Portrait of a Showgirl

An interesting melodrama, this production features Lesley Ann Warren, Rita Moreno and Dianne Kay as three dancers of differing skill levels who are hired for a new revue in Las Vegas at Caesar's Palace, where the picture is set, and focusses upon various travails within their private lives as they prepare for the opening of their show, with the eponymous Warren's character deservedly garnering the most screen time. As a Broadway dancer recruited for the engagement, Warren plays high-stepping Jillian Brooks, whose need for success upon the stage is altered by her affairs of the heart, while Moreno portrays a veteran hoofer whose husband (Tony Curtis) is a sucker for entrepreneurial scam artists, and Kay is an inexperienced beauty queen from the Midwest. The film could easily have been much less engaging, as cliched situations abound, but the episodic script is effectively utilized and includes a good deal of skillful dialogue, there is splendid editing by John Woodcock, and a strongly appropriate thematic underscore is provided by Jimmie Haskell, while the performance of the talented and generally underprized Warren goes beyond the expected implications stemming from her comeliness.

A pleasant surprise. From a place I will never get near (Las Vegas). I thought it was going to be silly and sloppy, but no, there is a plausible story, some great lines, and very good acting from all the cast.

In the very first scene, Jillian gets pulled over for speeding (in a Mercedes 450, in the deserts of Nevada?) and we see the cop making sure his hair is tidy before getting out of his cruiser! That's the sort of detail that impresses. Then he tries to chat her up, maybe see again, tells her about the great places to eat, but gets rebuffed with a "Eating's against my religion!" she says. "Too bad speeding isn't against your religion" as he writes the ticket!

Jillian gets to town and joins the dancers at Caesar's Palace and suggests a new dance step, but it's not popular with the others and there is a bit of tension and when her ex shows up there is a bit more tension. Things get resolved. And there is a bit of serious attitude explaining. It's fun, especially the scene where a congressman lusts after her body. How does she cope? Simple, "What about the money". That silences him quickly, it is obviously bad for his self image.

Meeting up with the med student working as a parking valet brings more chances for great lines and scenes.

It's just a portrait of a crappy film... an overly dramatic film about 3 showgirls and their personal lives. I love to see the real Las Vegas showgirls onstage (on film I've never been out there) BUT I don't care to see a boring film on the fictional mundane lives of 3 fictional showgirls.

I also did not care to see Rita Moreno doing her best Rhoda impersonation - oh my gosh spare me with the shouting every single line!!! The rest of them are just melodramatic.

If you want to see several familiar faces from the 1970s and early 1980s in a very boring film about the boring and dramatic lives of 3 showgirls then you might like this film. If not you can easily skip this yawn.

1/10

1982 movie with super hot Leslie Ann Warren Tony Cutis, and Rita Moreno. Beleive it or not, in the late 70's and early 80's some broadcast made for TV movies approached an R rating status. Leslie Ann Warren was at the forefront of these films, making a handful of adult oriented fare where she appeared in various forms of undress. She was one hot toddy. Rita Mereno was nothing to sneeze at either back then. And you'll not recognize Las Vegas. It looks nothing like this today.

This TV movie tells the stories of three Las Vegas chorus girls as they prepare for a new show at Caesar's Palace.

This melodrama is quite fragmented in nature and doesn't have a main overall focus, splitting its time between the three different women. The dramas depicted include the story of the deluded husband of one of the women played by Tony Curtis who is constantly trying to land a big money deal, while another thread focuses on the succession of unsuitable male partners who orbit around another of the women, including her unfaithful partner who will not leave his wife, a sleazy congressman who wants to use her for sex and an immature younger guy who has a couple of hamsters he treats like people. The dramatics are pretty run-of-the-mill if truth be told and there isn't anything especially standout in this one. But it does have the distinction of being a nice time capsule of early 80's Vegas, a place which has changed a great deal since those days. On the whole, this is a pretty middling melodrama but one with a certain amount of charm.