The Stripper (1963) User Reviews

maybe Joanne Woodward is the main point

[lee_eisenberg · 7/10 · 17 January 2007]

At first glance, "The Stripper" looks like eye candy: a cute young sideshow woman gets dumped by her manager and takes up with a local woman and her son, thereby developing a relationship with the son. But I do think that there was more to the movie than just that (if only a little more). In the lead role, Joanne Woodward gravitates between insecure and self-standing, not about to take from anyone. She does as good a job here as she did in "The Three Faces of Eve". Claire Trevor also does quite well as the woman taking Woodward in, but many of the characters come across somewhat silly as teen rebels. It seemed to me like Richard Beymer was channeling his role as Tony from "West Side Story" (although Carol Lynley and Michael J. Pollard weren't bad).

Anyway, "The Stripper" is a movie worth seeing. And if I may say so, Joanne Woodward was really hot in some of those clothes! Also starring Gypsy Rose Lee. I bet that no one imagined that director Franklin Schaffner would later direct the likes of "Planet of the Apes", "Patton", "Papillon" and "The Boys from Brazil".

PS: Not that this really relates to anything, but right after I finished watching this movie last night, Joanne Woodward's husband Paul Newman was the guest on "The Late Show with David Letterman"!

da da da - de da da da

[ptb-8 · 6/10 · 25 April 2005]

Sad and lonely mid west American towns photographed in black and white seem to be a very potent atmospheric early 60s film drama location that should be recognized as almost iconic in this new century. Other films of the time that each look as though they are all filmed nearby or around the corner from each other: HUD, BUS RILEY'S BACK IN TOWN, BABY THE RAIN MUST FALL , LILIES OF THE FIELD, KISS ME STUPID, IN COLD BLOOD all make a great set of rural wasteland town settings each with potent imagery and lonely people going slowly mad or frustrated or hankering for a change. THE LAST PICTURE SHOW perfected this feel in 1971. Stills from all these films would make a superb coffee table book...all that lonely black and white, crisp and windy farms and streets etc. yet obviously sad 60s. THE STRIPPER must have been the only film made at FOX in 63 with every other dollar of Zanuck's money going to feed CLEOPATRA. Apart from the misleading title, THE STRIPPER offers Joanne Woodward in a Lee Remick performance or is that a Lee Grant performance or is that a Kim Novak performance...because either of those women are interchangeable in those above films as well. 40 years later, like CLEOPATRA, this early 60s era of film making is being celebrated as having produced atmospheric and enduring films of fascinating visuals and emotional performances. I was lucky enough to enjoy THE STRIPPER in a cinema seeing a 35mm cinemascope print, and even if the story was a let down, the visuals and feel for that period and location is so well captured that it almost becomes the most enjoyable part. I am also a great fan of BABY THE RAIN MUST FALL which captures this loneliness and isolation with B&W photography that now borders on masterpiece. See it as part of the above series of films if you can and be overwhelmed by what I have described. It is like sad memories created by someone else and they take that form especially because of the photography.

Good Movie from a Great Play by W. Inge!

[shepardjessica-1 · 8/10 · 19 October 2004]

The play that Warren Beatty (and Michael J. Pollard from B & C) did on stage was turned into a "semi-exploitation" flick with the title change from A LOSS OF ROSES to THE STRIPPER. Joanne Woodward is phenomenal as always, creating a "Marilyn" type character that is fragile, almost used-up and not even 35 yet. Richard Beymer (so great on TWIN PEAKS on TV) is the young lad, Claire Trevor is his mom and there's a sanctimonious air to the atmosphere (including the sleazy Robert Webber as a sleaze (who was an under-rated)) and M. J. as Beymer's buddy.

A well-intentioned script in '63 that was too "HUD"-like (starring Ms. Woodward's cool husband, Paul Newman), but it just wasn't gritty enough or well-directed enough to spark SPARKS. Very good acting, great locales and cinematography. Worth your time!

