Yes, she was naked under the feathers. Technically we are all naked underneath our clothes.
________________________________________
yup
As per Jaystarter's comment; she was wearing a body stocking with a feather motif underneath her clothes.
There's tons of naked girls on the net. Why even ask this question?
Body stocking.
If she was really buck-bushy naked, even for one frame, the movie gets an R rating.
================
4) You ever seen Superman $#$# his pants? Case closed.
Can someone clear this up? I didn't get it at all, what was the point of that entire scene anyway? Why was there a night out to see a stripper injected into a story about American astronauts and the nascent space program of the 1960's? And they had their wives with them, too? WTF?
shareyes, she was naked under there. there was one brief scene where she bares it out completely, at a side angle, without the feathers.
Still, I think the scene was more for a moment of reflection. After a while, the astronauts stopped looking at the stage, and started glancing at each other, perhaps thinking back on what they have all gone through the last few years.
I think the scene has multiple meanings.
I think the guys all trading glances is actually them acknowledging that they all have the "the right stuff" - as was mentioned earlier that the code they never talked about...and said even less to outsiders. Notice, even here they don't speak, just the looks and half grins.
Then, the send time we go back to the sequence, they all look skyward, as it they all reflect on the fact that perhaps the best among the test pilots/aviaators (I have no doubt Cooper was gonna mention Yeagar when asked by reporters), were not there. They were the lucky ones to be selected, and because of this the most famous, but perhaps not the true best.
It also goes back into the theme Kaufman explores throughout with the was the USA looks at heroes. Yeagar represented the old school, lone gunslinger (he even rides a horse!) or Industrialist who built himself up by his bootstraps, out conquering the west.
The Mercury Seven stood for the modern heroes we tend to have, who are more team orientated.
So this last sequence was Kaufman's way of showing both back to back to see where our allegiances lie.
I've just seen this movie for the first time, and I'm just so excited about how great it is! I can't wait to watch it again, because this is one of the films where I'm sure I'll discover more layers to it with time. Anyway, here are my thoughts on this sequence.
I think the scene has multiple meanings.
I think the guys all trading glances is actually them acknowledging that they all have the "the right stuff" - as was mentioned earlier that the code they never talked about...and said even less to outsiders. Notice, even here they don't speak, just the looks and half grins.
It also goes back into the theme Kaufman explores throughout with the wa[y] the USA looks at heroes.
I just saw this for the first time, and about this time in the movie, I was starting to see this as a real satire. It was just too bizarre to imagine this took place. Maybe it was an LBJ pervert Texas thing. The astronauts were looking at each other like "what the frick is going on".
I had no idea this movie would be anything but a historical docu-drama.
What was that with Shephard peeing in his suit? surely he had on a diaper. and the aborigines with the fire? Too weird.
From what I gathered reading the threads on this board, this Texas BBQ featuring a fan dancer actually took place. Although not unrealistic, it seems totally bizarre to me too, and in the movie, it was clearly presented in a way that bordered on the satirical. As were, for instance, the swarms of reporters.
It was explained why Shephard peed in his suit - he didn't wear a diaper because he was only supposed to go on a 15-minute flight. But he had to sit in the spacecraft for hours, waiting for the take-off - apparently it always took ages before they finally started the countdown (Cooper fell asleep); and Shephard's wife mentions he had four cups of coffee that morning. So they went to a lot of trouble to make clear why this happened. It was one of several anecdotes surrounding these early space missions, which I understand are also either true events or at least based on some. It reminds the audience that these were just normal human beings after all - and that the engineers apparently sometimes were oblivious to that, too.
In that regard, it would seem that your complaints aren't exactly valid. But if you expected a historical docu-drama, I can see why you would be disappointed or confused. Remember that the historical events were first narrated by Tom Wolfe in the book the movie is based on, who combined the Yeager story with the Mercury 7. Then screenwriter/director Philip Kaufman added his filmmaker's vision. It isn't the film's intention to be nothing but a straightforward re-telling of events, the facts are arranged and presented with a different purpose, and sometimes, with artistic license.
If you felt that certain elements - the dramatic, the emotional, the satirical, the anecdotal - comic relief, iconic visuals etc. etc. - were out of place, it's possibly because you had the wrong expectations. Don't blame the movie. If you think these elements didn't sit well together, that's your opinion and of course fine. Personally, I thought it remarkable how well sequences with different tones blended. I think that's what makes the movie so engrossing and interesting.
