Varietease

This is a feature film by Irving Klaw, Photographer and Filmmaker of ‚Glamour Girls‘ in the 1950s. This particular movie was released 1954 followed by the release of ‚Teasarama‘ the year after (I will be adding a post on the second movie). I guess at that time these movies could be seen as going towards pornography, but it still has a certain ’style‘ to it, I suppose (that may be a very subjective argument, as I am currently working on a project about Vaudeville, Cabaret and Burlesque). Although most of the scenes are directed in different settings, the whole film is set out to be an actual show. The only thing which would not be seen if this would have been performed live, is the sneak peak into Lily St. Cyr’s dressing room.

One of the reasons why these kind of films became popular, especially in the 1950s, was due to popular influence on cinema and televisions. A lot of the ladies of the time, such as Lily St. Cyr or Tempest Rose, used to perform live, but due the popular demand of TVs, which allowed the audience to stay at home and watch the show, which was pretty much conceived as seeing it live, except that you didn’t have to pay for a ticket to get in.

Cinematographically speaking, it is quite interesting how Klaw tried to adapt areal live event into television, as the concept of filming this kind of a show live wasn’t thought of yet. Socially, Klaw’s work was very daring and kinky. Not only is a lot of leg and skin of beautiful women represented, but it also played with the idea of gender roles, which is evident with Vickie Lynn’s act, who is referred to as the ‚female impersonator‘. Watching it in the 21st century the jokes, songs, and acts the movie seem very innocent, compared to what the media has to offer nowadays on nude females and such. It is quite interesting that a lot of people look at these vintage movie as something glamorous, whereas it might have been condemned back then. (Bettie Page was one of the first fetish models in the world, to name an example). In some sense I guess these flicks were still more socially acceptable, as they didn’t only include semi-nude ladies, but also singing and comedy (Vaudeville but not). After all, actual pornography had been around since man knew how to film things and put it on a screen, but that is a different story.