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.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2fKetnPkPJo&feature=related
Thanks to Violet Stereo for this bit of exotica (above) by Joi Lansing.
