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“Penso sempre che per il mio compleanno mi facciano una festa con una torta enorme da cui esce una donna nuda e gigantesca. Mi picchia e torna nella torta.”
Woody Allen
"Orgy of the Dead" is a 1965 erotic horror film by cult film director Edward D. Wood Jr.. He wrote the screenplay and adapted it into the novel. Ten striptease performances by topless dancers from beyond the grave outfitted in various motifs comprise most of this movie. Wood served as writer, production manager, casting agent, and even held up cue cards on this low-budget film, although he did not direct. It was directed by Stephen C. Apostolof under the alias A. C. Stephen.
Director, screenwriter, pornographer, hellraiser -- Ed Wood was one of the most iconoclastic and tragic figures in Hollywood history, best known for his awful films: Plan 9 from Outer Space, Bride of the Monster, Orgy of the Dead, Glen or Glenda and other schlock masterpieces. He had no talent for filmmaking but he made movies anyway. Ed's writing is on about the same level as his filmmaking but Ed was nothing if not sincere.
Tim Burton made a movie about Ed Wood in 1994 with Johnny Depp starring as the eccentric director.
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British postcard. Photo: Metro Goldwyn Mayer.
In the late 1940s and early 1950s, singer and actor Denise Darcel (1924-2011) starred in a string of Hollywood films. Americans knew her as the sultry ‘French Bombshell’. Later she worked as a game show host, a striptease artiste and a casino dealer in Las Vegas. Indeed, ooh-la-la!
Denise Darcel was born as Denise Billecard in Paris, in 1924. One of five daughters of a baker, she was educated at the University of Dijon. On VJ Day she was a passenger in an L-5 Stinson light observation aircraft to see the celebration from the air. According to Wikipedia, her friend at the time, US army pilot James Helinger Sr. was at the controls, while they flew under several bridges along the Seine and finally, under the Eiffel Tower, with the crowds below. After World War II, she was working as a shop assistant when she won a beauty contest that led to her being featured in the popular press as ‘The Most Beautiful Girl in France’. Determined to capitalise on this stroke of good fortune, she became a nightclub singer. She married a US Army captain who brought her to the United States. The marriage quickly dissolved, but Denise took the helmer Darcel and stayed in Hollywood. There she made her film debut in the war drama To the Victor (1948, Delmer Daves) , starring Dennis Morgan and Viveca Lindfors. Though her part as a bar singer was uncredited, she set male pulses racing with her rendition of Edith Piaf's signature song La vie en rose. Her breakthrough was in the Second World War film Battleground (1949, William Wellman). The film tells the story of an infantry company trying to cope with the Siege of Bastogne during the Battle of the Bulge in World War II. Darcel played a Belgian girl with whom some American GI’s are billeted overnight. In a memorable scene she presses a baguette to her tight-fitting sweater, holds up a kitchen knife, and then slowly saws off pieces towards her bosom. Battleground won two Academy Awards: for Best Cinematography, Black-and-White (Paul C. Vogel) and for Best Writing, Story and Screenplay (Robert Pirosh). It was also nominated for Best Picture, Best Director (William A. Wellman), Best Film Editing (John D. Dunning), and Best Actor in a Supporting Role (James Whitmore). It was MGM's largest grossing film in five years, taking in a total of over $5 million in the U.S. market alone. The film was also good for Darcel’s career. Hal Erickson at AllMovie: “She proved herself more than a beautiful face and a Gallic accent with her dramatic performance in the otherwise all-male Battleground (1949). She was then promoted as a ‘discovery’ when she co-starred with Olsen and Johnson in the 1950 Broadway revue Pardon My French.”