About the aborigine bit. The movie shows us the Cold War background of the space race, the hype - frequently the pettiness of humans, even the scientists and astronauts. The fire/sparkly particles scene is a reminder that there is more to it than that. It's the beckoning of an unknown beyond, an almost mythical quest. "There was a demon that lived in the air..."
Ah well, I guess it just wasn't for you.
clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right, here I am...
Thanks for the info. It's not that I didn't like the movie, in fact it was great, but it was just different than I was expecting. I kept wondering what actually happened and what was just part of the story.
shareThe BBQ in Houston really happened, Sally Rand really danced and Shephard really did pee in his suit, no diapers. He also really did imitations of Bill Dana's Jose' Jimenez. An FYI; the Mercury 7 and Bill Dana became friends, and they adopted Jose as their mascot. Any more doubts?
shareThe BBQ in Houston really happened, Sally Rand really danced and Shephard really did pee in his suit, no diapers. He also really did imitations of Bill Dana's Jose' Jimenez. An FYI; the Mercury 7 and Bill Dana became friends, and they adopted Jose as their mascot. Any more doubts?
shareTacky?
I beg to differ, she was very elegant, and famous in her time... (the actual lady that was portrayed, not the actress in this film I mean)... I would allow my son to watch someone with her talent doing such a dance... and that is the key thing, it is the talent to look elegant while on stage alone with nothing but feathers...
My comments referred to the situation in the movie.
No offense to the actual lady with the feathers and her art was intended by me. Her performance alone may well have been elegant, poetry in motion. The movie doesn't show us otherwise. In the context of marching band, giant barbecue and plenty of booze however it is out of place. And it's obvious that the artistic merit of her performance is less appreciated than the fact that it provides 'respectable' titillation. That kind of undermines the (supposed) purpose of lending a touch of class to the event. So yes, it comes across as tacky to me.
As such, it contributes to what I think the filmmakers are trying to show at this point (which I have explained in my previous post). I have no way of knowing how it went down at the actual event. If the filmmakers sold the actual lady short, or even represented the whole show unfairly, it was in the interest of the overall story as they wanted to tell it.
clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right, here I am...
No she wasn't naked. There is a very quick scene where she is shown wearing a nude body stocking covered with body sprinkles.
shareSally Rand was a famous burlesque dancer in the 30s...they were at a huge celebration in the Astrodome...in those days PC events were not important.
"Vive la mort, vive la guerre, vive le sacre mercenaire."
IMO, the scene is designed to be a jarring contrast: between the Mercury Seven being stuck at this tacky, sensationalized event with people who don't care about anything other than their names, versus Yeager doing what he loves out in the middle of nowhere, still pushing the envelope despite having never made the cut for the astronaut corps. Gordo Cooper tries to say this very thing before getting cut off by a reporter.
The contrast is more telling when you take into account that in reality, the luncheon and Yeager's flight occurred some time apart, not simultaneously.
She was not entirely naked. In one of the shots where you see her from the side, you can see that she is wearing panties.
shareThis was a fan dance, not a strip show. Fan Dancing was considered by some as "art". Therefore scene was in a nice theater with wives present.
shareIt's from the book of the same name by Tom Wolfe. In the book it's treated a little differently:
The band struck up "Sugar Blues"... much raunchy high-hatting of the trumpets... Oh, owwwwwwwwwwahwahwah... and out into the spotlight pranced an ancient woman with yellow hair and a white mask of a face... Her flesh looked like the meat of a casaba melon in the winter... She carried some enormous plumed fans... She began her famous striptease act... Sally Rand!... who had been an aging but still famous stripper when the seven brave lads were in their teens, during the Depression... Oh-owwwwwwwww wahwahwah... and she winked and minced about and took off a little here and covered up a little there and shook her ancient haunches at the seven single-combat warriors. It was electrifying. It was quite beyond sex, show business, and either the sins or rigors of the flesh. It was two o'clock in the afternoon on the Fourth of July, and the cows burned on, and the whiskey roared goddamned glad to see you and the Venus de Houston shook her fanny in an utterly baffling blessing over it all.share
Dear christ that's horrifying. Gotta admit he's good with words though.
shareHe's amazing with words. I'm so recommending the book, even on audio. It's long, but it's grand. It spurred me to spend a good year reading all the books about the Mercury astronauts. Yeager's is really good.
