/ 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!”
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.
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!
/ 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.
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