué entertainment but also an interesting insight into changing ideas of what constitutes female beauty.

In that respect this one is interesting. This being 1951 you might expect that the strippers would all be extraordinarily well endowed in the bust department. But, with one exception, they’re not. They have perfectly ordinary female body shapes. They do have good figures but they’re not exaggerated. And the girls have much more of a girl-next-door look than you might expect. This movie suggests that if you wanted to earn a living in strip-tease you didn’t need to be built like a sex goddess. What you needed was confidence, some ability to dance and some ability to project personality.

Their ability to dance varies wildly. Ruby Lee can’t dance at all, but her attempts to do so are so bizarre that they’re fascinating. Some of the others do put some pizazz into their routines. The most entertaining is Joanne Bridges, billed as the Sleepytime Gal. When Joanne does her bump and grind she means it. She really bumps and she really grinds. While some of the others are trying to be tasteful Joanne knows it’s all about the sex.

The costumes worn by the girls range from the mildly outrageous to the wildly outrageous. When you’re a stripper but you can’t actually get naked the costumes do matter and in burlesque the idea was to convey an impression of glamour, in fact with the glamour often being more important than the sexiness.

Since the performances were taking place on a stage (and a remarkably small stage in this case) there’s not much scope for fancy camerawork. In fact there’s no scope at all. They just set the camera up and started shooting. There are no close-ups and the camera doesn’t move. It’s very unexciting cinematically but on the other hand it does give you the feel of watching an actual burlesque show in a burlesque theatre.

Everybody’s Girl (1950)

Everybody’s Girl is a 1950 burlesque movie, which means it’s an actual burlesque stage show that was filmed. In this instance it was a show at the Follies Theater at Third and Main in Los Angeles.

Burlesque movies were filmed stage shows, but usually without an audience. That’s understandable enough. Trying to record the sound live with the added complication of an audience would have been a technical headache best avoided on the very very limited budgets these films would have had. Of course the lack of an audience does mean you miss some of the atmosphere. It’s slightly disorienting watching the comedy routines with no audience response. Whether the strip-tease routines would have benefited from hearing an audience’s appreciative response is harder to say - without the audience I guess they do seem more tasteful (and they’re pretty tasteful anyway).

This one does have a subtly different feel to Midnight Frolics. The show seems to have a bit more glamour and style, the strippers are prettier and the strip-tease routines are just a tiny bit more daring.

Which raises an interesting point. It seems quite likely that the comic routines have been cleaned up a bit for the purposes of filming. It’s also possible that the strip-tease routines have been toned down a little. In the case of a burlesque movie like Midnight Frolics it seems pretty certain that the girls have toned down their acts. The acts in Everybody’s Girl are slightly more risque but possibly still not quite going as far as they might go in a normal show.

Of course one of the interesting features of burlesque is that the risque nature of the stripping could vary quite a bit from town to town. In some towns stripping down to bra and panties was about as as the girls would dare to go, but when they played in other cities they could get away with much more and in some places they might even be tempted to risk full nudity. The problem for anyone making a burlesque movie in 1950 was deciding just how much of a risk you were going to take.

I’m quite intrigued as to what kind of an audience these movies find today. I’m inclined to think that this sort of thing would appeal more to women than men. There are some very beautiful women, they have fabulous hairstyles and wear gorgeous costumes and they dance and they project glamour and sensuality rather than overt sexuality. And there’s no actual nudity. I know that there are quite a few women these days who are fascinated by the world of burlesque.

What is particularly striking when you watch these movies today is that it’s sexiness rather than sex that they’re selling. It’s flirting and teasing and it’s good-natured and playful, which is why I’d imagine that women would enjoy them more than men. Unless of course you’re the sort of man who finds watching women indulging in flirting and teasing and playful sexiness very appealing.

This is a movie that offers us a glimpse into an erotic world that seems like a foreign country, albeit an oddly appealing one.

If you have an enthusiasm for the lost art of the strip-tease there’s plenty here to enjoy.