Denise Darcel played characters called Fifi, Gigi and Lola in her films. Ronald Bergan in his The Guardian obituary writes that she “profited from Hollywood's ‘ooh-la-la’ conception of young, shapely French womanhood, generally inviting the adjective ‘sultry’. She made quite an impression with her ‘leg art poses’ as a sarong-wearing nurse in Tarzan and the Slave Girl (1950, Lee Sholem) opposite Lex Barker. She co-starred with Robert Taylor in the Western Westward the Women (1952, William A. Wellman) as a prostitute looking for a new life in 1851 California, and with Glenn Ford in the romantic comedy Young Man with Ideas (1952, Mitchell Leisen). In 1952, she became an American citizen. Next she proved she looked spectacular in a swimsuit in the Technicolor musical Dangerous When Wet (1953, Charles Walters), with ‘American Mermaid’ Esther Williams. Darcel’s most important film is Vera Cruz (1954, Robert Aldrich) set in the Mexican War of Independence. She played Emperor Maximilian’s treacherous mistress who, along with a shipment of gold which she plans to divert, is escorted from Mexico City to Maximilian’s forces in Vera Cruz by two American soldiers of fortune – Burt Lancaster and Gary Cooper. According to Wikipedia, “the film's amoral characters and cynical attitude toward violence (including a scene where Lancaster's character threatens to murder child hostages) were considered shocking at the time and influenced future Westerns such as The Magnificent Seven, Sam Peckinpah's The Wild Bunch, and the films of Sergio Leone, which often featured supporting cast members from Vera Cruz in similar roles.”
After Vera Cruz (1954), Denise Darcel only made one more film, Seven Women from Hell (1961, Robert D. Webb), an undistinguished melodrama about a group of women prisoners in a Japanese prison camp in the Philippines. What was the reason that Hollywood stopped calling? The Telegraph: “It was rumoured that she had sealed her own fate by refusing the casting couch advances of Howard Hughes and Columbia Pictures boss Harry Cohn.” Ronald Bergan gives a less sensational explanation: “Darcel left movies for six years after Vera Cruz, living off the maintenance from her second husband, the millionaire and Washington property dealer Peter Crosby, whom she divorced in 1951. In 1958, she recorded an album of songs, Banned in Boston, which included her versions of I'm in the Mood for Love, Love for Sale and My Man, during which she occasionally reverted to French lyrics.“ She worked occasionally for television, like hosting the TV quiz show Gamble on Love (1954). At the age of 41, Darcel even became an ecdysiast (stripper), appearing in West Coast theatres in San Francisco, Las Vegas, Oakland, and Los Angeles. She retired from stripping after a few years and returned to the cabaret circuit, making a few more appearances on television. In later years she worked as a casino dealer in Las Vegas. In 1991, she was cast as Solange La Fitte in the Los Angeles 20th anniversary revival of the musical Follies, produced by the Long Beach Civic Light Opera. She would later repeat the role of Solange in 1995 for revivals in Houston and Seattle. In 2009, she was honoured with the Cinecon Career Achievement Award, presented in Hollywood at a banquet held at the Hollywood Renaissance Hotel. Prior to the ceremony, a new 35mm colour print of her film Flame of Calcutta (1953) was screened at the Egyptian Theatre. After the screening, at the banquet, she cheerfully announced to the audience, "I'm back". iTunes made her album, Banned in Boston, available for purchase. At the age of 87, Denise Darcel died in Los Angeles in 2011, after emergency surgery to repair a ruptured aneurysm. She married four and divorced three times. Her fourth husband, George Simpson, died in 2003. Darcel had two sons, Chris and Craig.
Sources: Ronald Bergan (The Guardian), Hal Erickson (AllMovie), The Telegraph, Wikipedia and IMDb.
German postcard by Krüger, nr. 902/297. Photo: Bernard of Hollywood.
French Rita Cadillac (1936-1995) was a striptease artist, who appeared in a dozen French crime films in the 1950’s and 1960’s. She became a renowned stripper throughout Europe.