"Celebration"

[joe_97478 · 6/10 · 11 February 2008]

As a young kid in Junior High School (Middle School) I was fascinated when the movie crew came to our small town of Chino, California to film "The Stripper". I hate to ruin the perception of some that it was actually filmed on location somewhere in the mid-west. But since we were only about 35 miles from downtown Los Angeles, and Chino was a small farming and dairy town of about 10,000 population, we looked like many mid-western towns. But back then some of the crew told me that the film had a working title of "Celebration". Every day after school I would ride my bike to whatever part of town they they happened to be filming in. I think it took about a week or two to film all of the outside shots. They were filming at my school, Chino Junior High School, with some classroom shots and a shot outside on the steps of the old building. That was really exciting to me as a 13 year old student. Other days they were filming in other various spots in our small town. One day I spent all afternoon watching them film the shots of the old car pulling into Esparzas' gas station in the old downtown of Chino. I think Louis Nye, Gypsy Rose Lee, Joanne Woodward and Michael J. Pollard were in that scene. Another day watching Joanne Woodward walking up and down the front walk of an older wood frame house in her nightgown. She was very nice. As she saw me watching she smiled and said "Hi". Have to admit though, when the movie came out, I was a bit disappointed. Having all of those scenes stored in my mind in vivid color, the way that I remembered it and saw it acted out, the resulting black and white version seemed somewhat dull and dreary.

Misleading title, miscast Woodward

[moonspinner55 · 6/10 · 18 September 2005]

William Inge play "A Loss of Roses", originally written with Marilyn Monroe in mind, becomes showy dramatic vehicle for Joanne Woodward playing Lila Green, low-rent actress passing through her hometown in Kansas, ditched by her manager and boarding with an old girlfriend and her teenage son. The screenplay is entirely too straightforward, too rounded off; it should be more mercurial, mysterious, but instead it's routine soapy business. The character of Lila is an unconvincing creation: full of stories of users and hangers-on, she's a dreamer at the dead-end, hopeful but pathetic. Lila has been divorced, yet she's a little naive around men--it's never established how much of a tramp she is or where her reputation stands (as shown, she's more smoke than fire, more sad than sex-driven). It's to Woodward's credit the film is still quite interesting, yet the actress is too innately refined to be convincing as a kittenish tart. She is entirely serviceable, yet one can only watch and think what a more appropriate actress might have done with this material, weak as it is. This is one cleaned-up "Stripper" (awful title!), a film which never sinks to the sordid levels depicted, but remains a tidy middle-of-the-road tale. **1/2 from ****

Another Monroe connection

[Boomer-51 · 6/10 · 10 August 2007]

In the IMDb trivia section, it's stated that the role of Lila was originally intended for Marilyn Monroe. Of course, Marilyn was considered for a lot of roles that, had she not died, she may or may not have taken. What's interesting, though, is that just before her death she was fired from the 20th Century Fox production "Something's Got to Give." Fox owned the rights to the song entitled "Something's Gotta Give" because Johnny Mercer had written it for their 1955 Fred Astaire film "Daddy Long Legs." It had been re-orchestrated and re-recorded for the Monroe film. Then, it turns up in "The Stripper" as the song that Joanne Woodward sings as she strips. If my memory is correct (I saw the film in its first run when I was 8 years old) she's covered in balloons, and loud bunch of drunks burst the balloons with their cigars while she tries to sing. It was pretty tawdry business.

In any case, Joanne Woodward got the part, and she was good. To the best of my recollection, "The Stripper," as other commenters have said, was a failed but interesting effort. It's too bad that it's not available on DVD.

A disturbing view of a woman on the verge of a nervous breakdown desperately in search of happiness.

[mark.waltz · 7/10 · 4 October 2022]

Nobody could switch from playing dowdy characters to glamorous vixens in the 1950's and '60s better than Joanne Woodward. Even her sultry seductresses had more dimension than was revealed on the surface, and playing someone who is mistaken for Jayne Mansfield in the opening scene, she quickly reveals herself to be much more than a Monroe knockoff. Desperately trying to find her way by searching through her past, Woodward visits the places of her younger days and reconnects with nurse Claire Trevor whom she lived with as a teen girl, rebuilding a friendship with a handsome Richard Beymer yet desperately stuck in her unfortunately necessary profession since nothing else has seemed to come along.

