Strip Strip Hooray

From the beginning of World War II, responsible Britons have feared that the Empire might fall apart geographically, or politically, or economically, or militarily --and have taken all steps they could to shore up the old girl. But last week they were gravely concerned about another danger: that she might tumble to pieces morally.

An inevitable complement to the wartime phenomenon of brief home leaves from France has been the desire of young soldiers to pack into a short time enough fun to provide months of front-line memories. Nightclub and theatre promoters have been quick to capitalize--until by last week nudity had become almost a commonplace in English entertainment.

> London's Windmill Theatre featured "The Platinum Goddess," a pretty dancer whose brassiere and skirt were torn off by a male dancer.

> American Actor Ben Lyon taught voluptuous, blonde Edna Powell the orthodox Minsky technique for her tease in Haw Haw, playing at the Holborn Empire.

When at the end of her dance her frenzied audience cried "More! More!" Teaseuse Powell peeked around the curtain and waved good night with a brassiere.

> Queen of the London Strip-Teasers was Marqueez Alkin, 19, who has a little French in her warm English blood. Until the Foreign Office intervened, she was billed as the "daughter of a Burmese High Priest." Last week she was working over time in both theatre and cabarets taking off seven veils.

> Throughout the Provinces tease acts drew big crowds. Theatre marquees were bright with electric signs such as "STRIP PLEASE," "STRIP AHOY," "STRIP STRIP HOORAY." One of the most popular acts featured a knife-thrower who stood his fully dressed partner up against a panel and then threw knives and toma hawks which literally peeled her clothes off.

Suddenly last week came a violent official reaction. The Rev. James Little, M. P., called Parliament's attention to the alarming state of affairs. Inspectors of the London County Council began visiting cabaret bottle parties ("clubs" at which customers may obtain liquor after legal drinking hours from wholesalers with whom they are registered), on the lookout for "abominable scenes." Two hundred M. P.s signed a motion in the House of Commons "deploring bottle parties." Britain's official moral police chief, Earl of Clarendon, Lord Chamberlain, convoked a conference to discuss nudity.

Meanwhile the managers of London's popular El Morocco bottle club were haled into Bow Street Police Court for putting on a strip-tease competition among female guests, the winner to be awarded a full-length nude of herself by Painter Alfred Kingsley Lawrence, R. A. Commented the official German radio: "The best people of London amused themselves by very strange contests. During [a] trial ... it came out that the idea of these contests was: who is the quickest in undressing? Especially the young ladies of London society took part in these contests. The girl who was the first to be naked on the stage got the first prize." Fine: -L-121.

Journalist Douglas Reed, who was for many years London Times correspondent in Berlin, sensed a dark parallel. In a letter to the Daily Telegraph & Morning Post he wrote: "Are we going to tread the whole path that Berlin trod and have palaces of sexual perversion with electric signs outside advertising the wares? To anybody who remembers the appalling conditions in Berlin between 1918 and 1930, the present trend of affairs in London is terrifying. . . . Girls do not WANT to dance nude. They want to become stars as singers, dancers, or actresses. ... All are told that stardom is within their reach. The first condition is--to undress. So it was in Berlin in that appalling time, and so it is here now."

Also last week came the annual report of the Public Morality Council, signed by its chairman, the Rt. Rev. Geoffrey Francis Fisher, Bishop of London, 52, an athletic, old-school-tie moralist with a wife and six sons whom he calls his "seven assets." P. M. C. was highly alarmed about "importuning in the streets" from noon until dawn in the Hyde Park, Piccadilly, Victoria, Bond, Regent and Oxford Street areas, by English, French, German, Italian and Welsh tarts aged 20 to 60. A careful checkup revealed an average of 91 importunists per hour in one street. Two police officers were accosted by 35 women along a 120-yard stretch. In the same area about 100 males were "engaged in this vile business. In Piccadilly 22 men were loitering. Many of them were painted and powdered and in a few cases were wearing high-heeled shoes.";Concurrently, with the opening of Easter Law Sittings, began the greatest flood of British divorces since Henry VIII started a church of his own so he could divorce Catherine of Aragon to marry Anne Boleyn. The rush was accounted for by a combination of wartime psychology and two-year-old liberalization of Britain's divorce law (admitting desertion as grounds for divorce). On the docket last week were no less than 1,600 petitions.

The court disposed of uncontested cases at the rate of 100 a day. This week five judges went to work on contested cases.

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