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"Whatta ya tryin' to do, give burlesque a bad name?" Formal control in seedy trappings is already a Phil Karlson hallmark, his camera tracks across chorines wisecracking backstage and curves slightly so that the dressing table becomes a diagonal pointing to the door in the deep-focus foreground, through which the bitchy headliner (Marjorie Hoshelle) enters. (That a dash of stylistic elegance yields to a catfight is integral to the beauty.) Backed up by showgirls holding dolls, Marilyn Monroe in glitzy gown glides before a beguiled audience with a Freudian ditty: "Every baby needs a da-da-daddy / Could my da-da-daddy be you?" Mom (Adele Jergens) is a veteran of the circuit, in her heyday holding her own spotlight with a long-legged tap number down a giant staircase. "Got the shivers, got the shakes / Cut it out, for goodness' sakes!" An unhappy matrimony gives her pause about her daughter's suitor (Rand Brooks), who's too nervous to reveal his fiancée's profession to the high-society matriarch (Nana Bryant). The seasoned vaudevillian (Eddie Garr) reinforces her fears, "oil and water don't mix." Mamoulian's Applause is the source, Buñuel's Gran Casino shares in the ingenious simplicity of the musical interludes. The camaraderie of troupers is nicely sketched, so is the patron's sense of tedium in enduring lousy comic routines in hopes of seeing a flash of flesh. Surreal bonuses: Dave Barry's rippling vocals alongside a tiny assistant like a living ventriloquism dummy, and The Bobby True Trio scatting up a storm in the name of love: "All you hear is clackety clop-clop chop-chop boogie-wop boogie-bop la-la-la ba-da-da..." With Steven Geray, Kathleen O'Malley, Myron Healey, Dorothy Tuttle, Frank J. Scannell, and Almira Sessions. In black and white.
--- Fernando F. Croce |