Five minutes to Showtime!

Suddenly the curtain is flung aside, and filmmaker Augusta hands you a backstage, all-access VIP pass to The Velvet Hammer Burlesque.

Founded in 1995, by Michelle Carr, The Velvet Hammer wrote the Neo-Burlesque Bible: beautiful women of all shapes and sizes, glittering costumes, raunchy music, elaborate stage sets, magic, comedy, and unadulterated glamour!

 
Ya got that? Girls, girls, girls--legs up to there, come-hither glances, shameless displays of wanton feminine pulchritude! But wait--what’s that? —It’s the sound of these champagne-swilling, post-modern, punk rock minxes debating feminism and costume catastrophes.
 
The cast features sultry tropical princesses, identical twin French maids, go-go-gladiators, undulating belly dancers, naked Amazons bound head-to-toe with rope, not to mention over-sexed housewives and Atomic blonde bombshells using their mammaries to mix martinis!
 
 
 
 
 




Promotional Paper Dolls-has both front side and 'back' side        $5


Poster set includes 6 original 11x17 posters, plus special Comic-Con poster       $10


 

 
 
 
 

About The Documentary

For three years, filmmaker Augusta faithfully followed the troupe, from New York to Los Angeles, from New Orleans to San Francisco, documenting sold-out performances, auditions, and rehearsals. Highlights include the dancers as they transform from sweat suit-clad chorines into sequined burlesque queens, as the San Diego Vice Squad check the girls’ costumes for ‘decency’, to the luscious Kitten De Ville capturing the title of Miss Exotic World 2002 to Dirty Martini's infamous balloon dance en pointe.

From gorgeously shot live footage and candid interviews with the cast punctuated with sublime and often hilariously surreal vignettes, this film literally undresses a uniquely cultural phenomenon, the American folk art known as Burlesque, capturing the very essence of The Velvet Hammer.

Shot predominantly on a Sony DCR-PC9, The Velvet Hammer Burlesque benefited from such a small handheld camera in that Augusta was able to maintain a fly on the wall shooting style, not to mention the accessibility of being able to fit in her purse.The film also recreates vignettes that recall the hey-day of burlesque. Covering everything from penny arcade ‘flickers’ thru to backyard nudie-cuties, Augusta and D.P. Don Spiro explored several film formats to recreate these vignettes. Two vignettes used Super 8mm much like to old stag films featured on such tapes as Strip-O-Rama.

 

Buy the DD DVD--includes the film and the stag loop          $30.00

 

Music to Lose Your Knickers By
featuring the music of:
The Millionaire
Eban Schletter
Kristian Hoffman
Mr. Uncertain
$10

 

all photos for these pages: Don Sprio,
except pin-up of Augusta by Paget Brewster