Lady Of Burlesque

Based on The G-String Murders, a best-selling novel by famed stripper Gypsy Rose Lee, Lady Of Burlesque (1943) is a delightful comedic collaboration between director William Wellman (Wings) and screen legend Barbara Stanwyck (Stella Dallas, Double Indemnity, and Sorry, Wrong Number). To 1943 audiences, the seductive shakes, splits, and cartwheels performed by Stanwyck coupled with the behind-the-scenes antics of a "Grindhouse" seemed very risqu?The revealing outfits and the bawdy atmosphere of the film even attracted the attention of the ever-watchful eye of the Hays Office

Stanwyck plays a wise-cracking lead stripper Dixie Daisy, who works at S.B. Foss's Old Opera House, a popular burlesque joint. She spends her time rebuffing fellow performer Biff Brannigan (Michael O'Shea) until a fellow stripper is found strangled by her own g-string. When a second victim is found murdered, Dixie looks like a suspect, but must join together with the comic to search out the real killer. Dixie and Biff narrow down the list of suspects while coming up with a plan to snag the murderer in classic whodunit style.

Lady Of Burlesque also stars J. Edward Bromberg (The Phantom Of The Opera), Charles Dingle (The Little Foxes), and Frank Conroy (The Day The Earth Stood Still).

Arthur Lange's music score received an Academy Award nomination for Best Music Score. "So This Is You" by famed songwriters Sammy Cahn and Harry Akst is one of the featured songs as well as the sizzling musical number "Take It Off The E-String, Play It On The G-String."

Actor Walter Matthau likened Stanwyck to Mae West: "She has played five gun molls, two burlesque queens, half a dozen adultereresses and twice as many murderesses. When she was good, she was very, very good. And when she was bad, she was terrific."