Striptease (film)

Former FBI secretary Erin Grant loses custody of her young daughter Angela to her ex-husband Darrell, a criminal who cost Erin her job, as Darell was a drug addict and dealt in illegal drugs. To afford an appeal to get her daughter back, which will cost $15,000, Erin becomes a stripper at the Eager Beaver, a strip club in Miami. Meanwhile, Darrell has moved without informing Erin and is using Angela to steal hospital medical supplies and then sell them on the black market. Erin attempts to find out his whereabouts from his sister Rita.

Congressman David Dilbeck visits the club and becomes infatuated with Erin. Aware of Dilbeck's embarrassing indulgences, another Eager Beaver patron named Jerry Killian approaches Erin with a plan to manipulate the congressman in order to settle the custody battle and help her get Angela back. However, Dilbeck has powerful business connections, including his right-hand man Malcolm Moldowsky, who want to ensure he remains in office. Consequently, those who could potentially embarrass him in an election are murdered.

Attorney Alan Mordecai, who has acquired photos of the night when Dilbeck got drunk at the club and assaulted a fellow patron while lusting after Erin, wants Shad, a bouncer and the club's head of security, to join him in a scheme to blackmail Dilbeck. Meanwhile, Miami Police Department Lieutenant Al Garcia has fished out a body from a lake, and an autopsy has revealed that he was drowned in tap water first before being thrown into the lake. He realizes that the body is Jerry's and that he was murdered both for contacting Malcolm to blackmail Dilbeck and for having photos of Erin all over his apartment. When Garcia, fully sympathetic to Erin's plight, arrives at the Eager Beaver, she asks him to ensure that Darrell is dropped as an informant for the police department, so that during her appeal he can be exposed as a criminal, and he complies. However, the judge overseeing Erin's case suffers a heart attack, causing her appeal to be delayed by 6 months. Meanwhile, Erin retrieves her daughter from Darrell's negligent care, having found his address from mail stolen from Rita.

Alan approaches Dilbeck with the picture from the Eager Beaver, thus making Malcolm rather worried. After Erin takes Angela to work, Darrell attacks her outside the club, but Shad rescues her by breaking his hand. After Erin finishes her shift, Angela tells her that she looked pretty dancing on stage topless. Garcia meets Erin, shows her the photo being used to blackmail Dilbeck, who has a crush on her, and tells her to contact him if Dilbeck threatens to assault or kill her.

Dilbeck's personal interest in Erin persists, and she is invited to perform privately for him. He asks her to become his lover and later his wife, despite his staff becoming increasingly concerned that she knows too much. Malcolm threateningly reminds Erin that he knows that Angela is with her illegally and will put Angela in state care if Erin talks about Dilbeck to anyone. Eventually, Alan turns up dead, increasing Garcia's level of concern for Erin. A debate occurs as to whether to kill Erin or simply keep her quiet by threatening to take away her daughter. However, Erin and Garcia begin to suspect the congressman's complicity in the murders, and Erin concocts a plan to bring him to justice. Unbeknownst to her, Malcolm knows about Erin's partnership with Garcia and her background and asks Dilbeck to invite Erin for another private show, planning to kill her afterwards. Erin goes for the private dance without Al or Shad to accompany her, but a hopelessly drunk Darrell intervenes and hits Malcolm. Erin takes both him and Dilbeck to a yard, intending to have sex with Dilbeck. There, she tricks him into confessing to the murders on tape and gets Darrell to sign a paper releasing custody of Angela to her. As Malcolm arrives, Garcia gets there just in time to save everyone, and Dilbeck is soon after arrested. Thus, Erin regains both full custody of Angela and her job in the FBI, and decides to quit stripping. Darrell returns to prison after he is convicted of his crimes.

Gianni Russo and José Zúñiga play father-and-son politicians Willie & Chris Rojo, while Eduardo Yáñez and Antoni Corone appear as bodyguards Chico & Nico. Frances Fisher also makes a small appearance as Lieutenant Garcia's wife, Donna.

The screenplay itself was written by Andrew Bergman, who also directed. According to one critic, the novel's plot is "quite faithfully followed" by the screenplay, but in bringing the complicated story to the screen, "Bergman forgets to explain persuasively what a nice girl like Erin – smart, spunky and a former FBI employee – is doing in a dump called the Eager Beaver."[9]

"Striptease was hard because the tone was so crazy," explained Bergman. "How do you stay true to the tone? You have to be true to those strip clubs. There's always some woman with like 50 triple-Ds, they always advertise, and you have to have someone like that. To actually see it, you’re walking this fine line. I didn't want to sanitize it, and I didn't, and I got my ass kicked for it." He also admitted, "I loved the book, and the funny thing was, [author Carl] Hiaasen loved the movie. He thought it was really, really true to the book, which I wanted to do! I don't regret it. I was treated like a freakin’ child molester for making that movie, but so be it."[10]

Casting

Demi Moore played Erin Grant in the film.

