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“Burlesque Lives”

By Raymond Benson

Kino Lorber and Something Weird Video continue their collaboration to present “Forbidden Fruit: The Golden Age of the Exploitation Picture” with Volume 12—the double bill of Peek-a-Boo and “B” Girl Rhapsody, two documentations of burlesque revues from the 1950s.

The delicious and suitably sleazy pictures in the “Forbidden Fruit” series were made cheaply and outside the Hollywood system. They were distributed independently in the manner of a circus sideshow, often by renting a movie theater for a few nights, advertising in the local papers, and promoting the scandalous title as “educational.” It’s certain, however, that in this case both features in Volume 12 were not educational in any way except to provide the experience of burlesque shows to audiences who were unable to view them in person.

This reviewer, who usually welcomes and enthusiastically supports all the volumes in the “Forbidden Fruit” series,...