Among others she encounters are Gypsy Rose Lee as a veteran stripper who now runs her own business, Robert Webber as a lascivious customer who romances her on the surface but wants something more sinister, Michael J. Pollard as a friend of Beymer's and Susan Brown as the kind woman who now owns the house where Woodward was raised. More a series of incidents surrounding Woodward's past and where those situations have led her and how she tries to deal with all of the traumas of that existence while desperately trying to find love, this is well acted (especially by Woodward and Trevor, with a surprisingly better than average performance by Gypsy) but depressing, showing the life of a woman with little hope. Strong direction by Franklin J. Schaffner makes this a powerful character study, with Woodward giving one of her strongest if least known performances.

Fun and Tawdry

[mls4182 · 10/10 · 21 March 2021]

One would think that Joanne Woodward would be all wrong for a role originally planned for Marilyn Monroe. It turns out she was magnificent and brought more depth to the part than Monroe could have. Check out how bad the smog was in early 1960s Los Angeles. Also, Carol Lynley is breathtakingly beautiful in her small role.

Woodward Wasted in Soap Opera

[jadedalex · 6/10 · 27 November 2016]

Joanne Woodward is the one reason this movie gratuitously called 'The Stripper' is worth a look. She comes across as genuine and sincere in a movie that for the most part is full of clichés, a fair of them quite dated.

To me, it seemed the screenplay was based on much of the heartbreak that was Marilyn Monroe, with Woodward's character never having a real family as a child, much like Norma Jean Baker.

She's hardly a 'stripper', as Joanne's character is basically a platinum blonde magician's assistant who is led into the striptease world by the very capable actor Robert Webber as her cruel and sadistic 'pimp'. This transformation occurs very late in the movie, so by this time the audience is well aware that the title of the film was false titillation.

And Joanne is pretty much covered with many balloons when her strip act is revealed. Tack on a rather phony happy Hollywood ending, and there you have 'The Stripper'.

I did enjoy seeing the very talented and original Louis Nye in a comic part. And the inclusion of Gypsy Rose Lee was a bit of inspired casting. As I say, Woodward somehow manages to rise above the rather unimaginative script. Like Beymer's character professes to Woodwad's character in the end: you do 'care' about this woman. Too bad the script didn't.

A disaster on all fronts!

[JohnHowardReid · 4/10 · 26 June 2017]

Copyright 15 May 1963 by Jerry Wald Productions. Released through 20th Century-Fox. New York opening simultaneously at the Astor, the 72nd Street Playhouse and other cinemas: 19 June 1963. U.S. release June 1963. U.K. release: 26 May 1963. 8,516 feet. 94½ minutes. U.K. release title: WOMAN OF SUMMER.

NPTES: Film debut for TV director Franklin Schaffner. Travilla was nominated for an Academy Award for his black-and-white costume design, losing to Piero Gherardi's 8½. Running a disastrous 25 performances, "A Loss of Roses" opened on Broadway at the Eugene O'Neill Theatre on 28 November 1959. St Subber and Lester Osterman were the producers and Daniel Mann directed. Betty Field was Mrs Baird, Warren Beatty was Kenny and Carol Haney was Lila. For this film version, Robert Webber and Michael J. Pollard repeat their stage roles.

COMMENT: Anyone expecting anything spicy either because of the film's title or its advertising, is in for a mighty big disappointment here. True, Miss Woodward looks more attractive than usual, thanks to skillful photography and a becoming hair style, but the climactic strip tease is so tame it makes a mockery out of the script. At the conclusion of the so-called "strip", she is wearing more clothes than she usually does to walk down the street!

