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In 1959 there was a movie called The Best of Everything with Hope Lange, Suzy Parker and an older Joan Crawford. It serves as a basis for what That Girl became. If you haven't seen it you should take a look at it. In That Girl, Marlo Thomas is Ann Marie, a young single woman who lives in mid 60s Manhattan New York. She's perky, physically and in her behavior, comes across a little naive and holds an odd series of jobs from episode to episode but doesn't seem to be consistently employed while living in a Manhattan apartment. (Perhaps shes not too far from the luxurious Manhattan high rise Uncle Bill from Family Affair lived in around the same time.) The show presents Manhattan in a more friendly way than the drug and crime riddled haven it became in cop shows like Kojak in the 1970s. Ann from the show's start meets a handsome young magazine writer name Donald and they become a steady item. Ann's parents, Lew and Helen, are routinely in her life. It's an accepted touch by the writers to show single Ann has a bedrock to fall on if she gets into trouble, you know the innocent girl in the big bad city.

This show is usually compared with the later Mary Tyler Moore Show which premiered the year That Girl ended 1970-71. Indeed Mary Tyler Moore herself played a girl even more naive than Ann Marie in movie musical called Thoroughly Modern Millie about a wide eyed innocent who goes to the Big Apple to live in the 1920s. With the sexual revolution looming toward the close of the 1960s its easy to see why That Girl would've been canceled after five years by Thomas herself(Marlo was one of the producers). The issue of Ann Marie & Donald consummating their relationship sexually is never dealt with, not even obliquely, while the later Mary Richard was in charge and obviously was not a virgin. Hence, the change in the nature of television in just a few years. That Girl really belongs to the apparently 'paper mache chocolate eclair' no problems optimism of the 1950s(remember The Best of Everything movie). That Girl wasn't about to deal head on with social, sexual and Vietnam related topics of the 1960s while in real life these issues were swirling about its production as the 60s wore on. Preferably That Girl is typical harmless comedic 60s family entertainment.

The film is well mounted with historical detail, the only reason I gave it 5 stars. The film doesn't follow chronology of events ie. Franklin Leonard Pope, one of Edison's partners, electrocuted himself in 1895 then immediately the film goes back to 1890 and the first electrocution of murderer William Kemmler. Thats a no no, keep true historical things in the manner that they happened. The film sneaks in another misconception. Edison was going to use dc current to execute horses/animals and the film immediately shows montage experimental film frames by yet another inventor Edweard Muybridge which were shot in the early 1880s. This is not accurate for Edison had nothing to do with Muybridge's experiments though his foray into inventing a movie process came later in the 1880s. English actors are sometimes chosen to portray Americans because of their clear and precise diction though Benedict Cumberbatch looks nor sounds nothing like the real Thomas Edison. Newsreel footage exists of Edison at the end of his life. Edison and his factory actually did invent the lightbulb. Edison had worked out the process, Louis Latimer had found a filament that would burn adequately. The film seems to want to short change Edison in anything he did which is inaccurate. Edison had on file with the patent office hundreds of patents which were not financially successful. One was a pin for babies diapers, perhaps the main way for fastening diapers until velcro. Another invention usually credited totally to Edison is the movie camera or Kinetoscope. Edison wasn't the first to develop movement as related to film, but he (more specifically his employee WKL Dickson) came up with a process, the Kinetoscope/Kinetograph, that allowed it to be exploited commercially. The other two men of whom this picture centers on, George Westinghouse was already an established and wealthy man having invented a railroad brake in the 1860s and Nicola Tesla was a great idea man who unfortunately didn't have the funds to make his own process or other inventions materialize. Tesla even came up with a great plan in the early 1900s to send FREE electricity to the masses like radio waves. He built a large complex in New York called Wardenclyffe but it was shot down by lack of financier interest and politicians. What a still great idea which could be compared to solar energy today, FREE ELECTRICITY FOR EVERYONE . Tesla was a brilliant auto-didactic who had no money or involvement with money men to make his inventions come true. But I digress, all of these mens stories should be told separately so that the full breath of their lives and accomplishments can be more accurately detailed. A movie like this just gets you thinking, which accounts for all the Edison bashing. Theres more to all three mens lives than what we have here.

I watched this for beautiful Constance Wu, whom I loved in CrazyRich Asians. The story is conduit to it's title, that is strippers hustling for money away from the dancing stage. The movie falters only because it's a story about strippers and hardly any of them, including J-Lo are nude. Not even over-exposed Cardi B who is nude all over the net. Nevertheless, Wu, J-Lo and others are beautiful in what we 'do' see of their bodies. I've seen better movies about strippers such as Helen Mirren in a 1980 British movie called "Hussy" which I wrote a review for. A 1963 film "Irma La Deuce" with Shirley MacLaine was splashy and colorful but because of the times was understandably antiseptic. Joanne Woodward starred in another 1963 film actually called "The Stripper".