When asked about casting Demi Moore in the film, Bergman described, "Is Demi the funniest person in the world? No. Would the movie have been made without her? Probably not. No other major star was willing to take her clothes off, and I was not going to do a TNT version of Striptease with people running around in swimsuits."[10]

To prepare for her role as the main female character Erin Grant, Moore visited strip clubs in New York City, California and Florida, and she met with strippers. She also read the novel, exercised, and practiced yoga.[11] Moore was cast before other important parts were cast, creating some interest in the project.[12] In the first attempt at filming Moore stripping, two hundred extras were used to portray the audience. Although their salaries were small, many accepted the role to see Moore nude. After waiting for a while, when Moore finally appeared and started dancing the crowd turned so loud and wild that the shooting had to temporarily cease. As Moore said, "After my experience, I felt very confident."[11]

The filmmakers, in trying actors out for the part of Shad, sought someone "at least 6'2" and physically massive...any ethnicity",[12] eventually casting Ving Rhames. Burt Reynolds based his performance as Congressman Dilbeck on politicians he knew in his early life, through his father, a police chief.[13] When the filmmakers' first choice Gene Hackman turned the role down, Reynolds contacted Castle Rock head Rob Reiner and traveled to Miami to audition, despite not being whom they originally envisioned for the part. "To be honest," said producer Lobell, "we were not enthusiastic at first. There was the hair and his reputation, but we were curious... At the first audition, on the first day, Burt had to take off his toupee in front of six or seven people. It was tough for him, but he did it. It was a very, very humbling thing to do. But by the end of the audition, it was really clear that Burt was the guy."[14] "I knew I could play him," said Reynolds. "I could make him likable and dangerous. There are very few people who can do that. I always played likable and dangerous. I had a persona. Unfortunately, my persona became bigger than my acting."[14] Reynolds accepted a salary of $350,000;[15] lower than what he had been paid earlier in his career.[16]

Moore's own daughter Rumer Willis, who was 7 years old when the film was released, played Erin's daughter Angela. As Moore explained, "she [Willis] wanted it so badly" that Moore asked that Willis be considered for the part. In reality, this required Willis to see Moore dancing topless, for a scene in which Angela sees Erin performing. However, Moore said that this was acceptable, as "[W]e don't shame the body, we encourage the body as something beautiful and natural, and my children bathe with me, and I walk around naked."[17]

The cast included some notable real-world strippers such as Pandora Peaks. "Talk about a happy set", said Bergman. "We were shooting in Miami for six months. It was a gas".[10]

Striptease: Music from the Motion Picture Soundtrack was released on June 25, 1996. While the soundtrack did not include every song heard in the film, a notable exclusion were most tracks Erin (Demi Moore's character) danced to in the film, which, aside from "If I Was Your Girlfriend" by Prince, were all sung by Annie Lennox (whether as part of the Eurythmics or solo). While "Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)" was featured on the disc, "Money Can't Buy It", "Cold" and "Little Bird" were left off, as was "Missionary Man", which was played during the end credits. Furthermore, it excluded the song "(Pussy, Pussy, Pussy) Whose Kitty Cat Are You?" by the Light Crust Doughboys which won the Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Original Song.

Striptease premiered on June 23, 1996 in New York City and was released in the United States five days later. It opened in Australia, France and Germany in August, and Argentina, Italy, Bolivia, South Africa, the United Kingdom, Brazil and Japan in September.[3]

Nudity was heavily emphasized in advertisements.[20] The Motion Picture Association of America raised concerns regarding a poster that it felt revealed too much of Moore's naked body. A Castle Rock employee disagreed, saying "there are racier perfume ads."[18]

The previous year's film about nude dancers, Showgirls, was generally disliked, so filmmakers feared audiences would pre-judge Striptease on this basis. To avoid any association, advertisements were designed to make Striptease look more comedic than Showgirls, which was a drama.[18] Besides the subject matter, Striptease and Showgirls did have two notable connections. The choreography in these films was by the same person, Marguerite Derricks.[21] Both also featured performances by Rena Riffel, who plays a dancer in each. To promote the film, Moore appeared on the Late Show with David Letterman and a Barbara Walters special. In both cases, she danced or otherwise exhibited her body.[18]

Striptease was released on VHS on November 19, 1996 by Columbia TriStar Home Video, and on DVD on July 27, 1999 by Warner Home Video. An uncut international version of the movie was released on Blu-ray on March 6, 2012.[35]

In 1997, Striptease made news again when it was shown in a fourth-grade class in Chicago, Illinois. The teacher claimed the students chose the film but drew criticism since the film was risqué. The violent 1996 film Scream was shown in the same school on the same day, causing further controversy.[36] In 2000 in Ireland, some viewers criticized the Raidió Teilifís Éireann for running Striptease. These viewers questioned the film's appropriateness and some considered it demeaning to women. The station felt it was not pornography and it was aired at night.[37]

In 2003, Radioactive Films used a scene from Striptease featuring Moore nude in a video called Hollywood's Hottest. This raised a dispute as to whether the use of the scene qualified as fair use. A lawsuit was launched as a consequence.[38]

• List of films considered the worst

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