In order to find out who fired the fatal shot during a performance the windmill theatre cast each have to go through their entire routine - in front of a police inspector.
This film is actually just an excuse for us to sit back and watch an entire Windmill theatre performance. The cast in the film are the actual girls who worked there and the routines are what they really did - week in week out.
The Windmill (now sadly long closed,) was in Soho, London - just off Piccadilly circus and a whole generation of actors and comedians got their first break there. The formulae was simple, strippers and erotic dancers would perform on the stage and a comedian would come on in between each act. So, to get the attention of a crowd of sleazy men who had snuck in for a glimpse of flesh you had to be good. And a glimpse was all they ever got - the British censorship laws prohibited anything else. There used to be a plaque of names outside the door with a list of who had played there with names like David Niven, Harry Seacom and a host of others (Norman Wisdom failed the audition). The plaque also boasted that during WW2 `We never closed'.
A lot of countries would think that a slice of history like this would be worth preserving but not us British. As with the Liverpool Cavern club (now replaced with a silly replica,) The Bronte museum (full of phoney replaced artefacts,) and other places where the short term profit from a slice of land or property was more important than any heritage.
So, if you can get a copy this film it is a (slightly sanitised) snapshot of a world long gone. When Piccadilly circus had a real round about with the Eros statue in its centre and every building in the circus had a huge fantastic neon advert. A very enjoyable old film with the subject matter not quite as sleazy as it really was.
This film is actually just an excuse for us to sit back and watch an entire Windmill theatre performance. The cast in the film are the actual girls who worked there and the routines are what they really did - week in week out.
The Windmill (now sadly long closed,) was in Soho, London - just off Piccadilly circus and a whole generation of actors and comedians got their first break there. The formulae was simple, strippers and erotic dancers would perform on the stage and a comedian would come on in between each act. So, to get the attention of a crowd of sleazy men who had snuck in for a glimpse of flesh you had to be good. And a glimpse was all they ever got - the British censorship laws prohibited anything else. There used to be a plaque of names outside the door with a list of who had played there with names like David Niven, Harry Seacom and a host of others (Norman Wisdom failed the audition). The plaque also boasted that during WW2 `We never closed'.
A lot of countries would think that a slice of history like this would be worth preserving but not us British. As with the Liverpool Cavern club (now replaced with a silly replica,) The Bronte museum (full of phoney replaced artefacts,) and other places where the short term profit from a slice of land or property was more important than any heritage.
So, if you can get a copy this film it is a (slightly sanitised) snapshot of a world long gone. When Piccadilly circus had a real round about with the Eros statue in its centre and every building in the circus had a huge fantastic neon advert. A very enjoyable old film with the subject matter not quite as sleazy as it really was.