Donna d'estate

As a young kid in Junior High School (Middle School) I was fascinated when the movie crew came to our small town of Chino, California to film "The Stripper". I hate to ruin the perception of some that it was actually filmed on location somewhere in the mid-west. But since we were only about 35 miles from downtown Los Angeles, and Chino was a small farming and dairy town of about 10,000 population, we looked like many mid-western towns. But back then some of the crew told me that the film had a working title of "Celebration". Every day after school I would ride my bike to whatever part of town they they happened to be filming in. I think it took about a week or two to film all of the outside shots. They were filming at my school, Chino Junior High School, with some classroom shots and a shot outside on the steps of the old building. That was really exciting to me as a 13 year old student. Other days they were filming in other various spots in our small town. One day I spent all afternoon watching them film the shots of the old car pulling into Esparzas' gas station in the old downtown of Chino. I think Louis Nye, Gypsy Rose Lee, Joanne Woodward and Michael J. Pollard were in that scene. Another day watching Joanne Woodward walking up and down the front walk of an older wood frame house in her nightgown. She was very nice. As she saw me watching she smiled and said "Hi". Have to admit though, when the movie came out, I was a bit disappointed. Having all of those scenes stored in my mind in vivid color, the way that I remembered it and saw it acted out, the resulting black and white version seemed somewhat dull and dreary.

The play that Warren Beatty (and Michael J. Pollard from B & C) did on stage was turned into a "semi-exploitation" flick with the title change from A LOSS OF ROSES to THE STRIPPER. Joanne Woodward is phenomenal as always, creating a "Marilyn" type character that is fragile, almost used-up and not even 35 yet. Richard Beymer (so great on TWIN PEAKS on TV) is the young lad, Claire Trevor is his mom and there's a sanctimonious air to the atmosphere (including the sleazy Robert Webber as a sleaze (who was an under-rated)) and M. J. as Beymer's buddy.

A well-intentioned script in '63 that was too "HUD"-like (starring Ms. Woodward's cool husband, Paul Newman), but it just wasn't gritty enough or well-directed enough to spark SPARKS. Very good acting, great locales and cinematography. Worth your time!

At first glance, "The Stripper" looks like eye candy: a cute young sideshow woman gets dumped by her manager and takes up with a local woman and her son, thereby developing a relationship with the son. But I do think that there was more to the movie than just that (if only a little more). In the lead role, Joanne Woodward gravitates between insecure and self-standing, not about to take from anyone. She does as good a job here as she did in "The Three Faces of Eve". Claire Trevor also does quite well as the woman taking Woodward in, but many of the characters come across somewhat silly as teen rebels. It seemed to me like Richard Beymer was channeling his role as Tony from "West Side Story" (although Carol Lynley and Michael J. Pollard weren't bad).

Anyway, "The Stripper" is a movie worth seeing. And if I may say so, Joanne Woodward was really hot in some of those clothes! Also starring Gypsy Rose Lee. I bet that no one imagined that director Franklin Schaffner would later direct the likes of "Planet of the Apes", "Patton", "Papillon" and "The Boys from Brazil".

PS: Not that this really relates to anything, but right after I finished watching this movie last night, Joanne Woodward's husband Paul Newman was the guest on "The Late Show with David Letterman"!

Sad and lonely mid west American towns photographed in black and white seem to be a very potent atmospheric early 60s film drama location that should be recognized as almost iconic in this new century. Other films of the time that each look as though they are all filmed nearby or around the corner from each other: HUD, BUS RILEY'S BACK IN TOWN, BABY THE RAIN MUST FALL , LILIES OF THE FIELD, KISS ME STUPID, IN COLD BLOOD all make a great set of rural wasteland town settings each with potent imagery and lonely people going slowly mad or frustrated or hankering for a change. THE LAST PICTURE SHOW perfected this feel in 1971. Stills from all these films would make a superb coffee table book...all that lonely black and white, crisp and windy farms and streets etc. yet obviously sad 60s. THE STRIPPER must have been the only film made at FOX in 63 with every other dollar of Zanuck's money going to feed CLEOPATRA. Apart from the misleading title, THE STRIPPER offers Joanne Woodward in a Lee Remick performance or is that a Lee Grant performance or is that a Kim Novak performance...because either of those women are interchangeable in those above films as well. 40 years later, like CLEOPATRA, this early 60s era of film making is being celebrated as having produced atmospheric and enduring films of fascinating visuals and emotional performances. I was lucky enough to enjoy THE STRIPPER in a cinema seeing a 35mm cinemascope print, and even if the story was a let down, the visuals and feel for that period and location is so well captured that it almost becomes the most enjoyable part. I am also a great fan of BABY THE RAIN MUST FALL which captures this loneliness and isolation with B&W photography that now borders on masterpiece. See it as part of the above series of films if you can and be overwhelmed by what I have described. It is like sad memories created by someone else and they take that form especially because of the photography.

Franklin J. Schaffner is one of my favorite directors, thanks to super movies such as: "The Planet of the Apes" (1968), "Patton" (1970), "Papillon" (1973), "The Boys from Brazil"(1978), "Sphinx" (1981), all different as topic and genre. This "The Stripper," one of his first feature films, another genre, has as lead one of the best actresses ever, the unique Joanne Woodward, which is totally exceptional, always, in everything I've seen her, no more comments. The other actors, Richard Beymer, Claire Trevor, Carol Lynley, Robert Webber, are also very good. It's not a superproduction like the others, it's just a small drama in a province's American city, but it's absolutely worth seeing.