Showgirls
Showgirls is a 1995 erotic drama film directed by Paul Verhoeven, written by Joe Eszterhas, starring Elizabeth Berkley, Kyle MacLachlan, Gina Gershon, Glenn Plummer, Robert Davi, Alan Rachins, and Gina Ravera. The film focuses on an ambitious young woman hitching a ride to Las Vegas to pursue her dreams of being a professional dancer and showgirl.
Produced on a then-sizable budget of around $45 million, significant controversy and hype surrounding the amounts of sex and nudity in the film preceded its theatrical release. In the United States, it was rated NC-17 for "nudity and erotic sexuality throughout, some graphic language, and sexual violence." Showgirls was the first NC-17 film to be given a wide release in mainstream theaters. Distributor Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer dispatched several hundred staffers to theaters across North America playing Showgirls to ensure that patrons would not sneak into the theater from other films, and to make sure filmgoers were over the age of 17. Audience restriction due to the NC-17 rating, coupled with poor reviews, resulted in the film becoming a box-office bomb, grossing just $37.8 million against a budget of $45 million.
Despite a negative theatrical and critical consensus, Showgirls enjoyed success on the home video/VHS market, generating more than $100 million from video sales, allowing the film to make a profit. Since its video release, Showgirls has gone on to become one of MGM's top twenty all-time bestsellers. For its home video release, Verhoeven prepared an R-rated edition for rental outlets that could not carry NC-17 films. The R-rated edit runs about three minutes shorter, omitting some footage deemed to be more graphic. This version was later also available on television networks, such as HBO and In Demand.
Showgirls was universally panned upon its cinematic release, and is still consistently ranked as one of the worst films of all time. In the 21st century, it has come to be regarded as a cult film, with a dedicated fanbase; Showgirls has also been subject to critical re-evaluation, with some notable directors and critics considering it a serious satire worthy of praise.
Plot
Young drifter Nomi Malone hitchhikes to Las Vegas, where she aspires to make it as a showgirl. After being robbed by a man who picked her up, Nomi meets Molly Abrams, a young professional in the Las Vegas entertainment industry; Molly ultimately takes Nomi in as a roommate. To make ends meet, Nomi begins poledancing and stripping at Cheetah's Gentleman's Club, run by Al Torres. Molly invites Nomi to visit her at work, backstage at the Stardust Resort and Casino, where she is a seamstress and costume designer for Goddess, the Stardust's traditional Vegas-style, topless dance revue. While there, Nomi meets Cristal Connors, the lead female of the Goddess cast. While making small talk, Nomi mentions to Cristal that she dances at Cheetah's; upon hearing this, Cristal derisively tells Nomi that what she does is akin to "prostitution". Upset, Nomi refuses to go to work at Cheetah's that night; she and Molly go dancing at the Crave Club. Nomi then starts a fight with James Smith, a bouncer at Crave, and is subsequently arrested. Later, she pays James little mind when he bails her out of jail.Cristal and her boyfriend, Zack Carey, visit Cheetah's to see what Nomi does, with the two requesting a lap dance from her. Although the bisexual Cristal is attracted to her, the lap dance request is based more on a desire to humiliate Nomi, by insinuating that she truly does engage in a form of prostitution. Reluctantly, after Cristal offers her $500, Nomi performs the requested lap dance. James, the bouncer at Crave, and who happens to be at Cheetah's that night, gets a peek at Nomi's lap dance; the next day, he visits Nomi's trailer, suggesting, yet again, that what she is doing is no different than prostitution. James choreographs a new dance routine for Nomi, but then wants to have sex with her in exchange; when Nomi refuses, James gives the role to Pennya former co-worker of Nomi's.
Later, Cristal arranges for Nomi to audition for the chorus line of Goddess. Tony Moss, the show's director, humiliates Nomi, asking her to rub ice cubes on her nipples to harden them for the topless audition. Furious, Nomi abruptly leaves the audition after scattering ice everywhere, in a fit. Despite her audition, Nomi gets the job and subsequently quits Cheetah's. Cristal then further humiliates Nomi, suggesting that she should make a 'goodwill appearance' at a boat 'trade show', which turns out to be a thinly-disguised prostitution/sex trafficking set-up. The chance to be Cristal's understudy comes up after she hurts herself. Undeterred, Nomi sets out for revenge against Cristal by claiming her role in Goddess. She seduces Cristal's boyfriend, Zack, who then secures an audition for Nomi to be Cristal's understudy. Nomi wins the role, but when Cristal threatens legal action against the Stardust, the offer is rescinded. After Cristal taunts her even more, Nomi snaps, and pushes Cristal down a flight of stairs, causing her to break her hip. Only after the injury is Cristal officially replaced by Nomi as the show's lead. Despite having finally secured the fame she sought, Nomi is disillusioned. She further alienates her roommate and friend Molly, who realizes Nomi caused the hip injury.
