I have watched a number of films over the season most of which were disappointing and did not engage as I had hoped for, I decided against going to see the Black Swan when it was released because the theme did not appeal to me. Given the attention to the performance of Natalie Portman who won the 2011 Best Actress Performance I decided to view when the film was recently premiered on Sky. It was not a good experience and I wonder who would appreciate the film but have to admit it is reported to have been made for $14 million and grossed over $300m.
It was branded as a psychological thriller. The psychological is accurate but there are no thrills just an accumulating and depressing darkness. I like the story and the music of Swan Lake although watching others dance has rarely engaged, Flamenco does and also Irish dancing is small doses. I first heard the music at a Promenade Concert and bought the record. I have seen productions of the ballet on TV including from the Royal Opera House. Although my mother took me to experience Opera as a boy she took a cousin to see Swan Lake.
It is essential to know the story of the Ballet as although the film about professional dancers preparing to dance in a new version of the Ballet at a main ballet company/House in New York they are also assigned roles of some of those in the story of the Ballet.
The Prince (Siegfried) has been ordered to marry by his parents and produce an heir situation but he is a romantic and believes in ongoing passionate love. He is also a typical aristo who has been raised to kill animals for sport and in this instance he and his cronies go off to shoot some Swans. He comes across a swan with a crown and is intrigued and then as night falls the Swan is discovered to be a beautiful Princess Odette who is the subject of an evil spell by the Sorcerer Von Rothbart who is represented by a bird, usually in black.
The Prince and the Swan Queen stay together all night but she returns to being a swan with her companions by day. The Prince can break the spell by declaring his love for her and for no other which he declares and invites her to attend the Ball which his mother has arranged for him to choose a bride. Odette then explains that should he chose another she will be doomed.
The Sorcerer understands this and attends the ball with his daughter both in disguise, his daughter in the form of Odette. The Prince is delighted and declares his love for her with the consequence that the real Odette who arrives late can only witness the deception at a distance. She returns to the Lake to die and the Prince realising the deception ends his life with her. The climax of the Ballet is for the two lovers to ascend to heaven.
The central plot of the film as such has Natalie Portman as Nina Sayers who wishes to become the new Principal ballerina in company and play the role of the Swan Queen in the next production after the enforced retirement of the current principle (Winona Ryder) in her role of the Dying Swan.
Nina lives with her mother Barbara Herschey in her role as Erica the dominating Queen. Erica was also a lead dancer with ambitions but at 28 she was seduced giving birth to Nina who she wants to succeed where she failed. While professional ballet dancers enjoy sex in real life it is true that few if any leading females can continue once they have given birth. The issue of keeping their figures, guarding what they eat and have a different lifestyle from others including contemporary street dancers is one aspect of the second dance movie experienced over the season, Street Dance, made as a vehicle for 3D and shown by the BBC on their HD channel on New Years Day.
In the instance of the Black Swan Nina is portrayed as a sexual innocent because of her mother’s experience and attitudes. The company’s artistic Director hits on the idea of having the same Ballerina playing the White and Black Swans in the ballet and while he chooses Nina he berates her because of her natural inability to project herself as the bad swan because of her sexual inexperience. In this respect he prefers her rival for the position of Principal Dancer Mila Kunis as Lily, The Black Swan who puts it about as they say and in this respect willingly offers herself to the Artistic Director in the effort to get the title and new role.
Although the film appears to concern the narrow lives of those engaged professionally in ballet dancing it can also be argued that the main story is about the relationship between Nina and her mother, the guilt the daughter is made to feel about “ruining the life of her mother” her drive for perfection and to be better than her mother and the extent of the obsession which leads to self abuse. In such situations whole some parents live their lives through the success of their offspring, as sports personalities or performing artists following their careers first hand attending every performance, sometimes acting as managers their is also jealous at their success and proprietoral control which prevents and at times obstructs a child leading separate lives with a partner.
The Director of the film complicates what could have become an ingenious switching between the day to day lives of the cast and their roles in the Ballet by also incorporating a story about understudies and doppelgangers as in the Dostoyevsky’s work- The Double. He had also achieved success with his film The Wrestler, which I avoided because professional Wrestling is a skilful but joke activity which like professional boxing also has significant criminal involvements. The Wrestler also involved an in depth examination of the life of a professional needing athleticism and a high level of body self control.
