Word: klawing
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...Klaw's patrons had more elaborate ideas. Irving was happy to oblige; and Bettie, happy or not, obliged too. By modern standards, the results were mild. In films with explicitly descriptive catalog titles (Hobbled in Kid Leather Harness), a woman will be tied up, or ball-gagged, or put in the trunk of a car. This time, Bettie shared the screen with another woman, usually Roz Greenwood - the star couldn't put herself in bondage. But the performers never got hurt; at times you'll catch them giggling at the indignities they were asked to portray. If there's kink...
...Shot in the '50s, these movies seem to come from a much earlier decade: They have the feel of the first Edison documentaries, when the camera recorded ordinary events with ethnographic avidity. In most of the extant Klaw movies, all Bettie does is dance...
...Klaw's misfortune that the FBI and the Post Office thought just that. They hounded him until he decided to burn the negatives of his films. Irving died in 1966, at 55. Paula, deputized to do the incineration, wisely saved some of Bettie's films from the flames, and gave her star a legacy...
...heaven knows, the moves. She did appear in three filmed burlesque shows: Striporama (1953), Varietease (1954) and Teaserama (1955). But for Bettie and her fans, a public exhibition couldn't compete with a private audience. As mail-order products for an audience of one-at-a-time, the Klaw films - which Irving produced and Paula, usually, directed - helped Bettie create an intimacy with the solo spectator...
...Bettie was a marvel, shaking her tush in those Klaw non-music videos. (Astonishingly, there was no music in the downtown lofts that made do as her movie sets; whatever she danced to was in her head.) But Irving had other aspirations than being the Busby Berkeley of schmutz. A businessman above all, he needed to please his clientele. Some wanted to see Bettie don leather frocks. That was fine with Klaw. He was open to suggestions, so long as there was no nudity; Irving thought that would keep him safe from the feds. And though Bettie posed nude...