The screenplay is so talkative, it obviously derives with little alteration from the stage play — and such boring dialogue it is too! The fatal casting of that unattractive and uninspiring actor Richard Beymer in a pivotal role doesn't help matters, though it must be admitted that even Claire Trevor is hard put to get anything out of her banal and commonplace dialogue.

Despite her prominence in the billing, Gypsy Rose Lee has a minuscule role and drops out of the film altogether at a very early stage. Miss Woodward herself brings a bit of life to her part and Robert Webber is adequate as her villainous manager. Michael J. Pollard has a small but recognizable part as Beymer's sidekick. Schaffner's direction is disappointingly dull and unimaginative, almost all the scenes being handled with a maximum of uninspired close-ups. Production values are distinctly mediocre.

This was the last film of the late producer, Jerry Wald — he died before any responsibility at all for this unbelievably sloppy production could be charged to him It was originally intended as a vehicle for Marilyn Monroe, for whom William Inge is said to have designed the play on which it is based ("A Loss of Roses"). Monroe could not have been worse in it than is Joanne Woodward.

Director Franklin Schaffner, who hails from TV, was ill-advised to fix upon this confusion for his movie debut. To add insult to injury, the movie is full of errors. I make it twenty-three! See how many you can find. For example, a woman giving testimony in the witness box is at the very same time shown to be sitting in court among the spectators!

Joanne Woodward, great actress!

[RodrigAndrisan · 9/10 · 10 March 2019]

Franklin J. Schaffner is one of my favorite directors, thanks to super movies such as: "The Planet of the Apes" (1968), "Patton" (1970), "Papillon" (1973), "The Boys from Brazil"(1978), "Sphinx" (1981), all different as topic and genre. This "The Stripper," one of his first feature films, another genre, has as lead one of the best actresses ever, the unique Joanne Woodward, which is totally exceptional, always, in everything I've seen her, no more comments. The other actors, Richard Beymer, Claire Trevor, Carol Lynley, Robert Webber, are also very good. It's not a superproduction like the others, it's just a small drama in a province's American city, but it's absolutely worth seeing.

Woodward Great In Run Of The Mill Drama

[Eric-62-2 · 9 April 2001]

"The Stripper" is not at all what you think it might be if you go only by the title and the posters and publicity stills. In fact, I think it wins the award for the most shamelessly misleading promo campaign in the history of movies. First off, Woodward's Lila Green (a well-acted performance I might say) is a failed actress/magician's assistant who is not a stripper by trade, except when forced against her will late in the movie by her sleazy manager. Second, the posters and ads all show a smiling, teasing Woodward in her stripper's outfit as though the film promises something out of the climax of "Gypsy" (and then on top of that, they cast Gypsy Rose Lee herself in a small part!) but in fact Woodward's only strip number is a brief one done very flatly to represent her character's disgust with her plight. Quite obviously Daryl Zanuck figured that by misleading the public he could lure a lot of lecherous men into the cinema who didn't realize that they were going to just get a very run of the mill drama story that is really saved only by Jerry Goldsmith's jazzy score and Woodward's performance.

This was Franklin J. Schaffner's first feature movie after a decade in live television. Fortunately he went on to much better projects with "Planet Of The Apes" and "Patton", which are both cinematic masterpieces.

WOW!

[JulJoAnnicgraith · 10/10 · 27 September 2002]

What a good movie!!! Made to perfection. That Joanne Woodward never fails to amaze me! She is quite simply the greatest actress ever to set foot on stage or grace the screen. and I mean that. She is mind-blowing in every movie she does, this one is no exception. Her portayed of Lila Green is nothing short of genius. The rest of the cast is great too...though, like someone before me said, none of them are likable characters except Lila. Well, except for little Sandra. She's likeable.

I recommend this movie to anyone! If for nothing else, see this movie for a stunning performance by Joanne Woodward.

Film has Marilyn written all over it

[bobvend · 8/10 · 5 February 2016]

Joanne Woodward is excellent in the role of down-on-her-luck performer Lila Green; her acting is natural and believable, even when her whimsical naive dreams briefly draw her away from the hard reality of her existence. It is easy to imagine her role being played by Marilyn Monroe, the actress for which this film was originally intended. Lila's circumstances seemed in tune with Monroe's real-life situation just prior to her death.