In the Black Swan Beth, the former lead is incensed by the decision to offer Nina the new role is seriously injured in a car accident which the Director believes was a genuine suicide attempt (The dying Swan).
Nina becomes intimately friendly with Lily suggesting the development of a Lesbian relationship which the artistic director approves if this releases the passion in her which he know Lily possesses but who lacks the technical precision of her rival, part of the paradox that can one become the best of the best at whatever but find it difficult to lead a conventional normal life with partner, children, extended family network, participating also in local, regional and national community life, and vice versa.
Because Nina appears to have commenced a relationship with a male admirer, her relationship with Lily cools but one evening Lily arrives and suggests a girl’s night out which she agrees against the wishes of her mother. Later Lily returns with Nina and the two spend the night together. During the evening Lily appears to have slipped Nina a capsule so she oversleeps and is late for rehearsal and arrives to find Lily dancing her role as the official understudy. She accuses Lily of plotting and betrayal but Lily explains that she was out on her own clubbing and spent the night with a man she had met. Nina appears to have made up the whole situation in her mind, which is not the first time her day and night dreams, fears and fantasies have become merged.
The first night approaches with her mother increasingly concerned at the behaviour of her daughter saying that the pressures of the role have become too great and suggesting she drops out. They fight and mother appears to have successfully restrained her daughter contacting the company to say her daughter is ill. Nina however escapes and presents herself at the theatre. The performances goes well but Nina has a hallucination and falls from a lift so that as the second act commences Nina finds that Lily has been instructed to play the Black Swan and is transformed physically into herself. The two fight. A mirror is shattered and Nina kills Lily with a shard of glass. She therefore performs the part of the Black Swan and transmogrifying into a creature with wings playing the role with great passion and acclaim startling the artistic director with a passionate kiss. Previously he had attempted to kiss her and she had bit his mouth drawing blood.
Lily arrives to congratulate Nina and then Nina realises she has experienced another hallucination except the mirror is shattered and she has stabbed herself. She completes the third act and in doing so sees her mother in the theatre weeping with joy and pride. She throws herself of the cliff understage onto a mattress to thunderous applause. When the cast go to congratulate her they find her dying covered in blood whispering Perfect, it was Perfect.
Street Dance also has a fine actor Charlotte Rampling as the artistic director/Principal of a ballet school in the UK anxious to get its most promising students into positions in the leading national company. She seizes on the opportunity to give the dancers the edge when she encounters a street dance crew seeking rehearsal space and insists they combine with her lead dancers after an accident where the crew unintentional damage a wall and cannot afford to pay the damage. There is an ongoing story line of the simplest kind unlike Fame for example where there was a serious attempt to say something of the lives of the students and staff and which led to the international Kids from Fame tour. Here the story is that the crew are at the point of breakup because the lead male dancer and the female lead dancer (Carly) and choreographer have parted because he says he needs time out of the relationship. In fact he has joined a rival crew preparing for the world street dance competition.
The idea of Ballet dancers and street dancers combining into one group is presented in the film as a clash of class and cultures. There is some truth in this in that ballet dancers are traditionally children of the middle class whose parents can afford the cost of training while street dance is said to have grown up out of disco dancing and the culture of the workingclass/underclass disaffected. While it is also true that those attending dance schools can concentrate on classical or contemporary dancing the training is as concentrated, professional and costly and those who can afford and are willing to devote the time usually undertake both classes. In their annual biannual production in theatre dance schools will present a mixed programme with some dancers appearing in both forms of dance routines.
The drive behind the film has been the success of individual and group street dancing in Britain’s Got Talent with George Samson the winner of the competition in the year that Susan Boyle came second and the two street dance crews of Diversity and Flawless appearing with one taking the title subsequently. This has proved an inspiration to youngsters and dance schools around the country with one impact being a flow of new students seeking to learn contemporary dance rather than the classical. This is highlighted in the film in which Samson plays the role of the school delivery boy and puts in a star performances at the world champions to everyone’s surprise and Diversity and Flawless who play group champions.
The Street crew also have ordinary and exciting lives whereas the classical dancers are closeted and boring. The street crews eat fast food spend the weekend clubbing and having passionate relationships.
