You Go a Go-Go

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to go-go. Since the beginning of time mankind has always peddled its wares with the marketing strategy of having an attractive female to promote the sale of a product or a service. In the world of cinema, that ethos was also applicable. Here are three examples of great films utilising this tactic from the offset:

 

Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! (Opening Narration & Credits)

(Russ Meyer, 1965)

 

There's nothing more intolerable than wannabe Roger Eberts having an orgasm over some overrated hack film maker's work. Biggest insult of all is when these Letterboxd urchins flaunt the word "auteur" with such wreckless abandon. One film maker however, who most definitely was a great auteur, was the late great Russ Meyer, aka "King of the Nudies", "King Leer" and "The Fellini of the Sex Industry". His quintessential style encompassing buxom women, leering camerwork and creative editing was second to none. His most heralded film is undoubtely Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! (1965), which ushered into the world of cult cinema the likes of Tura Satana, Lori Williams and Dada Debaser's favourite, Haji.These three lasses know what they've got and how to use it and were never damsels in distress.

 

Die Screaming Marianne (Opening Credits)

(Pete Walker, 1971)

 

Other than Zardoz (1974), perhaps the biggest crime in the British film industry is the complete lack of appreciation for one of its finest sons, Pete Walker. Making the switch from sexploitation to horror was easy as pie for the director, since both genres that are forever huddled together with ignorant contempt by the morality brigade, are much easier to produce on a low budget. In between his transitioning of genres our Pete made Die Screaming Marianne; a Brit giallo of sorts, that's largely forgettable sadly, with the exception of the film's opening titles. Cult siren of the seventies and early eighties, Susan George gogo dancing amongst a minimal red background, feels somewhat contradictory; as it harkens to some big show girl spectacle from a bygone era in Hollywood, while tapping into the contemporay (for its time, at least) aesthetic of post-Summer of Love hippiedom. It's too bad Die Screaming Marianne was boring, but on a positive note, Susan George wound up in both Fright and Straw Dogs in the very same year and Pete Walker would release his first classic film, The Flesh and Blood Show (1972) the following year.

 

Do the Right Thing (Opening Credits)

(Spike Lee, 1989) 

 

1989 the number, another dancer. Spike Lee's Do the Right Thing (1989) serves as an excellent tale of the boiling racial tension on a hot summer's day in Brooklyn, but the actual reason it struck a chord with a certain age demographic back then, was seeing butter Pecan Rican, Rosie Perez bustin' her moves over Public Enemy's Fight the Power. Lee claimed inspiration from seeing Anne Margaret singing and dancing in the opening sequence of Bye Bye Birdie (1963). Yours truly doesn't believe a word of it and believes Spike watched her one time on Soul Train and obliged Chuck D's request of "got to give us what we want! Got to give us what we need!" by getting Miss Perez on the set working up a sweat for our entertainment. Film connoisseurs mostly gloss over this intro, or at best, or employ lingo such as "empowering" and "liberating" before spouting off about the film's poignant social commentary. Which is all very noble, but for late eighties male teens, Miss Perez air boxing and pop lockin' in that blue lycra and leather jacket ensemble was an unexpected pleasure, much the same as finding a bunch of discarded porn mags in the park with your school mate. Cheers, Spike!

These are the only examples that immediatley come to mind which utilised a dancing woman in their respective film's opening intros. The James Bond franchise's opening credits were a different kettle of fish altogether, in my opinion. There are probably other examples after 1989, but my mind is drawing a blank at this point in time.