Does anyone recall the terrycloth 70's, when the White house was very casual? There was a stage like that in the 60's too, and the movie depicts that, warts and all. Like "A Face in the Crowd", sometimes the country goes through a Just Plain Folks stage, and it's just awful.
I was very young at the time, and lived through one of these paper plate soirees. All I can remember is that I thought it was a bar picnic, but later found out there was a DEM bigwig there. All I remember of him was people telling me to give the man my dollar, while they wanted to take a picture of it.
I'm not saying who it was, for believe me, he doesn't need the cannon fodder of taking a dollar from a little kid.
Can someone clear this up? I didn't get it at all, what was the point of that entire scene anyway? Why was there a night out to see a stripper injected into a story about American astronauts and the nascent space program of the 1960's? And they had their wives with them, too? WTF?
She wasn't a stripper, she was a fan dancer.
shareSally Rand was a very famous "fan dancer". Now you know why she was called a fan dancer. She was not a stripper. This is the kind of entertainment that Johnson would have enjoyed, not exactly family entertainment but, as you saw, was quite tastefully done. The rapt attention of each guest in the massive barn, created the great silence and the astronauts were able, for a moment, to enjoy the perks of their fortune.
shareThe scene with the feather dancer was in the film because it truly actually happened. The astronauts themselves were looking at each other and going, WTF? In real life. It was one moment there their own 'celebrity' and role as something of a pop culture oddity hit them. They had to play the good role as 'pop stars' and cultural icons, even though they were really pilots at heart. This scenario was to show how human they were, because they were actually a little embarrassed by it all and the feather dancer was just a symbol of just how bizarre the media circus and publicity tours got. :D
Hope this helps.
Dr. Kila Marr was right. Kill the Crystalline Entity.share
No, use the pause button and go frame by frame, you can see the body stocking on her lower half & pasties over her nips.
shareWhen Sally Rand performed a fan dance at the 1934 Chicago World's Fair, she was charged with public indecency. But no witness at her trial could say for sure whether she was actually naked behind the fans. When she got up to testify, she would only say, "the Rand s quicker than the eye." She was acquitted.
shareEven in the 1960s fan dancing was still considered a very very risque activity and I consider it extremely doubtful fan dancers were ever engaged for any 'official' government celebration such as that depicted in TRS.
When Marilyn Monroe appeared at Madison Square Garden and did her sexy-voice singing of 'Happy Birthday' to JFK in 1962, it was considered just about the most scandalous thing the nation had ever seen, and Monroe was not naked or anything close to it, she was just wearing a tight slinky dress. Some major Hollywood actress would have to appear fully nude at the White House performing simulated sex on Obama to generate the same kind of reaction today MM produced in 1962.
================
4) You ever seen Superman $#$# his pants? Case closed.
It appears this actually did happen in reality (?!), though the middle-aged Sally Rand didn't look as good at that time as Peggy Davis did in the movie.
No blah, blah, blah!
It's been a while since I read the book or saw the movie, but I think the big party was given by the Houston Chamber of Commerce or something similar. The contrast was to show that the Mercury 7 were getting all the goodies and they hadn't even been up yet, while Yeager was doing the "real work" in the desert with nothing. The fan dance was supposed to be jarring. It did happen, and is emphasised by Wolfe's slightly snarky view of Texas sophistication. Sally Rand was a big name earlier in the century, but she was an exotic dancer, not the entertainment for a family friendly BBQ a southern gentleman would be comfortable with. You wouldn't introduce a lady to a fan dancer, for heavens sake!
shareYou wouldn't introduce a lady to a fan dancer, for heavens sake!
The contrast was to show that the Mercury 7 were getting all the goodies and they hadn't even been up yet,
and Deke Slayton. Deke developed a heart murmur (at least the doctors heard it) that kept him DNIF (duty not to include flying) or at least off the space roster for several years. It cleared up spontaneously in time for him to fly on the Apollo - Soyuz mission.
The best diplomat I know is a fully charged phaser bank.