The purpose of the film is to demonstrate that Dance is Dance and that great dancing requires concentration, dedication and discipline, that great dance requires creative choreography and that dancers can also have fun.
The storyline is that the two sets of dancers are hostile to each other and scathing at the techniques and lifestyles. The classical come to appreciate the skill of the contemporary and to enjoy life attending the Nottinghill Carnival and a disco club, while the street crew leader (Carly) is taken by the school Principal to see Swan Lake and is moved by the final scene in particular, What she does and this is not seen until the performance of the group at the World Championships which is a combination of classical with part of the final Swan Lake scene incorporated together with balletic lifts and somersaults and the raw and in your face energy of the street. To add tension the group is nearly divided when the audition for the ballet company and the world championships are held on the same day with overlapping times. Carly meets her former lover and they bed again without her knowing he is dancing for rivals. Needless to add the classical dancers get the jobs and the combined group win the championships. Charlotte Rampling who faces opposition from trainer Eleanor Bron and her boss has reservations but comes round to complete the picture.
The film is an effective use of 3D which is an ideal medium for relaying artistic events as well as sport with the BBC showing Come Dancing finale in 3D and Sky featuring Ballet, Contemporary and Irish Dancing.
It is anticipated that street dancing will form a an important part of the opening ceremony at the Olympic games much to the disgust of the Morris Dancers who are said not to have been included and threaten to perform a mass flash dance in one of the open areas around the stadium. There is also to be a second film released during the year with one observer noting that Flawless were filmed in Trafalgar Square in July so I would not be surprised if the film is about groups competing to perform at the Olympic games opening ceremony.
The third film which involves Dance is also contrasting, Burlesque stars Cher and Christina Aguilera and her performance of a number from the film and DVD record the USA Pop Idol or X Factor series caused uproar because it was presented to an audience with children and young people as enthusiastic as adults. On the scale of stripping acts Burlesque is considered the most acceptable. At one end are the strip clubs of the kind which feature in the Sopranos where the girls engage in sex as the main business purpose in side rooms. Burlesque is the oldest form of stripping with origins in the music Hall and the famous fan dance and even perhaps the Dance of the Seven Veils. The shows are usually raunchy and full of dancing and singing although usually the vocal is mimed. The show ends with its star stripping nude although through the clever use of fans and props nipples and crotch are never displayed for public view.
The Windmill Theatre was created just off Piccadilly Circus as a music hall in 1930 with Comedians Singers and variety acts but lost money because its small size. There was once a Windmill in Great Windmill Street in Soho which I came to know well in the late fifties and early sixties because of the Cy Laurie Jazz club which I would visit on weekends mixing with the ladies of the night rather than the girls from the show in a cafe which served hot meat sandwiches as my evening meal when visiting straight after work. The breakthrough came when Van Damm the production manager inspired by the Moulin Rouge and the Follies Beregere persuaded its owner, Mrs Henderson, to persuade the Lord Chamberlain and censor for the London stage to agree to the nude tableaux in which the girls were not allowed to move. The musical Hall and cinema was based on morning to evening non stop shows so an individual could pay their entrance fee and stay for the day. At the Windmill men would climb over seats to get the close views as those first in went home. The show continued throughout World War II under the slogan we Never Closed which was modified to we Never Clothed and at my all male Independent school some boys boasted of having got into to see the show by the time they reached the fifth form, along with circulating copies of Health and Efficiency and National Geographical Magazine which were available at the barbers along with condoms. Harry Seacombe, Peter Sellers, Bruce Forsythe and Tommy Cooper all cut their comic teeth at the Windmill and stage door Johnnies came from all walks of life.
The theatre closed in the mid sixties as with the relaxation of censorship Strip clubs became licensed in which women took off all their clothes performing masturbatory sexual acts where the only rule was do not touch (unless invited). By the early seventies most cities and many pubs featured strips usually around Sunday lunch time or associated with sporting events usually home football matches. Nudity movement was also permitted with the show Hair which I saw and reflected the drug culture as much as the new sexuality. Raymond’s Revue Bar attempted to continue the tradition of the Paris show and the Windmill became a Cabaret Club run by Raymond’s daughter. The all day pay once stripping continued in Wardour Street with the Sunset Strip which has survived to this day moving up market with the development of Pole Dancing clubs, which have proliferated some charging huge fees for champagne and other drinks and where there are significant charges for individual girls to perform for individuals and groups. There have been four films about the Windmill with Mrs Henderson presents the most well known with Judy Dench and Mrs Henderson and Bob Hoskins as van Damm. Will Young also appeared? Pauline Collins appeared in Secrets of the Windmill Girl in an earlier production.
