Canned Burlesque

Some strange new names were glowing on movie marquees last week--Betty ("Ball of Fire") Rowland, Genii Young, Deenah Prince--and there were stranger things inside. In such films as International Burlesque, a New York outfit named Jewel Productions was profitably peddling a-brand-new movie line: old-fashioned flesh-and-spangle shows straight from the burlesque stage, converted to the screen with slight additions to the costumes and subtractions from the gags.

Costing only $50,000 apiece, the canned-burlesque films seemed to be just the answer in towns deprived of the real article. The two versions of International Burlesque--the "cold" one for strict towns, the "hot" or "farm" one for wide-open spots--have already played to audiences in some 350 U.S. theaters, have been exported to several distributors abroad. Said one Washington exhibitor: "It was better than sensational. It was dynamic. There were lots of celebrities who came around, too. You'd be surprised."

Encouraged by its early success, Jewel had big plans for the future, was already throwing together a new show called Strips Around the World. Jewel's General Manager Samuel Cummins does not expect to displace "live" burlesque yet awhile. "They can show more than we can," he says. But he has no doubts about the prospects of his "specialized films." Says Cummins proudly: "It's a new avenue of film production, and what's more, there's no TV competition."

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