You can't make this claim about too many movies, but the driving artistic force in putting this film together turned out to be its editor, Ralph Rosenblum.......
The film's young director, William Friedkin (still several years away from his roaring successes "The French Connection" and "The Exorcist") apparently finished the production leaving the producers with a mass of uncuttable footage.....
Enter Rosenblum to the rescue, who employed virtually every then fashionable 1960's editing trope to turn "Minsky's" a nostalgic snapshot of 1920's New York, into a frenzied, up-to-the-minute imitation of a Richard Lester Beatles movie.......
In the same way that Lester sliced and diced the vaudeville routines in 1966's "A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum", Rosenblum attacked the ancient double-entendre skits of Minsky's Burlesque.......a snip here, a snip there, then on to something else.....
If you don't blink, bobbing around in all this churning footage is an amazingly eclectic once-in-a-lifetime cast of characters.........Jason Robards and Norman Wisdom as song-'n-dance men, Britt Eklund as an Amish naif who wanders amid the strippers, Joseph Wiseman and Elliot Gould as the father and son Minskys, Forrest Tucker as a 'Guys And Dolls' type gangster. And if that isn't enough for you, the film throws in iconic Brits Denholm Elliott as a sanctimonious anti-Burlesque prude and Harry Andrews as Eklund's raging father.
Ralph Rosenblum's ever-snapping editing scissors rarely let the film stop to catch its breath, but as the scenes go flying by, you can quickly enjoy Robards and Wisdom's catchy routines, and the riotous, would-be salacious dances from the pudgy platoon of Minsky chorus girls.......(bored stiff as they motorize their butts in the direction of the howling crowd of guys who've packed the theater)
To be fair to Rosenblum, some of his work here stands out by itself in its sheer creativity......particularly his seamless, black-and-white-to-color mixing of archival footage with the film's own recreation of teeming, working class New York neighborhoods. And he faced the added burden of reconstructing the supporting role played by beloved comedian Bert Lahr, who passed away during the film's production......(without CGI to make a duplicate Bert Lahr, Rosenblum relies on cleverly composed shots of a shadowy stand-in)
A mixed bag overall, but 49 years later, still highly watchable for its wonderfully game cast. The biggest surprise for us......the film's final moments, totally owned, by of all people, Britt Eklund, as she slowly transforms on the Minsky stage from Amish sweetheart to accomplished stripper. (Her work here even eclipses Natalie Wood's finale bump-and-grind in "Gyspsy".....)
Rosenblum's strenuous editing may have given the film a hip 1960's vibe, but its main pleasures still come from the actors, the hummable tunes, those hoary Burlesque skits......and without a doubt, those 10 terrific girls.....3 stars (***).......and a most happy (and happier) New Year to all BQ visitors......see you in 2018.
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