By: Mordicai

 

Larry Buchanan’s name should be listed among the likes of Bergman, Hawks and Huston. He was a man of unprecedented vision, and brought us such unheralded classics as Creature of Destruction, It’s Alive! (no, not that one), Zontar the Thing From Venus, and his magnum opus, Mars Needs Women. If Roger Corman was thrifty, then Larry Buchanan was on cinematic welfare. Naughty Dallas is one of his food stamps.

 

Come along and marvel at the heart-stirring tale of Toni Shannon (Marilyn Pope), a young nymph, weary of the hum drum East Texas cotton fields. Her dream is to move to the big city and become a burlesque dancer, and apparently, her family is excited about the prospect of sending their only daughter off to jiggle in front of creepy old men. Along the way she gets sage advice from warm-hearted casting agents and seasoned dancers as she approaches the sex industry with the gusto of a prom-committee chair. I won’t spoil the thrilling ending of this one.

 

 

Surreal, wide-eyed look at the exotic entertainment industry glamorizes the art of taking one’s clothes off for money. In truth, it’s a time capsule of a forgotten form of entertainment.  There are no poles, no girls picking up dollar bills without using their hands and narry a Warrant song is heard. These dancers were headliners, world-famous entertainers Peggy Steel and from New Orleans, Jada, who must have applied her makeup with a Play Dough Fun Factory and bears more than a passing resemblance to the Joker.

 

 

 

It’s a smoke-choked world of live bands, Mai Tais and elderly couples leering creepily at hourglass-figured women.  Some of the dances are almost entertaining and a few of the ladies are attractive in that “they just don’t build them like that anymore” sense. Maybe it’s just me, but when watching these things, I am always worried I will see my grandmother in the next routine dressed as Cleopatra.

 

We also get a glimpse at prime burlesque circuit comedy from none other than quasi-famous Breck Wall himself and are delighted by that new swingin’ sound from the house band, Bill Peck and his Peckers (insert trombone slide here).

 

Of historical note, Abe Weinstein, owner of the Colony Club appears in several self-gratifying shots – just to let you know who the man is in charge here.  Some of the sequences were filmed at the Carousel Club, a venue managed by Jack Ruby, who was probably in jail during filming for the murder of Lee Harvey Oswald. I wouldn’t go quite that far to avoid this film, but close.

 

 

The film is painfully overdubbed with a droning jazz soundtrack struggling against the passionless voice work. In true Buchanan style, most of the film was shot with the sound tracking as an afterthought, except during a few dance sequences and comic interludes where someone actually had the genius to bring sound equipment. Buchanan seems to loathe to move his camera, an auteur of the “set it and forget it” school of filmmaking. I have a feeling he was outside having a cigarette while most of the shots were rolling.

 

Films like this were always nothing more than excuses to show exotic dancers, like the numerous “Strip-O-Rama” and “Blaze Starr” genre films of the decade before Naughty Dallas. It’s certain that if one were to watch this first run, the required uniform would have been sunglasses, a trench coat and fedora pulled snugly over the face. However, by modern standards this film is probably tame enough to be shown on Saturday morning television. There is a brief, obligatory boob shot in a mirror about 10 minutes into the film, but after that - nothin’ but pasties.

 

Unless you are a diehard fan of this vanished art, or just want to savor one of the seedier sides of Dallas history, then you will want to skip this tedious entry in the burlesque genre. You’ll have to get this one from Something Weird, because other releases are virtually nonexistent.  This film isn’t even a rental, endearing to me only because I admire Buchanan’s ineptness and the tin-pan alley nostalgia of his homemade filmmaking.

 

 

Rating: 2.5/5 Pasties