Rachel arrives in New York from her Amish community intent on becoming a dancer. Unfortunately Billy Minsky's Burlesque is hardly the place for her Dances From The Bible. But the show's comedian Raymond sees a way of wrong-footing the local do-gooders by announcing the new Paris sensation "Mme Fifi" and putting on Rachel's performance as the place is raided. All too complicated, the more so since her father is scouring the town for her and both Raymond and his straight-man Chick are falling for Rachel.

The first cut of the film was considered disastrous by all involved. Film editor Ralph Rosenblum worked for more than a year to save it, with director William Friedkin long gone. The extensive use of period film clips was Rosenblum's idea. The technique of returning from these clips to the movie by starting with a black and white version of a shot and changing to colour was invented accidentally when the editor's assistant couldn't find the colour copy of a piece of film fast enough.

This cult film mainly gained its reputation for its racy nature, which by today's standards is very tame, and really for the standards of the day were pretty tame. It contained nudity in the film and really the first striptease, this film is in fact also known as The Night they invented Striptease. However the film is pretty slow moving in most parts, and is only saved by Norman Wisdom and Robards, apart from that a very shaky film.

Score: 3/10

©1997 j-dom media

by Alex Andronov [e-mail him]