/ Pic above via /
In June 2025, I
screened Strip-tease at my monthly Lobotomy Room film club. As I
put it on the event page:
"Join us on Thursday 19 June, when the FREE
monthly Lobotomy Room film club at Fontaine’s (committed to cinematic
perversity!) whisks you away to early 1960s Paris with Strip-tease (1963)! Note
that this film is in French (ooh la la!) and will be subtitled (so bring your
reading glasses!). This one (directed by Jacques Poitrenaud) should be catnip
for cult cinema connoisseurs. For one thing, it stars Nico. Yes, that Nico!
Strip-tease follows the German diva’s earlier vivid appearance in Fellini’s La
dolce vita (1960), but it captures her a good few years before she became a
Warhol superstar and the Velvet Underground’s chanteuse. (For some reason lost in
the mists of time, she’s billed as “Krista Nico” – which seems to partially
acknowledge her real name, Christa Paffgen. Strip-tease would be Nico’s sole
starring role in a relatively mainstream film: her destiny lay in the
underground cinema of Andy Warhol and her lover Philippe Garrel). And the moody
finger-snappin’ cool jazz soundtrack is by Serge Gainsbourg (and he even
appears in the film! The theme tune is huskily warbled by beatnik chanteuse
Juliette Greco). Not without justification Strip-tease was promoted as a
sexploitation flick (it was released in the US as The Sweet Skin in 1965 with the
tagline “Fills the screen with more adult entertainment than you dare to
expect! The intimate story of a striptease goddess!”), but more accurately it’s
a stylish, melancholy melodrama. Nico plays Ariane, an idealistic
ballet-trained German dancer in Paris with high-minded artistic ambitions. Out
of economic necessity, Ariane reluctantly accepts a job at Le Crazy burlesque club – and soon captures the attention of a rich, louche playboy
(John Sobieski). If you’ve seen Lobotomy Room’s presentations of other
burlesque-themed movies like Too Hot to Handle (1960), Beat Girl (1960) and
Satan in High Heels (1962), you won’t want to miss this obscure French gem!"
/ Italian movie poster for Strip-tease /
Strip-tease is a
criminally unsung and fascinating movie and boy, do I have notes. So, I had to
write a blog post about it!
In brief: Strip-tease
shows Nico like you’ve never seen her before! So why
have you probably never heard of this movie? Neither director Jacques
Poitrenaud nor Nico herself took a lot of pride in Strip-tease. For Poitrenaud (1922
- 2005), this was probably just another assignment and he’s also seemingly not
well known outside of France. (He’s certainly not a filmmaker I’m otherwise au
fait with).
Strip-tease is Nico’s sole starring role in
a relatively mainstream film, but for the rest of her life, Nico never
discussed it in interviews. It most definitely didn’t align with the deeply
serious, austere and gloomy “Moon Goddess” image she embraced later in the
sixties. BUT: within a few years after its continental debut Strip-tease was belatedly
released in the US under the title The Sweet Skin (which makes it sound like a
movie aimed at cannibals). In the 1995 book The Velvet Years: Warhol’s Factory
1965-67 by photographer Stephen Shore, there’s a great shot of Nico standing
outside The World Theatre in New York where The Sweet Skin is showing on a
double bill (“2 Daring Adult Films!”) accompanied by a group of her Warhol Factory
friends, so clearly she assembled them to “come see this film I made in France
in the early 60s!” (See below. Left to right: John Cale, Dutch author Jan Cramer, Paul
Morrissey, Nico and Gerard Malanga). The other “daring adult film” on the
double bill is called The Love Statue (1965), which I’ve Googled and it sounds
interesting.
Similarly, in her lifetime Nico seemingly never
mentioned that singing the bossa nova-tinged theme tune to Strip-tease (by none
other than Serge Gainsbourg) was her true recording debut. (It’s always been
widely assumed that the 1965 folk single “I’m Not Sayin’” was Nico’s debut).
For whatever reason, Nico’s rendition was ultimately scrapped (we hear the
sublime Juliette Greco huskily crooning it over the opening credits instead) and
went unreleased for many decades. (It’s easy to hear online now, and Nico’s
hushed, whispery singing is alluring in the tradition of The Velvet’s “I’ll Be
Your Mirror” and “Femme Fatale”).
Anyway, Strip-tease beautifully captures Nico
(née Christa Päffgen, 1938 - 1988) at 24 years old. By this point, she had been
modelling since the mid-1950s (by today’s standards, she’d be described as an
international supermodel). Nico had already appeared (essentially playing
herself, and beguilingly so) in Federico Fellini’s La dolce vita in 1960. Yet
to come: being discovered and adopted by Andy Warhol, joining the Velvet
Underground as their resident chanteuse and then her own long, erratic musical career
as a solo artist.
