Sunday, March 27, 2011
EXOTIC DANCES FROM GLADIATOR FILMS
Above: Salome, who the Bible says performed the Dance of the Seven Veils for the head of John the Baptist. It must have been quite a dance because it inspired a gazillion dances in Hollywood Biblical epochs and adventure films.
You know the kind of films I mean; the ones where where primitive women do sexy, cheesy dances when they're summoned by a hand clap. Film posters used to have sidebar pictures with captions like "TREMBLE AS YOU PEEK AT THE DANCE NO WHITE MAN HAS EVER SEEN AND LIVED TO DESCRIBE!" Ah, that was a golden age of cheese, no doubt about it.
Well, a fan named pwgr2000 has a YouTube channel where he collects this stuff. He has more than 30 of the fifties dances up, and he's gotten a start on a forties collection. Embedding wasn't allowed, so here's a link to the clip shown above, from the film, "Bowanga Bowanga" (a.k.a. "Wild Women"). Be sure to watch the whole video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pSw272lq2CM&feature=related
It's no fun if someone isn't watching. Sometimes it's guys with pith helmets who peek out from behind palm fronds. Sometimes, as in "Serpent of the Nile" (above), it's a Roman general who ogles lustily while guzzling wine from a birdbath-size goblet.
The entrance of the dancers in this film is one of the best in all of cheesecake dancerdom. I'd love to be hauled into a room like this with me on a throne looking bored.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PaX8kKjeD08&feature=player_embedded
Here's my favorite ogler, from a Howard Hughes film called "Zarak." This guy is so good at ogling that he almost steals the show from the dancer, who can't dance very well.
Of course if you look like she does (above), you don't need to know how to dance. I think the dancer is Anita Ekberg.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2fKetnPkPJo&feature=related
Thanks to Violet Stereo for this bit of exotica (above) by Joi Lansing.
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11 comments:
Don't forget Asta Nielsen back in 1910, hot stuff from Denmark!
Indian Tomb
You have to be a little patient... 2 or 3 minutes in, when the snake gets out of the basket...
Well, this has nothing to do with gladiators, but it's still pretty awesome:
Joi Lansing
"The Web of Love"
circa 1950s Scopitone
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u-2I36MMm5M
Violet: Thanks a million for the link! I added it to the post. Thank God for Scopitones!
That is one of the scariest photos I've ever seen.
Whoa, Joi Lansing! Rowrr!!
I remember her from The Beverly Hillbillies, where she played the wife of Lester Flatt, (of Flatt & Scruggs).
Judging from the video, her taste in men seems to have come down quite a bit.
Hi again Eddie, sorry if i'm intruding on a post, but i just posted a ton of images on my blog, most of them being frame grabs from the Van Beuren Felix films. Check it out, and please leave a comment. It gets so lonely over there...
Kellie: Wow! Nielsen looks sooooo modern in that clip! It could have been shot last week!
Indian Tomb
Thomas: Deborah Paget! Very nice! I wish I could see India while there's still a remnant of the way it used to be.
The clip is from Fritz Lang's The Indian Tomb, his penultimate film, and his first back in Germany after his lengthy stay in Hollywood; although after his career was over, he lived the rest of his life back in L.A.
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