In the USA the Burlesque stripper was created with Gypsy Rose Lee and the Minsky Brothers and went through the similar phases as in the UK with topless and lap dancing to full nudity and sexual exposure. It was in the 1990’s that saw a revival of the Burlesque in the USA with the Pusycat Dolls group starting as Burlesque dancers. I was therefore interested to see what a film with Cher and Aguilera would cover or to be precise uncover when shown on Prime Time Sky Premier. The film is clever by presenting the club as primarily a vehicle of serious but raunchy dancing rather than nudity and sex. Cher is the theatre artistic creator and part owner rather than performer although she is known for her outrageous and scanty costuming as much as for her first class acting With the International singer Aguilera as the main star and Burlesque performer it is not surprising that the twist is that she is a singer dancer who cannot get a professional job after packing in her work in a bar in small town USA for Los Angeles. There are other plot points with the main one the attempt of Cher to hold onto the theatre despite the covetous attentions of a property developer and Aguilera becoming involved in a love triangle involving Jack from the club and the developer.
Aguilera commences as an unpaid waitress and gets her chance as a dancer when one of the girls becomes engaged and then pregnant much to the annoyance of another girl. When this girl later appears drunk Aguilera is told to take her place as the lead and the girl retaliates by cutting off the sound. As customers are about to leave Aguilera shows she can sing having failed to persuade her boss of this beforehand. As she is a great success and the place has standing room her future appears certain but not that of the club. However she is persuaded by Jack’s former fiancée that their relationship is still on after Christina has slept with Jack and at this point she accepts the attentions of the property developer but finding out his plan she reveals this to her boss and together they find a way to thwart his intentions and to raise sufficient money to keep the club going for Burlesque entertainment. It is only with the finale that there is the fan dance and full stripping but with the key points covered! The film is one for Cher and Aguilera fans.
It was branded as a psychological thriller. The psychological is accurate but there are no thrills just an accumulating and depressing darkness. I like the story and the music of Swan Lake although watching others dance has rarely engaged, Flamenco does and also Irish dancing is small doses. I first heard the music at a Promenade Concert and bought the record. I have seen productions of the ballet on TV including from the Royal Opera House. Although my mother took me to experience Opera as a boy she took a cousin to see Swan Lake.
It is essential to know the story of the Ballet as although the film about professional dancers preparing to dance in a new version of the Ballet at a main ballet company/House in New York they are also assigned roles of some of those in the story of the Ballet.
The Prince (Siegfried) has been ordered to marry by his parents and produce an heir situation but he is a romantic and believes in ongoing passionate love. He is also a typical aristo who has been raised to kill animals for sport and in this instance he and his cronies go off to shoot some Swans. He comes across a swan with a crown and is intrigued and then as night falls the Swan is discovered to be a beautiful Princess Odette who is the subject of an evil spell by the Sorcerer Von Rothbart who is represented by a bird, usually in black.
The Prince and the Swan Queen stay together all night but she returns to being a swan with her companions by day. The Prince can break the spell by declaring his love for her and for no other which he declares and invites her to attend the Ball which his mother has arranged for him to choose a bride. Odette then explains that should he chose another she will be doomed.
The Sorcerer understands this and attends the ball with his daughter both in disguise, his daughter in the form of Odette. The Prince is delighted and declares his love for her with the consequence that the real Odette who arrives late can only witness the deception at a distance. She returns to the Lake to die and the Prince realising the deception ends his life with her. The climax of the Ballet is for the two lovers to ascend to heaven.
The central plot of the film as such has Natalie Portman as Nina Sayers who wishes to become the new Principal ballerina in company and play the role of the Swan Queen in the next production after the enforced retirement of the current principle (Winona Ryder) in her role of the Dying Swan.