[deleted]
Regarding Monroe the scandalousness of her performance was in the WAY she sang happy birthday to JFK. In retrospect, because at the time the public didn't know about it, it was even more scandalous because of the fact the prez and Monroe were having an affair at the time. And Jacky was having to set next to the cad while Marilyn cooed out the lyrics--in that tight slinky dress. Hey, maybe it was Jacky that had her killed.
And being alive back then I don't remember it being all that scandalous. It;s sometimes hard for folks today to believe it but America wasn't quite as puritanical as imagined. After all Hefner's Playboy Philosophy was influencing many, the bc pill was widely used and the sexual revolution was starting to roll.
She was wearing a body stocking .. twice -- two different ones.
They shot it twice at the COW PALACE (doubled the HOUSTON ASTRODOME) in SAN FRANCISCO.
I know, I was there. I was a CASTING COORDINATOR for Extras. We had 3000 of them.
The music was DEBUSSY'S 'CLAIR D'LUNE'.. the Fan-Dancer, 'SALLY RAND', was from the SF BALLET.
I cried like a happy baby watching this. The magic of movies. Such wondrous 'moments'.
D. Augustine
[email protected]
My grandfather was a minister, and missionary to Japan in the 20's. In 1932 he came back home to America, aboard ship with his wife and five children.
Sally Rand was on the ship too, she had been promoting a movie in Japan and China — she was an entertainer, not a stripper.
So my grandpa met Sally Rand in the ballroom and they got into a contest to see who could kick their foot higher — he won. They became friends, and exchanged holiday cards for many years later. If she was bad news, my grandmother would not have stood for it.
Gypsy Rose Lee had that sort of reputation, but I'll bet if you search around you'll find naked pictures of Donna Reed (for example), and neither of these strippers. It is called strip TEASE for a reason.
"I'll bet if you search around you'll find naked pictures of Donna Reed (for example), and neither of these strippers."
I liked her a lot when she was naked in the bushes in It's a Wonderful Life. I think she gave George Bailey a woody.
Alas, no ... I was there ... I was a Casting Coordinator for Extras on 'THE RIGHT STUFF.'
The 'HOUSTON BBQ SCENE' was shot at the COW PALACE in Brisbane, CA (think San Francisco) ...
The dancer playing 'SALLY RAND' was PEGGY DAVIS of the San Francisco Ballet.
They shot her scene twice over 2 days -- both days she was wearing a flesh colored series of glued-down 'patches' --
The music was CLARE DE LUNE ... and I gotta say, watching that scene -- from afar and up close with the 'Mercury Astronauts' taking it all in, was one of the best times, best learning experiences of my life & career.
There was magic in the air and I got to share it with 5000 extras and a crew of nearly 200. Phil Kaufman, the director -- and Caleb Deschanel, the cinematographer, certainly had 'the right stuff' as they captured the swirling feathers & lithe figure of 'Sally Rand' ...
I was truly fortunate to be a part of it. In a way, it was part of the 'University of Hollywood' / 'Film-School' I went to by just being there.
D.A.
I've always thought the scene represented how the astronauts and Yeager flirted with death as Sally flirted the audience with the fans-especially how it is intercut with Yeagers' flight where he crashes.
shareNow THAT is a much deeper meaning that even a dolt like me finds myself going , 'Hmmmm.'
SIDE NOTE: The scene of Yeager falling was obviously a stuntman. They shot the scene over many different jumps. It was an aerial dive team 2nd unit.
On the last skydive, the stuntman waved off the 'support team' also falling at terminal velocity ... and he disappeared into a cloud.
That is the last he was ever seen alive.
Some on the production way back when felt he chose to not pull the rip-cord and thus not open the chute ... and in less than 30 seconds, he met the forevers.
D.A.
As someone who belives the space program was mostly showbusiness, I belive this scene represented that this was all show and nothing underneath. Like the fairytale The emperor's new clothes. At the end of the scene the looks they axchange are of guilt, realizing what frauds they are. Just my two cents.
shareSo was it 5000 extras or 3000?
shareSally Rand wore nothing under the feathers:
https://encrypted-tbn1.gstatic.com/licensed-image?q=tbn:ANd9GcSyRGIytomA2HP2GYknBLOR6Z4iI1hItg1UF4Hw7rYfd3lXTaLqFhkEVjS-yv0nb7OGF6WwdDf3IHUTz1Y
Whether or not the dancer portraying her in the movie was the same way, I don't know.