Showgirls

Paul Verhoeven wants to set the record straight. When he traveled to Las Vegas and paid a buck-naked woman to writhe in his lap, it wasn't for fun. It was work--research for Showgrils, his upcoming movie about Vegas strippers. "It was not a strong sexual experience for me," the director insists. "I went in like a researcher, looking in an extremely clinical way." Showgirls screenwriter Joe Eszterhas, who accompanied Verhoeven on his fact-finding mission, begs to differ: "I saw Paul's face when he came out of that room after 20 or 30 minutes," he says. "There was nothing clinical about his smile."

Nor is there anything clinical about Showgirls, a sizzling, salacious musical (text concluded on page 158)Showgirls(continued from page 73) drama about naked ambition in the world of Las Vegas dancers. Created by Eszterhas (his first hit was Flashdance) and Verhoeven--the agents provocateurs behind Basic Instinct--the movie promises to deliver sex, spectacle and steam. The story is a kind of All About Eve with G-strings. An aspiring young stripper named Nomi Malone--played by Elizabeth Berkley in her feature-film debut--wants to star in one of the topless revues on the Strip. Standing in her way, with no intention of stepping aside, is a veteran dancer named Cristal (Gina Gershon).

The idea of a musical set in Las Vegas appealed to Verhoeven's visual sense. "There is a certain extravagance in Vegas, and to use that in the color, the costumes and the sets fascinated me." Then again, he says, "to shoot naked women in an interesting way is also something I really like."

Audiences may have trouble breathing after seeing the dance sequences in Showgirls. Set to throbbing music by Dave Stewart (formerly of the Eurythmics), David Bowie and Prince, each of these scenes is a blur of smoke, flames, black leather and bare bodies. Picture Dante's Inferno with choreography and costumes by the Marquis de Sade.

And that's why Showgirls is certain to attract the attention of Senator Robert Dole, the Reverend Donald Wildmon and their ilk. Eszterhas was quoted as saying that, upon the movie's release, Wildmon "will probably have a stroke. And I hope he does." Besides acres of naked flesh, there are biracial and bisexual love affairs and a swimming-pool sex scene between Berkley and Kyle Mac-Lachlan that should send chlorine sales through the roof.

These scenes will remain intact. "We refused to sell it to any studio that would not agree to an NC-17 rating," says Verhoeven, who is bitter over the "eight or nine times" he was forced to cut Basic Instinct. "Sexuality is one of the essential elements of life," he explains. "I'm a big supporter of sex--of accepting sex and of using sex to express yourself."

Eszterhas agrees. "What they can't deny," he says about Senator Dole and his pals, "is that there's a huge market in this country for this kind of picture. If Basic Instinct can be the hit that it was, then I think it's the obligation of a democratic society to make available other films like it. These are adult movies, rated R or NC-17, and it simply would be wrong and censorious of society to say, 'No, we won't allow these, even though people want to see them.'"

The 22-year-old actress Elizabeth Berkley admits that she was apprehensive the first time she disrobed for the camera. "After the first take, I remember thinking, Well, it's in the can, the breasts are on film--there's no turning back now," she says. By the end of the filming, though, she was blasé about baring all. "If you play a fireman, you wear a fireman's uniform," she explains. "I was playing a stripper, so I wore four-inch heels and a G-string."

And what about the notoriety her portrayal is bound to provoke? Berkley shrugs it off. "The bottom line is, Showgirls will evoke strong reactions, good and bad," she says.

Verhoeven, Eszterhas and all others concerned hope those reactions are smiles. And not clinical smiles, either.