Nina lives with her mother Barbara Herschey in her role as Erica the dominating Queen. Erica was also a lead dancer with ambitions but at 28 she was seduced giving birth to Nina who she wants to succeed where she failed. While professional ballet dancers enjoy sex in real life it is true that few if any leading females can continue once they have given birth. The issue of keeping their figures, guarding what they eat and have a different lifestyle from others including contemporary street dancers is one aspect of the second dance movie experienced over the season, Street Dance, made as a vehicle for 3D and shown by the BBC on their HD channel on New Years Day.
In the instance of the Black Swan Nina is portrayed as a sexual innocent because of her mother’s experience and attitudes. The company’s artistic Director hits on the idea of having the same Ballerina playing the White and Black Swans in the ballet and while he chooses Nina he berates her because of her natural inability to project herself as the bad swan because of her sexual inexperience. In this respect he prefers her rival for the position of Principal Dancer Mila Kunis as Lily, The Black Swan who puts it about as they say and in this respect willingly offers herself to the Artistic Director in the effort to get the title and new role.
Although the film appears to concern the narrow lives of those engaged professionally in ballet dancing it can also be argued that the main story is about the relationship between Nina and her mother, the guilt the daughter is made to feel about “ruining the life of her mother” her drive for perfection and to be better than her mother and the extent of the obsession which leads to self abuse. In such situations whole some parents live their lives through the success of their offspring, as sports personalities or performing artists following their careers first hand attending every performance, sometimes acting as managers their is also jealous at their success and proprietoral control which prevents and at times obstructs a child leading separate lives with a partner.
The Director of the film complicates what could have become an ingenious switching between the day to day lives of the cast and their roles in the Ballet by also incorporating a story about understudies and doppelgangers as in the Dostoyevsky’s work- The Double. He had also achieved success with his film The Wrestler, which I avoided because professional Wrestling is a skilful but joke activity which like professional boxing also has significant criminal involvements. The Wrestler also involved an in depth examination of the life of a professional needing athleticism and a high level of body self control.
In the Black Swan Beth, the former lead is incensed by the decision to offer Nina the new role is seriously injured in a car accident which the Director believes was a genuine suicide attempt (The dying Swan).
Nina becomes intimately friendly with Lily suggesting the development of a Lesbian relationship which the artistic director approves if this releases the passion in her which he know Lily possesses but who lacks the technical precision of her rival, part of the paradox that can one become the best of the best at whatever but find it difficult to lead a conventional normal life with partner, children, extended family network, participating also in local, regional and national community life, and vice versa.
Because Nina appears to have commenced a relationship with a male admirer, her relationship with Lily cools but one evening Lily arrives and suggests a girl’s night out which she agrees against the wishes of her mother. Later Lily returns with Nina and the two spend the night together. During the evening Lily appears to have slipped Nina a capsule so she oversleeps and is late for rehearsal and arrives to find Lily dancing her role as the official understudy. She accuses Lily of plotting and betrayal but Lily explains that she was out on her own clubbing and spent the night with a man she had met. Nina appears to have made up the whole situation in her mind, which is not the first time her day and night dreams, fears and fantasies have become merged.
The first night approaches with her mother increasingly concerned at the behaviour of her daughter saying that the pressures of the role have become too great and suggesting she drops out. They fight and mother appears to have successfully restrained her daughter contacting the company to say her daughter is ill. Nina however escapes and presents herself at the theatre. The performances goes well but Nina has a hallucination and falls from a lift so that as the second act commences Nina finds that Lily has been instructed to play the Black Swan and is transformed physically into herself. The two fight. A mirror is shattered and Nina kills Lily with a shard of glass. She therefore performs the part of the Black Swan and transmogrifying into a creature with wings playing the role with great passion and acclaim startling the artistic director with a passionate kiss. Previously he had attempted to kiss her and she had bit his mouth drawing blood.
Lily arrives to congratulate Nina and then Nina realises she has experienced another hallucination except the mirror is shattered and she has stabbed herself. She completes the third act and in doing so sees her mother in the theatre weeping with joy and pride. She throws herself of the cliff understage onto a mattress to thunderous applause. When the cast go to congratulate her they find her dying covered in blood whispering Perfect, it was Perfect.