Rita Cadillac was born as Nicole Yasterbelsky in Paris, France, in 1936. As Rita Cadillac, she began making a name for herself as an exotic dancer on the stage at Paris’ famous Crazy Horse Saloon, at age 18. Rachel Shteir writes in her book on the history of striptease that Cadillac did complicated, highly produced, funny, sexy numbers. In one of her most famous boudoir acts, set in a 1880’s Arizona honky-tonk, Cadillac removed her her white corset with green polka dots and her black tulle gloves with an agonizing slowness, that inspired total silence in the theatre. Her well-proportioned form became legendary in European popular culture circles. She used her pseudonym also for her records and films. Between 1959 and 1962 she recorded witty and racey songs like Ne comptez pas sur moi - pour me montrer toute nue (Don’t Count on Me to Show Myself Totally Nude), Adonis, C'est fou (It's Crazy) and J'ai peur de coucher toute seule (I'm Afraid to Sleep All Alone). At the time, a couple of Scopitone clips were made of some of her songs.
Rita Cadillac appeared in a dozen films, both in leading parts and in small supporting roles, often doing a striptease number. She made her film debut in Soirs de Paris/Paris’Evenings (1954, Jean Laviron), a sexploitation film about the night life of Paris. More interesting were Gueule d'ange/Pleasures and Vices (1955, Marcel Blistène) with Viviane Romance, the film-noir Jusqu'au dernier/Until the Last One (1957, Pierre Billon) starring Jeanne Moreau, and the espionage thriller Me faire ça à moi/ Do That to Me (1960, Pierre Grimblat) with Eddie Constantine. The most distinguished of her films of the 1950’s was René Clément's Gervais (1956), for which, ironically enough, she received no credit, merely serving as the body double for Suzy Delair (who was 20 years her senior) in one scene.
In the early 1960’s Rita Cadillac acted in crime films like Dossier 1413/Secret File 1413 (1961, Alfred Rode) and La prostitution/Prostitution (1963, Maurice Boutel). She also appeared in more high profile films like Mélodie en sous-sol/Any Number Can Win (1962, Henri Verneuil) starring Jean Gabin and Alain Delon, and Cadavres en vacances (1963, Jacqueline Audry) with Simone Renant. Outside France, she starred in the Spanish crime film Juventud a la intemperie/The Unsatisfied (1961, Ignacio F. Iquino) and played a supporting part in the Greek musical comedy Afto to kati allo! (1963, Grigoris Grigoriou). but after that her film career halted. Later she worked on tv in the series Max le débonnaire (1967, Yves Allégret) and on stage in La Maison de Zaza by Gaby Bruyère (1971, Robert Manuel), at the Théâtre des Nouveautés in Paris. Reportedly she also appeared in operas. In 1981 she made a come-back for the cameras in the celebrated film and mini series Das boot/The Boat (1981-1985, Wolfgang Petersen) as club singer Monique in the town of La Rochelle. Rita Cadillac died of cancer in Deauville in 1995.
Sources: Bruce Eder (All Movie Guide), Rachel Shteir (Striptease: the untold history of the girlie show), Wikipedia and IMDb.
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Walker's Court during its recent redevelopment. A narrow pedestrian street in Soho. For many years this area was at the heart of the Soho Sex and Pornography industry. The man, in the fur coat on the left, is Paul Raymond who owned the Raymond Revue Bar strip club which was located just a few steps away. The woman was his girlfriend Fiona Richmond.
London. August 2018
Italian postcard by Rotalcolor, Milano (Milan), nr. 238.
Lebanese actress and belly dancer Aïché Nana (1940) was 18, when she caused an international scandal with a striptease dance at a Roman party. She became one of the icons of the ‘La Dolce Vita’, the liberated era of sex, drugs and rock & roll as documented by Federico Fellini. Aïché Nana appeared in 15 European films between 1956 and 1985.
