Lady of Burlesque

Lady of Burlesque (also known as The G-String Murders and in the UK, Striptease Lady) is a 1943 American musical comedy-mystery film, produced by RKO Pictures and directed by William A. Wellman and starring Barbara Stanwyck and Michael O'Shea. It is a faithful, if sanitized, adaptation of the 1941 novel The G-String Murders written by strip tease queen Gypsy Rose Lee. Plot A significant portion of the film is taken up with onstage performances, including comic bits and toned-down striptease acts. There is also a lot of backstage action not directly related to the evolving murder mystery but highlighting the characters and lifestyles of the performers and crew. At a New York City burlesque theatre, performer Dixie Daisy (the stage name of Deborah Hoople, played by Barbara Stanwyck) is becoming an audience favorite with her singing and striptease act. Backstage she has mixed interactions with other performers, some of whom are catty and jealous while others are quite friendly, especially Gee Gee Graham (Iris Adrian). Comic Biff Brannigan (Michael O'Shea) tries to get friendly with her, but Dixie turns him away, not having had good experiences with comics before. During a police raid on the theatre for violating "public decency" laws, the backstage lights go out, and someone tries to strangle Dixie but stops when a stagehand comes by. A number of the performers and crew are thrown in jail but the theatre's owner and producer S.B. Foss (J. Edward Bromberg) bails them out and awards each a share in the company to keep them with him. A few nights later, another performer, Lolita LaVerne (Victoria Faust), is found strangled with a g-string after a violent argument with her boyfriend, gangster Louie Grindero (Gerald Mohr). As a police investigation begins, the g-string believed to be the murder weapon goes missing and a number of possible suspects, both from the theatre and outside—including Dixie herself—come under suspicion. The coroner, though, reveals that Lolita's death was actually due to poison, and Biff reveals that he had hidden the g-string after someone had slipped it into his pocket, earning Dixie's appreciation. Biff, however, is arrested but released when new evidence is discovered.