Street Dance also has a fine actor Charlotte Rampling as the artistic director/Principal of a ballet school in the UK anxious to get its most promising students into positions in the leading national company. She seizes on the opportunity to give the dancers the edge when she encounters a street dance crew seeking rehearsal space and insists they combine with her lead dancers after an accident where the crew unintentional damage a wall and cannot afford to pay the damage. There is an ongoing story line of the simplest kind unlike Fame for example where there was a serious attempt to say something of the lives of the students and staff and which led to the international Kids from Fame tour. Here the story is that the crew are at the point of breakup because the lead male dancer and the female lead dancer (Carly) and choreographer have parted because he says he needs time out of the relationship. In fact he has joined a rival crew preparing for the world street dance competition.
The idea of Ballet dancers and street dancers combining into one group is presented in the film as a clash of class and cultures. There is some truth in this in that ballet dancers are traditionally children of the middle class whose parents can afford the cost of training while street dance is said to have grown up out of disco dancing and the culture of the workingclass/underclass disaffected. While it is also true that those attending dance schools can concentrate on classical or contemporary dancing the training is as concentrated, professional and costly and those who can afford and are willing to devote the time usually undertake both classes. In their annual biannual production in theatre dance schools will present a mixed programme with some dancers appearing in both forms of dance routines.
The drive behind the film has been the success of individual and group street dancing in Britain’s Got Talent with George Samson the winner of the competition in the year that Susan Boyle came second and the two street dance crews of Diversity and Flawless appearing with one taking the title subsequently. This has proved an inspiration to youngsters and dance schools around the country with one impact being a flow of new students seeking to learn contemporary dance rather than the classical. This is highlighted in the film in which Samson plays the role of the school delivery boy and puts in a star performances at the world champions to everyone’s surprise and Diversity and Flawless who play group champions.
The Street crew also have ordinary and exciting lives whereas the classical dancers are closeted and boring. The street crews eat fast food spend the weekend clubbing and having passionate relationships.
The purpose of the film is to demonstrate that Dance is Dance and that great dancing requires concentration, dedication and discipline, that great dance requires creative choreography and that dancers can also have fun.
The storyline is that the two sets of dancers are hostile to each other and scathing at the techniques and lifestyles. The classical come to appreciate the skill of the contemporary and to enjoy life attending the Nottinghill Carnival and a disco club, while the street crew leader (Carly) is taken by the school Principal to see Swan Lake and is moved by the final scene in particular, What she does and this is not seen until the performance of the group at the World Championships which is a combination of classical with part of the final Swan Lake scene incorporated together with balletic lifts and somersaults and the raw and in your face energy of the street. To add tension the group is nearly divided when the audition for the ballet company and the world championships are held on the same day with overlapping times. Carly meets her former lover and they bed again without her knowing he is dancing for rivals. Needless to add the classical dancers get the jobs and the combined group win the championships. Charlotte Rampling who faces opposition from trainer Eleanor Bron and her boss has reservations but comes round to complete the picture.
The film is an effective use of 3D which is an ideal medium for relaying artistic events as well as sport with the BBC showing Come Dancing finale in 3D and Sky featuring Ballet, Contemporary and Irish Dancing.
It is anticipated that street dancing will form a an important part of the opening ceremony at the Olympic games much to the disgust of the Morris Dancers who are said not to have been included and threaten to perform a mass flash dance in one of the open areas around the stadium. There is also to be a second film released during the year with one observer noting that Flawless were filmed in Trafalgar Square in July so I would not be surprised if the film is about groups competing to perform at the Olympic games opening ceremony.
The third film which involves Dance is also contrasting, Burlesque stars Cher and Christina Aguilera and her performance of a number from the film and DVD record the USA Pop Idol or X Factor series caused uproar because it was presented to an audience with children and young people as enthusiastic as adults. On the scale of stripping acts Burlesque is considered the most acceptable. At one end are the strip clubs of the kind which feature in the Sopranos where the girls engage in sex as the main business purpose in side rooms. Burlesque is the oldest form of stripping with origins in the music Hall and the famous fan dance and even perhaps the Dance of the Seven Veils. The shows are usually raunchy and full of dancing and singing although usually the vocal is mimed. The show ends with its star stripping nude although through the clever use of fans and props nipples and crotch are never displayed for public view.