We do know that Nico was serious about
pursuing acting: when in New York on modeling assignments, she studied Method
acting at Lee Strasberg’s Actors Studio (and used to claim Marilyn Monroe was
in her class – something we’ll never be able to verify).
/ Above: Nico - like you've never seen her before! /
What is relevant for Strip-tease: Nico gave
birth to her only child, a son called Ari, in August 1962. (Ari Boulogne - who
died in 2023 - was her son by the French mega-star Alain Delon. Delon never
accepted or acknowledged paternity). Filming began in November ’62. According
to Nico’s definitive biographer Richard Witts, she was sensitive about her
post-natal body (and Ari was delivered by Cesarean so there was a scar to
conceal). In any case, Nico looks impressively svelte in various degrees of
undress in Strip-tease – almost certainly via diet pills. (Nico always claimed
her introduction to drug-taking was diet pills – which in the 1950s were
essentially amphetamines). Interestingly, Witts also suggests that the reason
she’s billed as “Krista Nico” in the credits might be for tax reasons!
Strip-tease was promoted – not without
reason – as a sexploitation flick, but I’d argue it’s more of a romantic melodrama
– and a deeply moody and stylish one. Nico portrays Ariane, a gloomily earnest
German ballet dancer barely scratching out a living in Paris. (As a bonus, we
see glimpses of what Paris looked
like in winter 1962, especially around Pigalle. Later we see the Seine and Notre
Dame at dawn in misty grey light). Just when it appears the struggling Ariane’s
dreams have come true (“I had the lead in a ballet!”), they are abruptly
snatched away. Due to some bad luck, Ariane is dropped
from a big production – and is flat broke!
At this low ebb, by sheer coincidence Arianne
reunites with Berthe (Dany Saval), an old friend from dance
school. Under the “stripper name” Dodo
Voluptuous, Berthe has been raking it in as an exotic dancer at a high-end
burlesque joint called Le Crazy – and she urges Ariane to consider it. “I could
never be a stripper,” the idealistic Ariane protests. “It’s not the money; I
just couldn’t do it!” If not an actual beatnik, Ariane is “beatnik-adjacent”
and is a habitué of the smoke-filled Blue Note jazz cellar, where she seeks the counsel
of her confidant and adopted father figure, African American jazz musician Sam
(played by Joe Turner, but NOT “Big Joe Turner” as sometimes implied online –
that’s someone else entirely). The worldly-wise and protective Sam is wary of
her taking the job at Le Crazy. (As mentioned earlier,
Strip-tease’s stunning cool jazz and Latin exotica soundtrack is by the young Serge
Gainsbourg – and we even get a fleeting glimpse of him smoking and playing piano at the Blue Note).
Nonetheless, needs
must and soon Ariane is auditioning at Le Crazy. She may be a trained
ballerina, but as an exotic dancer she is stiff, self-conscious and uncertain. (Nico
was many things, but she was not a dancer and it’s fun to see how Poitrenaud attempts to conceal
this). Interestingly, throughout Strip-tease other characters offer meta-critiques
of Nico’s performance: “You walk like a marble statue!” “You’re hard to read …”
and most significantly, “She’s wooden!” The latter comment leads to a unique
gimmick for Ariane’s stage act – she’s partnered with a lookalike wooden
marionette. (Strip-tease has a weird emphasis on marionettes).
/ Pic above via /
Le Crazy has a packed
house for the big unveiling of its new starlet, but Ariane is a reluctant,
conflicted “strip-teaseuse” who hates being stared at and at the climax, she
stops short of baring all. (There’s an eerie moment where her lookalike marionette
seemingly makes eye contact with Ariane and silently judges her). Rather than being
disappointed, Le Crazy’s clientele finds her shyness adorable, declaring “Very
charming!” “What style!” and “Post-modern striptease!” Le Crazy’s owner Paul
(played by Thierry Thibault) is thrilled by Ariane’s reception: “Do the same
thing every night!”
(One fascinating
aspect to note here: we see ample burlesque sequences of Le Crazy’s performers
onstage with copious boobage and buttage on display, but these scenes are deliberately
designed to be easily deleted or censored if required depending on the local
market without disrupting the narrative). Within no time, Ariane
is a nightlife sensation in Paris. Pierre (Italian actor Umberto Orsini), an
associate from the ballet troupe, discovers Ariane’s current workplace, assumes
she’s “easy” now and turns ugly, sneering, “Can’t be too choosy in the work you
do. I’m as good as all the others …” More happily, one night Ariane encounters
impossibly pretty playboy Jean-Loup (played by Jean
Sobieski, who I also know from the bizarre 1968 Italian giallo Death Laid an Egg and who possesses sapphire blue eyes Paul Newman himself would envy) and
they embark on a love affair.