Everybody’s Girl is one of the six (count 'em, six) feature-length burlesque movies in Something Weird's two-disc Strip Strip Hooray set. They have found a very good print. In fact it’s good enough to suggest they may have found the original negative. Obviously filming a stage show imposes severe limitations but Everybody’s Girl is photographed rather well, and obviously with more than one camera. Overall it looks very good. Recommended, if it’s a subject that interests you.

Midnight Frolics (1949)

Midnight Frolics, made around 1949, is a burlesque movie. The burlesque movie is one of those odd and now incredibly obscure exploitation genres. It enjoyed a vogue in the 40s and 50s and then vanished without trace when other exploitation genres emerged that could show a great deal more skin.

Of course burlesque itself is an art form that is also long gone, somewhat ironically swept away by the sexual revolution. Everyone has heard of burlesque and most people they have at least a vague idea that it was synonymous with strip-tease. In fact strip-tease was merely one element of the classic burlesque show. A show would also feature singers, fully clothed musical routines and comics. It was kind of like vaudeville but with semi-naked ladies.

For those who wonder what an actual burlesque show was like there is no need to wonder. Quite a few burlesque shows were filmed and quite a few of these burlesque movies survive. Some can be found online or on public domain DVD releases but the quality is often dire. Fortunately Something Weird Video offered something much better - a two-disc set including six complete feature-length burlesque movies of the late 40s and early 50s, with very acceptable transfers.

Midnight Frolics is the first movie on disc one and it’s the only one I’ve watched so far.

Of course there is no plot at all. It’s just a filmed stage show (filmed at the Belasco Theater in Los Angeles). There are lots of strip-tease artistes but there’s also plenty of the other characteristic burlesque acts.

The comedy routines are excruciatingly bad. I wasn’t surprised that there were plenty of dirty jokes but I was surprised that most of the jokes aren’t sexual jokes but rather crude toilet humour. Of the four or five comic turns there is one that has some amusing moments and it’s the clean parts of the routine that provide the only laughs.

There’s a girl singer who’s OK. There are several all-singing all-dancing big production numbers that involve absolutely no nudity or even any suggestion of such a thing. They’re just the kinds of production numbers you’d expect to see in an average B-movie musical of that era. They’re actually not too bad. And there’s a girl acrobat.

Of course what attracted customers to burlesque shows and burlesque movie was the prospect of seeing attractive ladies taking their clothes off. And this movie features lots of strippers. In the heyday of burlesque the girls usually did not strip naked (although I believe that when they played cities that were known for their relaxed approach to such matters they did on occasion strip fully naked). In this movie they don’t even go close to nakedness. Relatively substantial G-strings and bras is as far as they go. The secret to the success of the strip-tease artiste was her ability to make the audience think she was being much naughtier than she actually was. So if you think you’re going to see naked female flesh you’re going to be disappointed. This is stuff that would be considered only just raunchy enough to get a PG rating today!

It is interesting to see how the classical strip-tease act actually worked. Each girl’s routine is broken into three distinct segments. First she does a fully-clothed dance that is breathtakingly respectable. Mind you, in those days the strippers actually did know how to dance. She then leaves the stage and immediately returns and does her strip-tease. She then leaves the stage again and again immediately returns, this time to do another dance. This third stage is in all cases by far the most raunchy part of the act. They’re now scantily clad and they’re getting into bump and grind territory. These young ladies know how to shake those parts of the female anatomy that look good when they’re shaking. While it would still seem very tame compared to what strippers were getting up to a few decades later they do achieve a degree or eroticism that would have been fairly exciting at the time and actually seems quite attractive today for its ability to be sexually suggestive without being crude.

The star performer of this show is a young lady named Sunny Knight. She also incidentally is the one who ends up most scantily clad. I rather suspect that being allowed to reveal a lot more flesh may have been one of the privileges of stardom.

This is one of the six burlesque movies in Something Weird's Strip Strip Hooray two-disc set.

Midnight Frolics has a lot of historical cultural interest. It’s an intriguing glimpse of an extinct art form and it’s a reminder of an era when the emphasis was on sexiness rather than sex. Whether you’ll enjoy the movie depends entirely on how interested you are in burlesque.