The Windmill Theatre was created just off Piccadilly Circus as a music hall in 1930 with Comedians Singers and variety acts but lost money because its small size. There was once a Windmill in Great Windmill Street in Soho which I came to know well in the late fifties and early sixties because of the Cy Laurie Jazz club which I would visit on weekends mixing with the ladies of the night rather than the girls from the show in a cafe which served hot meat sandwiches as my evening meal when visiting straight after work. The breakthrough came when Van Damm the production manager inspired by the Moulin Rouge and the Follies Beregere persuaded its owner, Mrs Henderson, to persuade the Lord Chamberlain and censor for the London stage to agree to the nude tableaux in which the girls were not allowed to move. The musical Hall and cinema was based on morning to evening non stop shows so an individual could pay their entrance fee and stay for the day. At the Windmill men would climb over seats to get the close views as those first in went home. The show continued throughout World War II under the slogan we Never Closed which was modified to we Never Clothed and at my all male Independent school some boys boasted of having got into to see the show by the time they reached the fifth form, along with circulating copies of Health and Efficiency and National Geographical Magazine which were available at the barbers along with condoms. Harry Seacombe, Peter Sellers, Bruce Forsythe and Tommy Cooper all cut their comic teeth at the Windmill and stage door Johnnies came from all walks of life.
The theatre closed in the mid sixties as with the relaxation of censorship Strip clubs became licensed in which women took off all their clothes performing masturbatory sexual acts where the only rule was do not touch (unless invited). By the early seventies most cities and many pubs featured strips usually around Sunday lunch time or associated with sporting events usually home football matches. Nudity movement was also permitted with the show Hair which I saw and reflected the drug culture as much as the new sexuality. Raymond’s Revue Bar attempted to continue the tradition of the Paris show and the Windmill became a Cabaret Club run by Raymond’s daughter. The all day pay once stripping continued in Wardour Street with the Sunset Strip which has survived to this day moving up market with the development of Pole Dancing clubs, which have proliferated some charging huge fees for champagne and other drinks and where there are significant charges for individual girls to perform for individuals and groups. There have been four films about the Windmill with Mrs Henderson presents the most well known with Judy Dench and Mrs Henderson and Bob Hoskins as van Damm. Will Young also appeared? Pauline Collins appeared in Secrets of the Windmill Girl in an earlier production.
In the USA the Burlesque stripper was created with Gypsy Rose Lee and the Minsky Brothers and went through the similar phases as in the UK with topless and lap dancing to full nudity and sexual exposure. It was in the 1990’s that saw a revival of the Burlesque in the USA with the Pusycat Dolls group starting as Burlesque dancers. I was therefore interested to see what a film with Cher and Aguilera would cover or to be precise uncover when shown on Prime Time Sky Premier. The film is clever by presenting the club as primarily a vehicle of serious but raunchy dancing rather than nudity and sex. Cher is the theatre artistic creator and part owner rather than performer although she is known for her outrageous and scanty costuming as much as for her first class acting With the International singer Aguilera as the main star and Burlesque performer it is not surprising that the twist is that she is a singer dancer who cannot get a professional job after packing in her work in a bar in small town USA for Los Angeles. There are other plot points with the main one the attempt of Cher to hold onto the theatre despite the covetous attentions of a property developer and Aguilera becoming involved in a love triangle involving Jack from the club and the developer.
Aguilera commences as an unpaid waitress and gets her chance as a dancer when one of the girls becomes engaged and then pregnant much to the annoyance of another girl. When this girl later appears drunk Aguilera is told to take her place as the lead and the girl retaliates by cutting off the sound. As customers are about to leave Aguilera shows she can sing having failed to persuade her boss of this beforehand. As she is a great success and the place has standing room her future appears certain but not that of the club. However she is persuaded by Jack’s former fiancée that their relationship is still on after Christina has slept with Jack and at this point she accepts the attentions of the property developer but finding out his plan she reveals this to her boss and together they find a way to thwart his intentions and to raise sufficient money to keep the club going for Burlesque entertainment. It is only with the finale that there is the fan dance and full stripping but with the key points covered! The film is one for Cher and Aguilera fans.
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