This tribute to the birth of burlesque was to be Bert Lahr's final starring role, but he died in the midst of filming forcing major rewrites. The completed William Friedkin directed Norman Lear written film is a favorite of a great portion of the few who have ever seen it.
Also called "The Night They Invented the Striptease" the film tells of an Amish girl who comes to New York to dance stories from the bible. She falls in with a troop of folks who are in the lowest of professions, but all (but one) have hearts of gold.
That one is the people-using womanizing Straight Man played by Jason Robarts. His polar opposite is the low comic played by Norman Wisdom (Wisdom is very well known in England). The girl, of course, falls for Robarts, while Wisdom pines for her. Minsky's is about to go out of business and also about to be raided. This is the night that, by accident, the girl performs the first striptease.
With good songs, a bittersweet love story and a bunch of interesting characters you may very well fall for this unassuming story.
Here is some of the cast:
Jason Robards . . . Raymond Paine
Britt Ekland . . . Rachel Elizabeth Schpitendavel
Norman Wisdom . . . Chick Williams
Forrest Tucker . . . Trim Houlihan
Harry Andrews . . . Jacob Schpitendavel
Joseph Wiseman . . . Louis Minsky
Denholm Elliott . . . Vance Fowler,
Secretary of the Society for the Supression of Vice
Elliott Gould . . . Billy Minsky
Jack Burns . . . Candy Butcher
Bert Lahr . . . Professor Spats
Will you hurt yourself laughing? Doubtful. Will you find yourself unable to stop dancing to the songs? Don't think so. Will you find a story and characters that will stay with you for a long time and give you good memories? I think you just might.
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