earlytalkie Barbara Stanwyck managed to elevate nearly every film and television show she ever did. The earliest film I saw her in was "The Miracle Woman" from 1931. I just saw "Baby Face" and I own copies of "The Thorn Birds", "Stella Dallas" and this film. "Lady of Burlesque" is a wonderful, atmospheric depiction of an bygone era, complete with Stanwyck doing some amazing dance moves. Some people have criticized the music score as being second-rate, but that is what it SUPPOSED to be. Burlesque wasn't Ziegfeld. Men went to see the girls in various stages of undress, not hear Cole Porter or Irving Berlin. The music and the corny jokes were incidental to the "action" on stage, and it was not for nothing that Arthur Lange's musical score was nominated for an Acadamy Award. The mystery story is well-told and the atmosphere is added to by an excellent supporting cast, with Iris Adrian being a standout. After seeing this wonderfully entertaining film you will feel like you have been whisked back in time to an era long-gone.

Alex da Silva The film is set in a theatre and is a backstage "whodunnit?". After 45 minutes, we start to see a story develop when one of the Burlesque girls is murdered, but by that stage I was fed up with the film. After the murder, the film continues to be annoying despite a second murder. The men are mainly portrayed as jokers and the women swap comments at break-neck speed in that "wise-crack" style, ie, too fast. Its just all rather tiresome - the dialogue isn't that funny and sometimes you can't understand what they are saying. Judging from what we see of the show that the guys & girls put on for audiences (Stanwyck singing a very flat song, some lame comedy sketches and some wooden dancing by Stanwyck), this is a very 3rd-rate group of entertainers. Other irritations include the Princess Nirvena (Stephanie Bachelor) who affects a terrible Russian accent throughout her performance and the constant references to the world of burlesque as being wild and crazy by the police inspectors. We see no evidence of this. The only funny moments come from the girls reactions as a whole in the dressing room.Its one to avoid.

writers_reign If you're looking for authenticity, atmosphere and the stink of flop sweat then this is for you. Gypsy Rose Lee prevailed on room-mate Craig Rice to help whip her memoirs of burlesque into shape and throw in a murder or two for ballast and William A. Wellman does his usual pro job behind the camera. In 1943 there was no way you could show stripping - which was, of course, the main attraction of burlesque - but what we do get is actual Top Banana-Second Banana routines that had been used in burlecue since year One. With hindsight we can compare the atmosphere to Gypsy -both in stage and film form - and Sugar Babies, which revived the format in the eightiesbut this is the next best thing to being there. Don't miss it.

bkoganbing Barbara Stanwyck got to really show her versatility in Lady of Burlesque doing a couple of numbers that did make me wonder why she didn't try to do a full blown musical. Of course she had the best of inspiration in a book that was partially written by the one and only Gypsy Rose Lee.Gypsy needed a ghostwriter, but she certainly knew the world of burlesque as none other. So with Craig Rice's ghostwriting they fashioned a murder mystery set in the burlesque world. Somebody is killing the strippers at a burlesque theater and Barbara isn't sitting around waiting to be the next victim. With the help of comic Michael O'Shea she's going to find the perpetrator before she gets done in with her G String.A lovely group of movie queens help Barbara out in this film. Playing some of her peers are Iris Adrian, Gloria Dickson, Marion Martin, Janis Carter, Stephanie Bachelor, and Victoria Faust. Some of these don't make it to the end of the picture.Playing another of the comics is Pinky Lee who I well remember because I used to watch his kid's television show back in my salad days. Pinky was as frantic as I remember him and he does a mean jitterbug with Stanwyck.William Wellman as director keeps the pace of things going pretty nicely. And if you're a leg man, this picture will leave you nothing to complain about. As for the murderer, here's a hint, it's roughly the equivalent of the butler doing it.