Taglines: Sex, seduction and betrayal.
Showgirls movie storyline. Nomi Malone, a mysterious young girl with the ambition to dance embarks on a journey to Las Vegas to become a showgirl in a high-class hotel show. There she meets Molly, a seamstress at the Stardust Hotel and the two quickly become good friends. She gets a job as a lap dancer at the seedy Cheetah Club but after a chance meeting with Cristal Connors, the star of Goddess, the current show at the hotel where Molly works, Nomi manages to secure an audition for a spot on the chorus line.
However she soon realises that fame comes with a price as her friendships, her morals and her soul are put to the test as she works her way up the ladder and eventually becomes the star of the show, stealing Cristal’s part. She begins to wonder if all of her work was for nothing and if she can reclaim her life back before it is too late.
Showgirls is a 1995 French-American erotic drama film written by Joe Eszterhas and directed by Paul Verhoeven. It stars former teen actress Elizabeth Berkley, Kyle MacLachlan, and Gina Gershon. The film centers on a “street-smart” drifter who ventures to Las Vegas and climbs the seedy hierarchy from stripper to showgirl.
Produced on a then-sizable budget of approximately $45 million, significant controversy and hype surrounding the film’s amounts of sex and nudity preceded its theatrical release. In the United States, the film was rated NC-17 for “nudity and erotic sexuality throughout, some graphic language, and sexual violence.” Showgirls was the first (and to date only) NC-17 rated film to be given a wide release in mainstream theaters.
Distributor United Artists 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 film-goers 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 with a take of less than $38 million.
About the Production
Eszterhas came up with the idea for Showgirls while on vacation at his home in Maui, Hawaii. During lunch in Beverly Hills, 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 (1992) and Sliver (1993; also an erotic thriller starring Sharon Stone), made Eszterhas the highest paid screenwriter in Hollywood history. Verhoeven deferred 70% of his $6 million director’s fee depending on if the film turned a profit.
A long list of actresses were offered the role of Nomi Malone including Pamela Anderson, Drew Barrymore, Angelina Jolie, Vanessa Marcil, Jenny McCarthy, Denise Richards, and Charlize Theron, but they all turned it down before Elizabeth Berkley, following the cancellation of Saved by the Bell, signed on to play the role. Madonna, Sharon Stone, Sean Young, Daryl Hannah, and Finola Hughes (who allegedly turned down the script because she thought it was sexist) were considered for the part of Cristal Connors before Gina Gershon became available.
Kyle MacLachlan says Dylan McDermott was the first choice for the character of Zack Carey, but he declined and MacLachlan was then cast. The actor later 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. I look back on it now and it’s a little dated, but it’s still fantastic, and I think it’s got some of the great villains of all time in there. It was Verhoeven and [Joe] Eszterhas, and it seemed like it was going to be kind of dark and edgy and disturbing and real.”
Eszterhas and Verhoeven did extensive interviews with over 200 real-life Las Vegas strippers, and incorporated parts of their stories in the screenplay to show the amount of exploitation of strippers in Vegas. Eszterhas took out a full-page advertisement in Variety in which he dubbed the film a morality tale and denounced the advertising of the film as “misguided”, also writing “The movie shows that dancers in Vegas are often victimized, humiliated, used, verbally and physically raped by the men who are at the power centers of that world.”
Since its release, the film has achieved cult status. According to writer Naomi Klein, ironic enjoyment of the film initially arose among those with the video before MGM capitalized on the idea. MGM noticed the video was performing well because “trendy twenty-somethings were throwing Showgirls irony parties, laughing sardonically at the implausibly poor screenplay and shrieking with horror at the aerobic sexual encounters”.
Showgirls (1995)
Directed by: Paul Verhoeven
Starring: Elizabeth Berkley, Kyle MacLachlan, Gina Gershon, Glenn Plummer, Robert Davi, Alan Rachins, Gina Ravera, Lin Tucci, Greg Travis, Bobbie Phillips
Screenplay by: Joe Eszterhas
Production Design by: Allan Cameron
Cinematography by: Jost Vacano
Film Editing by: Mark Goldblatt, Mark Helfrich
Costume Design by: Ellen Mirojnick
Set Decoration by: Richard C. Goddard
Art Direction by: William F. O’Brien
Music by: David A. Stewart
MPAA Rating: NC-17 for nudity and erotic sexuality throughout, and for some graphic language and sexual violence.
Distributed by: Metro Goldwyn Mayer
Release Date: September 22, 1995
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