Review – Behind the Burly Q

This is a reasonably good documentary about the origin and heyday of burlesque shows. The filmmakers managed to track down a lot of the bigger names, not only the dancers but also the comedians, novelty acts and other folks in and around the business. One thing I noted in particular was how down-to-earth most of these elderly women were about their "misspent" youths. Many documentaries about the arts are marred with tedious boasting from talking heads, "I invented graffiti" or "we were the first punk band in Boston." The closest any of the subjects here come to that kind of annoying nonsense is an occasional "she tried to steal my act." Overall this picture does a solid job of covering a topic I didn't know much about. Mildly amusing