The second of Irvin Klaws mainline ‘Tease’ films (and the second to feature Bettie Page) ‘Varietease’ is a bit of a frustrating watch for me, because. While on the one hand, I feel it much better captures the feeling and vibe of a ‘Burlesque’ show. I.E a ‘naughty’ variety show with dancers, talent acts, comedians and striptease. It also feels to be a bit less polished than ‘Teaserama’.
For a starters, a lot of the film looks and feels like it was shot on the same day as Teaserama, and in one instance, im 99% sure they literally just wholesale recycled a dance number from that film into this one.
All the ‘dances’ in this film feel a lot less intricate or interesting, the girls seem less interested in being there and Page gets one single dance at the start of the film, that would have easily been the weakest dance in ‘Teaserama’ had it been in that film.
However, counterbalancing that. I do like that they actually bothered to bring in more variety, there are actual host segments, musical numbers, rubbish comedians. rubbish comedy singers, dancers, and that side of this film really helps bring it back up for me as thats largely where the campy fun is situated this time around.
Yes, ‘My Wife…’ jokes are the height of this films comedy zeal, but much like ‘tease’ it feels wonderfully nostalgic and engaging.
In every other regard on a technical level though? this feels like offcuts from ‘Tease’ theres very little to differentiate the two, with a couple of burlesque scenes taking place in dressed set spaces being about as ‘up market’ as it gets.
Once again, there are two cuts of this film on the Kino Cult release of this, a 4k remaster of the original print, and an extended cut from Something weird video, which contains some lower res extended sequences with the comedians and I believe maybe some extensions to some of the dance numbers…its about 5 minutes longer, and much like the last film, i’d probably go for the ‘SWV’ cut than the standard remaster.
Overall, while I really did appreciate the fact this did ACTUALLY feel like a burlesque show made for cinema screens (something Teaserama woefully attempted and failed at) I feel like ‘Tease’ had more charm and sincerity behind its intentions. This was fun, but the burlesque numbers were so drab it really made me as an audience member lose interest. Still a solid enough double feature piece. but not something I think i’d regularly return to.
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