Molly later relents, attending Nomi's opening-night celebration at a lavish hotel, where she meets her idol, musician Andrew Carver. Carver lures her to a room, where he brutally beats her before he and his two security-guard friends proceed to gang-rape her to the point of hospitalization. Nomi finds out and immediately wants to call the police. Zack explains that the Stardust will bribe Molly with hush money to protect Carver, before then explaining about Nomi's 'sordid' past: Zack discovered that "Nomi" was born Polly Ann Costello in San Francisco, from which she ran-away at age 15 to work as a prostitute after her parents' murder–suicide in 1989. After escaping from a foster home in nearby Oakland, California, the following year, Polly changed her name several times. She was also, Zack says, arrested several times, in several states, for various crimes ranging from drug possession and exchanging sex for money to assault with a deadly weapon. Zack blackmails Polly, vowing to conceal her past as long as she agrees to not report the rape and assault.
Unable to obtain justice for Molly without exposing her own dubious past, Nomi decides to take matters into her own hands. After brutally attacking Carver alone in his hotel room, Nomi then makes two hospital visits: the first being to inform a semi-conscious, but recovering, Molly that Carver's actions did not go unpunished, and the second, to Cristal, apologizing for pushing her down the stairs and injuring her. As Cristal was not pressing charges against Nomi, and her lawyers had secured her a large cash settlement, she forgives Nomi. Cristal admits that she attempted a similar stunt, years earlier; they exchange a reconciliatory, slightly romantic kiss. Nomi leaves Las Vegas and hitches a ride to Los Angeles, coincidentally with the same man who previously robbed her on her way to Vegas; she subsequently holds him at knifepoint demanding the return of her suitcase.
Cast
Production
Writing
Joe Eszterhas came up with the idea for Showgirls while on vacation at his home in Maui, Hawaii. During lunch in Beverly Hills, Paul Verhoeven told Eszterhas that he had always loved "big MGM musicals", and wanted to make one; Eszterhas suggested the setting of Las Vegas. Based on the idea he scribbled on a napkin, Eszterhas was advanced $2 million to write the script and picked up an additional $1.7 million when the studio produced it into a film. This, along with the scripts for both Verhoeven's previous film Basic Instinct and Sliver, made Eszterhas the highest-paid screenwriter in Hollywood history. Because of conflicts with the MPAA over the rating of Basic Instinct, which he made cuts to in order to secure an R rating, Verhoeven planned for Showgirls to be rated NC-17. Verhoeven deferred 70% of his $6 million director's fee depending on if the film turned a profit.At the time the script deal was announced, Eszterhas was quoted as saying the story for the film "begins in the world of erotic dancers, lap dancers, table dancers, strippers and sleaze. It moves into the world of big hotel showgirls, billboards and glamor. It examines the sleaze and glamor and asks the audience at the end to make its own moral conclusions."
Eszterhas completed the script in the later half of 1993. He later said, "I wrote Showgirls at the single most turbulent moment of my life," referring to the dissolution of his first marriage. "The stuff I've done since then has more warmth, more humor, is more upbeat."
Eszterhas and Verhoeven interviewed over 200 Las Vegas strippers and incorporated parts of their stories into the screenplay to show the amount of exploitation of strippers in Vegas.
Prince was reported to be writing songs for the film.
Casting
Before Elizabeth Berkley was cast as Nomi Malone, a long list of actresses were considered for the role, including Pamela Anderson, Drew Barrymore, Angelina Jolie, Vanessa Marcil, Jenny McCarthy, Denise Richards, Jennifer Lopez, and Charlize Theron. On the role of Nomi, Verhoeven said, "One of the main concerns, next to acting, was the dancing and nudity – both of those elements being extreme. The actress would have to be able to dance. And she also had to be willing to show full-frontal throughout the film. These elements, especially the nudity, are extremely difficult for American actresses to accept. And Elizabeth Berkley was the only actress that combined all three."Madonna and Sharon Stone were considered for the part of Cristal Connors before Gina Gershon was cast.
Kyle MacLachlan said Dylan McDermott was the first choice for the character of Zack Carey, but he declined and MacLachlan was then cast. MacLachlan recalled: "That was a decision that was sort of a tough one to make, but I was enchanted with Paul Verhoeven. Particularly RoboCop, which I loved... It was Verhoeven and Eszterhas, and it seemed like it was going to be kind of dark and edgy and disturbing and real."