Britt Ekland stars as an Amish girl in early 1900s New York City who gets a job dancing at a vaudeville theater and inadvertently creates the striptease one night on stage. Revue-styled hodgepodge isn't very compelling on an emotional level, and the solid cast (Jason Robards, Elliott Gould, Bert Lahr in his final film) has next to nothing to work from, but what a presentation! The director, a green but hungry William Friedkin, attacks the nostalgia inherent in the project and grabs the audience by the eyeballs. Everything flies passed Friedkin's camera: comedy, drama, sentiment, loss, pain, triumph. It's the giddy work of a kid in a candy store. As a character study, the movie does fall short--the screenplay is too thin to flesh out any of the people involved--however it is certainly a handsome attempt. ** from ****
Review of The Night They Raided Minsky's
