Tempest Storm in Teaserama (1955)

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Review

Teaserama, a burlesque film featuring Betty Page and Tempest Storm was just released on a digitally mastered DVD by Something Weird Video. Although they were unable to clean off all of the specs and other blemishes, they did manage a very watchable image quality with excellent focus and color saturation, especially considering that this is a 50 year old film. Also on the DVD are other Betty Page shorts, and a feature length commentary with the owner of Something Weird Video and David Friedman. If any of you watch this DVD, I suggest doing it with the commentary on. Friedman is probably the greatest living expert on exploitation cinema, burlesque, and carny. He knew nearly everyone in the business personally, and can relate anecdotes about all of them. Although he did not produce any burlesque films, he did work in burlesque, and met most of the performers.

Burlesque films were not intended for theatrical release, but were used as fill in burlesque houses between performances. He thinks of burlesque as a unique art form, where they would alternate a stripper with the other acts which were mostly comedy sketches. Each act was introduced with a card girl (in this film, Betty Page is the card girl, as you will see from the top section of the images). The strippers never showed any nipples, and never took off their bottoms. The idea was to tease and entertain. Betty Page never worked burlesque. She was primarily a still photo model, and specialized in B&D. Indeed, her performance in this film is not especially good, but she does a great job of looking like Betty Page.Tempest Storm, on the other hand, was one of the best of the women who toured the burlesque houses. Not only was she attractive, but she had instant rapport with her audiences, and was master of the tease.

It was, ironically, the exploitation film that killed burlesque. Burlesque house owners felt that it was really naked women that their patrons wanted, and found that showing films had many advantages. There was no worry about performers not showing up, there were no cat fights, you could show the same films over and over, there were no payroll worries, and there was actual nudity. Friedman also made a very interesting comment near the end of the film. They were talking about the fact that this 50 year-old film was being re-mastered using amazing technology, and that a film that old was still popular. Friedman pointed out that technology in film making has advanced at a far faster rate than creativity. They can do nearly anything now with special effects, advanced lighting, camera techniques, and computers. The problem is that there are not, as he put it, enough creative people to fuel the furnace the technical people have created. This goes a long way towards explaining how talented Indies can produce a more enjoyable film than a major studio with megabucks for effects.

Written by: Tuna...courtesy of Scoopy.net