The supporting cast holds up well, especially Robert Webber as Woodward's sleazy 'manager', and Claire Treavor, who appears as though she hasn't aged a day since 'Key Largo' (1948). Although Richard Beymer is fine as Kenny, it would have been interesting to see what Pat Boone would have done with the role had he not turned it down; with his wholesome innocent quality, he might have made a more compellingly believable Kenny. All in all, a fine film for its time.

Joanne Woodward Shines

[drednm · 21 April 2020]

The studio tried to cash in with a provocative title, but the film is based on William Inge's failed Broadway play A LOSS OF ROSES. Yet the trades were abuzz with casting rumors for the lead role of Lila, a broken down would-be actress traveling with a bum magic show who gets stranded in the town where she grew up. Mentioned were Eleanor Parker, Kim Novak, Natalie Wood, etc., but the role went to Joanne Woodward. The role was actually assigned to Marilyn Monroe, but she died. Anyway, Lila is taken in by kindly Mrs. Baird (Claire Trevor) who has a 19-year-old son (Richard Beymer) hanging around the house. Well it's no surprise that Lila and the boy create some sparks, especially as he has a virginal girlfriend (Carol Lynley). When the manager (Robert Weber) comes back to town to get Lila for a strip club gig, she must make the decision to stay with the kid or go with the cad.

With a bush of platinum hair piled on her head, Woodward makes for a flashy Lila, and she's a good enough actress to make Lila a person and not a caricature. Beymer and Trevor are also good. Lynley has only a few scenes. Briefly seen are fellow show folk Louis Nye and Gypsy Rose Lee.

Inge's troubled play, which takes place in the 1930s, failed on Broadway although it did win Warren Beatty a Tony nomination. The play starred Carol Haney as Lila and Shirley Booth as Mrs. Baird, but Booth dropped out during out-of-town tryouts and Betty Field opened on Broadway. The play lasted only 25 performances in 1959.

The film version was updated to present-day 1963. It also features Michael J. Pollard and Danny Lockin as Beymer's friends. Another of Inge's Kansas-set plays with the "you can't go home again" theme. The film is very underrated.

Older woman and younger man....

[seasprite211 · 19 May 2009]

In a conversation several years ago, I asked Ms Woodward about this film. It receives short shrift by those who would discuss her career. The story has several interlocking plot lines: a woman caught in the struggle to survive, the men who use and abuse the situation toward their own ends and the teenager who falls for her. A teenager becoming enamored with an older woman was nothing new. The teenager having an affair with the older woman was a story somewhat ahead of it's time in 1963. The Women's Liberation Movement did not start until the late 1960s and the word 'cougar' referred to mountain lions. Ms. Woodward talked about the confused or disjointed impression this film gives and stated that the original director, whose name I cannot remember, died half way through filming. Mr. Schaffner, who finished the project, had a different point of view. Regardless, Ms Woodwards' acting is, in my opinion, remarkable. She provided each director with the desired performance expressing his vision. Unfortunately, the final cut is reflective of each and gives the film a sense of choppy disconnect.

Growing up

[dbdumonteil · 15 April 2007]

The Woodward/Beymer team does not work very well because there are only eight years between them whereas the writers wanted us to believe that she could be his mother.Woodward plays some kind of Blanche Du Bois (a woman with a racy past) wearing an awful Monroe-like wig.They say that the movie was "remade" by the producer: the scenes Kenny/Miriam were imposed on Schaffner whereas the suicide of Lila was ruled out .

It's not uninteresting though.Both Kenny and Lila are immature adults.His mother treats him like a kid -a handsome boy she is proud of ,but still a kid: do not forget your coat,you could catch a cold! - whereas Lila really strips bare -more than she will do later- in the marvelous scene in the old school when she talked about her first day in first grade.Woodward is so talented an actress we see the whole scene without any flashback.