Lady of Burlesque (1943)

Director:

William A. Wellman

Writers:

Gypsy Rose Lee (novel)
James Gunn (screenplay)

Release Date:

1 May 1943 (USA)

Genre:

Comedy | Horror | Music | Mystery | Romance

Tagline:

GIRLS and GAGS! MUSIC and MIRTH!

Plot:

Sassy Dixie Daisy is the hot new attraction at a former opera house that's been turned into a burlesque theater...

Plot Keywords:

Theater | Burlesque | Grandfather Granddaughter Relationship | New York City | Rivalry

Awards:

Nominated for Oscar.

Cast

  (Cast overview, first billed only)

Barbara Stanwyck	...	Deborah Hoople, aka Dixie Daisy
Michael O'Shea	...	Biff Brannigan
Iris Adrian	...	Gee Gee Graham
Charles Dingle	...	Inspector Harrigan
J. Edward Bromberg	...	S.B. Foss
Frank Conroy	...	'Stacchi' Stacciaro
Victoria Faust	...	Lolita La Verne
Gloria Dickson	...	Dolly Baxter
Marion Martin	...	Alice Angel
Frank Fenton	...	Russell Rogers
Stephanie Bachelor	...	The Princess Nirvena
Pinky Lee	...	Mandy
Eddie Gordon	...	Officer Pat Kelly
Janis Carter	...	Janine
Lou Lubin	...	Moey, the Candy Butcher

Also Known As:

Striptease Lady (UK)
The G-String Murders

Runtime:

91 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (Western Electric Mirrophonic Recording)

Certification:

Sweden:15

Company:

Hunt Stromberg Productions

Trivia:

Craig Rice, mystery writer from the 1940s and roommate of Gypsy Rose Lee, ghost-wrote "The G-String Murders" for her.

Quotes:

Biff: What's the matter with comics?
Dixie: I went into show business when I was seven years old. Two days later the first comic I ever met stole my piggy bank in a railroad station in Portland. When I was 11 the comics were looking at my ankles. When I was 14 they were...just looking. When I was 20 I'd been stuck with enough lunch checks to pay for a three-story house. Naw, they're shiftless, dame-chasing, ambitionless...

Movie Connections:

Featured in The Lady in Question Is Charles Busch (2005)

Soundtrack:

So This Is You

Why Is This Film So Little Known?

"Lady of Burlesque" may well be the Hollywood release that first introduced naive audience members to an indispensable piece of slight clothing used by certain working women: the g-string. Long before Victoria's Secret helped to make scanty undergarments regular Mother's Day presents, this item was largely known only to males who frequented burlesque theaters (burlesque was essentially sexually-tinged gamboling for men as opposed to vaudeville which aimed at mixed crowds, presenting non-prurient fare).

Gypsy Rose Lee, who knew something about stage apparel meant to reveal as much as the law would suffer, supposedly wrote the novel on which the film is based ("The G-string Murders"). She had a co-author and the film more or less faithfully brings a burlesque house murder mystery to the screen.

Barbara Stanwyck, one of the great actresses of Hollywood's so-called Golden Era, slept her way to stardom, the casting couch being an indispensable way station to the studio lot. Here she plays Dixie Daisy, a stripper with a brain and heart but with the tough outer-coating necessary for survival in a girl-eat-girl environment. In an understated way, Stanwyck bristles with eroticism.

Daisy has her male pursuer/devotee but she's a strong woman who doesn't travel a conventional path, an unusual character for an early Forties film.

Murder threatens to ring down the curtain on the burlesque theater and Daisy is at least a marginal suspect for a while as the plodding cops typical of the era's films question and search.

There's humor and drama in "Lady of Burlesque" as well as honest depiction of the male-centered domination and even physical brutality that was always the real backstage story behind the smiling, dancing strippers.

The film is readily available on DVD at a low price-why it isn't shown often (ever?) on TV is as big a mystery as the one in the story itself.

8/10