seasprite211 In a conversation several years ago, I asked Ms Woodward about this film. It receives short shrift by those who would discuss her career. The story has several interlocking plot lines: a woman caught in the struggle to survive, the men who use and abuse the situation toward their own ends and the teenager who falls for her. A teenager becoming enamored with an older woman was nothing new. The teenager having an affair with the older woman was a story somewhat ahead of it's time in 1963. The Women's Liberation Movement did not start until the late 1960s and the word 'cougar' referred to mountain lions. Ms. Woodward talked about the confused or disjointed impression this film gives and stated that the original director, whose name I cannot remember, died half way through filming. Mr. Schaffner, who finished the project, had a different point of view. Regardless, Ms Woodwards' acting is, in my opinion, remarkable. She provided each director with the desired performance expressing his vision. Unfortunately, the final cut is reflective of each and gives the film a sense of choppy disconnect.

Lee Eisenberg At first glance, "The Stripper" looks like eye candy: a cute young sideshow woman gets dumped by her manager and takes up with a local woman and her son, thereby developing a relationship with the son. But I do think that there was more to the movie than just that (if only a little more). In the lead role, Joanne Woodward gravitates between insecure and self-standing, not about to take from anyone. She does as good a job here as she did in "The Three Faces of Eve". Claire Trevor also does quite well as the woman taking Woodward in, but many of the characters come across somewhat silly as teen rebels. It seemed to me like Richard Beymer was channeling his role as Tony from "West Side Story" (although Carol Lynley and Michael J. Pollard weren't bad).Anyway, "The Stripper" is a movie worth seeing. And if I may say so, Joanne Woodward was really hot in some of those clothes! Also starring Gypsy Rose Lee. I bet that no one imagined that director Franklin Schaffner would later direct the likes of "Planet of the Apes", "Patton", "Papillon" and "The Boys from Brazil".PS: Not that this really relates to anything, but right after I finished watching this movie last night, Joanne Woodward's husband Paul Newman was the guest on "The Late Show with David Letterman"!

moonspinner55 William Inge play "A Loss of Roses", originally written with Marilyn Monroe in mind, becomes showy dramatic vehicle for Joanne Woodward playing Lila Green, low-rent actress passing through her hometown in Kansas, ditched by her manager and boarding with an old girlfriend and her teenage son. The screenplay is entirely too straightforward, too rounded off; it should be more mercurial, mysterious, but instead it's routine soapy business. The character of Lila is an unconvincing creation: full of stories of users and hangers-on, she's a dreamer at the dead-end, hopeful but pathetic. Lila has been divorced, yet she's a little naive around men--it's never established how much of a tramp she is or where her reputation stands (as shown, she's more smoke than fire, more sad than sex-driven). It's to Woodward's credit the film is still quite interesting, yet the actress is too innately refined to be convincing as a kittenish tart. She is entirely serviceable, yet one can only watch and think what a more appropriate actress might have done with this material, weak as it is. This is one cleaned-up "Stripper" (awful title!), a film which never sinks to the sordid levels depicted, but remains a tidy middle-of-the-road tale. **1/2 from ****

ptb-8 Sad and lonely mid west American towns photographed in black and white seem to be a very potent atmospheric early 60s film drama location that should be recognized as almost iconic in this new century. Other films of the time that each look as though they are all filmed nearby or around the corner from each other: HUD, BUS RILEY'S BACK IN TOWN, BABY THE RAIN MUST FALL , LILIES OF THE FIELD, KISS ME STUPID, IN COLD BLOOD all make a great set of rural wasteland town settings each with potent imagery and lonely people going slowly mad or frustrated or hankering for a change. THE LAST PICTURE SHOW perfected this feel in 1971. Stills from all these films would make a superb coffee table book...all that lonely black and white, crisp and windy farms and streets etc. yet obviously sad 60s. THE STRIPPER must have been the only film made at FOX in 63 with every other dollar of Zanuck's money going to feed CLEOPATRA. Apart from the misleading title, THE STRIPPER offers Joanne Woodward in a Lee Remick performance or is that a Lee Grant performance or is that a Kim Novak performance...because either of those women are interchangeable in those above films as well. 40 years later, like CLEOPATRA, this early 60s era of film making is being celebrated as having produced atmospheric and enduring films of fascinating visuals and emotional performances. I was lucky enough to enjoy THE STRIPPER in a cinema seeing a 35mm cinemascope print, and even if the story was a let down, the visuals and feel for that period and location is so well captured that it almost becomes the most enjoyable part. I am also a great fan of BABY THE RAIN MUST FALL which captures this loneliness and isolation with B&W photography that now borders on masterpiece. See it as part of the above series of films if you can and be overwhelmed by what I have described. It is like sad memories created by someone else and they take that form especially because of the photography.