Forties Cheesecake Dance No. 1

PLEASE READ THIS - This dance sequence from "Arabian Nights" (1942) features Maria Montez, the popular 1940s star, who was once described a "a poor man's Dorothy Lamour". She appeared in numerous exotic films with Jon Hall, Sabu and Terhan Bey, and all three are in this one.

Among the guest stars are Leif Erickson, of "High Chaparral" fame (that's him they are trying to poison), and Shemp Howard, one of The Three Stooges, playing Sinbad (Shemp, an original member, returned in 1946 to replace his brother Curly when a stroke forced him to retire). The film was directed by John Rawlins.

I am always looking for new ideas for this series. If you have any suggestions please don't hesitate to drop me a line.

Category:

Entertainment

Tags:

• forties
• cheesecake
• dance
• arabian
• nights
• maria
• montez
• jon
• hall
• sabu
• terhan
• bey

[Asheskitty]

it's just my opinion, but I think her dancing isn't very good.

[pwgr2000]

It's competent, by 40s Hollywood standards as it is just hokey "exotic" dancing to create mood. If you mean as genuine bellydance, you are correct. It is stiff and inept, and lacks any real allure or inventiveness.

[Alcwathwen]

You think he's grow weary if a girl would be going around that cup like she did... :p

Why is this video actually called cheesecake??

[pwgr2000]

From Wikipedia:

"The term "cheesecake" is synonymous with pin-up photo. The earliest documented print usage of this sense of cheesecake is in 1934, predating pin-up, although anecdotes say the phrase was in spoken slang some 20 years earlier, originally in the phrase (said of a pretty woman) "better than cheesecake." In the 1950s, for example, there was a magazine called Cheesecake that had a young Marilyn Monroe in a yellow bikini on its cover in 1953."

[jewel1260]

Somehow I fell asleep while she was dancing.

[ATsarIsBorn]

Thanks for the commentary and casting! Yes, there were a lot of camels humping the sands of Hollywood in those days. (I love the guy who comments, "I'm straight and I love this movie!")

[GiselleBellyDancer]

Horrible hands!

[brickvandee]

I'm straight and I love this movie...

[rosecarol76]

she was from the Dominican Republic!!

[fromthesidelines]

Most of Maria's "exotic dancing" WAS doubled by a professional dancer (camouflaged by close-ups and other "diversions")- the same way Marlene Dietrich's "golden leg" dance in "Kismet" (1944) was actually executed by another dancer, with key close-ups of her face and body cleverly covering up that fact...

[zepp4]

A lot of long shots, a veil over her face .. that might not have been her dancing through the entire sequence.

[bixntram]

Two great movie lines from that era:

'Seize him" and:

"After him, you fools!"

[bixntram]

"That was about as undressed one could see a woman in those days"

Until Playboy magazine came along. Thank you, Hugh Heffner! What a Godsend - even if the pages often got stuck together (wonder how that happened?).

[CesarBrauer]

Very good, thank you!