Dream Follies/Dreamland Capers (1958)

It's like dreaming with your eyes open! The guys at the office keep sneaking over to the Dream Follies at the local burlesque theater and peeking in at all the sexy strippers when - Wait! Who's that? Why it's none other than Lenny Bruce, unbilled in his first screen appearance (a year before Dance Hall Racket), doing the kind of burly-q shtick he'd soon abandon as he developed into the most controversial and influential comedian of the 1950s. Aiding and abetting Lenny are his wacky real-life mother Sally Marr (Lenny throws spaghetti in her face); strip star Deenah Prince; Stacy Farrell as a striptease secretary; and director Phil Tucker, forever immortalized as the man who made Robot Monster! Wow. Plus: The Dream Theme continues with Miss Justa Dream, "Burlesque's New and Brightest Star," and her Dreamland Capers. Along for the bump and grind are Valetta ("The Toast of Two Continents"), Venus ("The Body"), and Satalyte (who makes them orbit in front of our eyes). There's also rodeo-queen Dot Hackley, crazy contortionist Jacqueline Hurley, and a guy who makes music from bottles of booze. Yow. If this is a dream, you won't want to wake up!

Add 2 Stars if You Love Vaudeville & Burlesque with Pasties (Also for fans of Lenny Bruce)

If you like burlesque with pasties, this might be a 4-star review as the two main features are essentially burlesque with pasties interrupted/split by vaudeville acts. If you're throwing some time machine stag party, you might it useful but otherwise for the average viewer, it's not particularly exciting nor interesting. If the burlesque offered real nudity, that would add a star. What's also leaves a lot to be desired is that the women while presumably burlesque stars of the 1950's/1960's - when, of course any little bit of skin was taboo and enticing, to us now, they sort of seem like someone's aunt doing a striptease. There are about 6 per "film," and out of the 12 or so performing, a couple still come off as attractive but that's a pretty low ratio - then compound that with there is no real nudity (they have pasties covering the three fun zones), there is not much here if you just want sexy.

Dream Follies attempts to come up with a plot about a guy peeking into a show but it doesn't really add anything since it's the same format as Dreamland Capers. Lenny Bruce is one of the vaudeville acts.

The "bonus" film, "Dance Hall Racket" also features Lenny Bruce - he's obviously not much of an actor (yet) but fans might want to check it out. The plot is about a (Taxi) Dancing business and that it's not on the up and up (imagine that!). Also, no nudity - the taxi dancers do spend time in their dressing room in lingerie and underwear but compared to other SOMETHING WEIRD films, this is very tame. While there are teases during changing or showering, there is no real nudity and the women most look authentic as taxi dancers, if you know what I mean.

While there are the usual fun trailers and stills of burlesque posters, the extras again only appeal to fans of old time burlesque. There are interviews with some of the performaers ... and not to be rude, if they didn't seem all that sexy or attractive at 20-35, imagine what they look like now - 50 years later ...).

So, a fine historical disc but as a fun, sexy, typical SOMETHING WEIRD DVD - not so much. April 25, 2008

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