Aïché Nana was born as Kiash Nanah in Beirut, Lebanon, in 1940. She became a famous belly-dancer in Istanbul and soon also danced in Paris left-bank cabarets. She reportedly employed high-powered publicity to sell her act to European producers. In 1956 French newspapers reported her mysterious disappearance from a Paris cabaret after writing a single word on a paper in her dressing room: Farewell”. After the French police was alerted and in the midst of all the publicity, she suddenly returned in good shape. In 1958 the then 18 year old dancer caused a scandal that alerted the world to the luxurious and decadent lifestyle of the international jet-set in Rome that soon would become known as La Dolce Vita. Thanks to Cinecittà, the film production studios on the east side of the city, Rome had become a popular location for Hollywood films, and the foreign stars and writers began hanging out in the bars of Via Veneto. On that historical November night, the Swedish actress Anita Ekberg danced barefoot at a party in the Rugantino, a trattoria in Trastevere before Aïché Nana stripped to her knickers. The public was a mix of playboys, film stars like Linda Christian and Elsa Martinelli, and aristocrats, who fled when the police arrived. To the police Aïcha claimed that merrymakers had ripped off her clothes.The next day the striptease became a historical scandal when gossip columnist Victor Ciuffa (who later claimed to be the subject for the Marcello Mastroianni character in La Dolce Vita) published photo’s taken by Tazio ¬Secchiaroli in the newspaper, Corriere d'Informazione. The published photos gave lie to Aïche Nana’s story to the police. Italian authorities threatened her with a three year jail sentence and she quickly returned to Paris where striptease was permitted at the time. The photos were published in magazines all over the world, including the famous American weekly Life. Later both Anita Ekberg and Aïché Nana’s striptease were immortalized in La Dolce Vita/The Sweet Life (1960, Federico Fellini). Tazio Secchiaroli, the original paparazzo, became the director’s privileged stills photographer.
Aïché Nana became something of a celebrity following her moment of infamy. Just 16 she had already appeared as a dancer in the French-Italian adventure film La châtelaine du Liban/The Lebanese Mission (1956, Richard Pottier) starring Jean-Claude Pascal and Omar Sharif. She stayed in Europe and danced ín the Frankie Howerd comedy A Touch of the Sun (1956, Gordon Parry). In the 1960’s she stepped up to proper, secondary roles. The majority of her parts were in euro-westerns where her dark looks made her a natural at playing Mexicans. She appeared with bodybuilder Mickey Hargitay in the Spanish-Italian western Lo sceriffo che non spara/The Sheriff Won’t Shoot (1965 José Luis Monter, Renato Polselli) Among her other spaghetti westerns were Thompson 1880 (1966, Guido Zurli) with George Martin and Gordon Mitchell, Crisantemi per un branco di carogne/Chrysanthemums for a Bunch of Swine (1968, Sergio Pastore) with Edmund Purdom, and Giurò... e li uccise ad uno ad uno/Gun Shy Piluk (1968, Guido Celano) also starring Edmund Purdom as a coffin maker. She also appeared in the thriller A... come assassin/A… Like Assassin (1966, Angelo Dorigo) starring Alan Steel (aka the Italian actor Sergio Ciani) and was the leading lady of another Italian thriller Due occhi per uccidere (1968, Renato Borraccetti).In the 1970’s she appeared in Edipeon (1970, Lorenzo Arato) with Magali Noël and Massimo Serato, the Oscar nominated comedy I nuovi mostri/The New Monsters (1977, Mario Monicelli, Dino Risi, Ettore Scola) starring Vittorio Gassmann and Ornella Muti, and the Nunsploitation film Immagini di un convent/ Images in a Convent (1979, Joe D’Amato). In the 1980’s followed to roles in big budget productions. In Marco Ferreri’s Storia di Piera/The Story of Piera (1983) she supported a star cast including Isabelle Huppert, Hanna Schygulla and Marcello Mastroianni. Her final film was the British-American Bible epic King David (1985, Bruce Beresford) starring Richard Gere as the King of Israel who took on Goliath. Aïché Nana was married to director Sergio Pastore (1932-1987), who directed her in Crisantemi per un branco di carogne (1968).
Sources: Matt Blake (The Wild Eye), Tom Kington (The Observer), Benito Carlo Jr. (The Inside Story), Wikipedia and IMDb.
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