/ Pic above via /
“You’re a very
complicated girl,” manipulative Jean-Loup sweet-talks Ariane. “Et alors?” (So
what?) she shrugs. “There’s a sadness about you. That’s what attracted me,”
Jean-Loup continues. But alarmingly, he also confesses, “I’m naturally
cowardly. A bit of a liar.” “Poor little rich boy,” Ariane chides. Later, Jean-Loup
– who’s never worked a day in his life - patronizes Ariane by saying, “It’s
good that you work. Work is ennobling. Even if it’s stripping.” The sight of Jean-Loup and his jaded idle rich
entourage of chic nightclubbing friends smoking and drinking cocktails, in
formal evening wear can’t help but help but overlap with Fellini’s La dolce
vita. (As Poitrenaud summarized in the 8 December 1962
issue of La Cinematographie Francaise, Strip-tease is “a film with two main
themes: the solitude of a beautiful girl, one is who vulnerable and foreign,
but also the life of Paris between midnight and morning, the life of those that
fritter their existence away”).
Strip-tease adopts an
almost soap opera tone as their romance deepens. There’s a misunderstanding
when Ariane insists that she can’t be “bought” with a diamond brooch that
Jean-Loup attempts to gift her. “You’ve got it all and yet you’re as lost and
lonely as me,” she consoles him after they reconcile. We see a campy whirlwind “date
montage” representing their sojourns together: hunting weekend. Racecourse.
Nightclubbing. Ariane’s birthday party scene feels overtly autobiographical for
Nico. Like Nico, Ariane is from Cologne. They are both German women living in
Paris and were children during World War II. Talk of fireworks makes Ariane
reflect on the dropping of bombs (“Cologne in flames … I lost my parents that
night …”). Jean-Loup gives her a mink coat: “Take this as reparations …” Later,
we see Jean-Loup and Ariane in his car. She is swathed in her new mink and
lighting a cigarette with hands gloved in black leather. It’s an impossibly
chic image, sleek, fetishistic and almost kinky, worthy of Helmut Newton.
/ Pic above
via /
/ Pic above
via /
Ariane continues her
ascent to stardom. (Watch for her very strange new burlesque routine wearing a
harsh jet-black bouffant wig). Sam is concerned Ariane is being corrupted and
has forgotten her ballet aspirations. Ominously, Jean-Loup takes Ariane home to
meet his aristocratic old money family ... Will Ariane come to her senses and swap
the mink for the modest old cloth trench coat she was wearing at the beginning?
No spoilers, but in the finale of Strip-tease, Ariane’s number is like Marilyn
Monroe’s “Diamonds are a Girl’s Best Friend” routine in reverse … I’ll say no
more!
/ Doesn’t Nico resemble Italian actress Silvana Mangano here with the black wig? (In fact, Nico and Mangano were friends; Nico credits Mangano for Federico Fellini casting her in his 1960 masterpiece La dolce vita. But that’s just one of many theories – others have claimed it was via Nico’s friendship with Anouk Aimee! There are MANY myths surrounding the eternally enigmatic Nico) /
/ Pic above and below via /
And what of Nico’s
acting? “Her acting is only fair – she moves stiffly, a
simple wave goodbye seems difficult, as if she’s never done it before,” Don
Stradley – not inaccurately - assesses in his This Dazzling Time blog in 2016. I’d
argue her approach is hesitant,
remote, ethereal and inscrutable in the tradition of Kim Novak. At some points,
Nico is so detached she suggests a gorgeous sleepwalker. Maybe she’s more of a
presence than a conventional actress. Unsurprisingly, Nico communicates best in
spectacular close-ups. Crying perfect crystal tear drops, she suggests an
idealized illustration of a woman, like “Crying Girl” by Roy Lichtenstein.
(Nico was already pop art even before Warhol!). Revealingly, her finest acting moment
is entirely wordless. For a laugh, Jean-Loup and his parasitic friends go
slumming at a low-down dive, very different from Le Crazy. The resident
stripper gyrating onstage is older, rougher, raunchier, fleshier. “It takes
genius to be so disgusting …” Jean-Loup sneers, almost admiringly. Ariane
silently listens and absorbs his contempt in a giant hypnotic close-up that
moves ever closer until Nico’s features fill the screen. The moment is akin to the
famous close-ups of Nico’s spiritual godmothers Greta Garbo (especially at the
end of Queen Christina (1933)) and Marlene Dietrich (especially at the end of
Morocco (1930)), in which the viewer is invited to contemplate their exquisite faces
and attempt to unravel their mystery.
In cinematic terms, Nico’s contribution
was to bridge the gap between the glamour of classic Hollywood and the
avant-garde. She casts a melancholy spell over Strip-tease.
