Stripper (1986)

User Rating:

5.3/10   

Director:

Jerome Gary

Writer:

Charles Gaines (writer)

Release Date:

31 January 1986 (USA)

Genre:

Documentary

Plot:

The background: A strippers' convention and a major contest. The movie focuses on a few strippers, each with her own strong motive to win. |

Plot Keywords:

Stripper | Contest | Convention | Female Body | Stripping

Awards:

1 nomination

Cast

Janette Boyd	...	Herself
Sara Costa	...	Herself
Kimberly Holcomb	...	Danyel
Loree Menton	...	Mouse
Lisa Suarez	...	Gio
Ellen Claire McSweeney	...	Shakti Om
Jamal Rofeh	...	Himself (club owner)
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Patrick Alexander	...	Firearms Instructor
Geof Bartz	...	Himself
Carol Cox
Venus DeLight	...	Herself
Laura Faye	...	Herself
Rikki Harte	...	Herself
Joy Michael	...	Herself
Rick Overton
Suzanne Primeau	...	Herself
Tarren Rae	...	Herself

Runtime:

90 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Sound Mix:

Dolby

Certification:

Australia:R | UK:18 | USA:R

Company:

Embassy International Pictures

Trivia:

Sara Costa's range firing scenes were filmed on the Alhambra Police Department's shooting range in South El Monte, CA. All scenes shot involved real, live fire, using a Smith and Wesson, Model 19, .357 Magnum revolver. The director wanted to show her firing an impressive score, so it was decided that the instructor, (Patrick Alexander) would be off camera shooting the target which would then be inserted as if it was fired by Sara. In fact she was doing very well in her firearms self defense training, and the target that was shown in the final cut was actually shot by Sara Costa.

I'm of two minds about this movie...

Basically it's about several different strippers that are gearing up to participate in a competition at a stripper convention in Las Vegas. The documentary filmmakers follow the girls, get their back story, and watch how things turn out for them at the big show.

In many ways, it prefigures a lot of the "reality" TV stuff that would come out twenty years later. The hook is to develop rooting interests in each of the contestants and see how it all unfolds.

To that end, "Stripper" has both good points and bad points. The good is that the production values are high and it is moderately entertaining to get invested in the dancers' ambitions. It could have been much more exploitative but tries gamely to be, well, a documentary. To a point, it succeeds. The bad is that, like much reality-based drama, many of the scenes feel manufactured and staged for the cameras. The final competition might just as well have been assembled for the purpose of making this film.

A fair amount is superficial and can't be taken seriously. It's the softest of the soft core porn, so those looking for arousal should look elsewhere. But there's more than a glimmer of entertainment and human insight to be had, especially considering that this was done a generation before every empty-souled schnook looking for attention went on reality shows and both producer and viewer alike knew what to expect.

This film does it well back before people started doing it poorly.