Out of curiosity, did Paris in the fifties really have clubs where
costumed women jumped around the stage so brainlessly? (I had always
imagined Moulin Rouge as being better than that.) Or is the "dancing" in Grisbi a parody of what was going on in the clubs?
I don't know if, in 1954, there were nude shows (like the Moulin Rouge later), but I'm sure that it was not possible to show it in a movie.
As for the poor choregraphie, we can imagine that this dancing is not a "first-class" one, it's just a place where gangsters and "bourgeois" go for not-to-expensive-entertainment. You have to hear Max speaking about the people in here as "caves" (french 50's slang for people who're not gangsters or powerful people)
The dancing in the club (which is not the Moulin ROuge) is more or less authentic, and does actually include nude dancers (with pasties). Nude dancing was commmon in French nightclubs long before the 50s, and it was certainly possible to show it in French films (France is not the US). What was new in the 50s was striptease, imported from the US and also permissible on screen.
shareAlas, Paris was like that in the Fifties. Much like Las Vegas floor shows today! Melville's films attest to that: Bob Le Flambeur, Le Deuxieme Souffle, Le Cercle Rouge, even Un Flic. Cheesy floor shows are de rigeur.
shareIt's Las Vegas style dancing, really. There is no attempt to recreate the glory days of cabaret in the late 19th century as depicted by Toulouse-Lautrec; it's American club dancing for well-heeled Parisians of the 50's.
shareBrainlessly? Maybe so. Certainly bralessly.
"facts are stupid things" - Ronald Reagan