For the third segment, “Mara,” Sophia Loren performs a brief but memorable striptease that was not left to instinct or star charisma alone. De Sica and Loren brought in Jacques Ruet—the very choreographer behind Paris’s famed Crazy Horse cabaret—to coach Loren on the movement and timing, lending the sequence a burlesque authenticity that a conventional film choreographer might not have supplied. The decision reflects the production's appetite for textured realism: Mara is a high-end rooftop prostitute whose dances are part of her tradecraft, and the Crazy Horse influence gave Loren's gestures an explicit theatrical pedigree. While the scene itself was relatively short, the backstage detail—an Italian film from 1963 importing Parisian cabaret technique—became part of the movie’s lore and helped fuel critics' descriptions of the film as steeped in “sensual gusto.” This bit of cross-cultural choreography shows how even small production choices could cause ripples in how European cinema portrayed sexuality during the era.
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AI concept artworkArchive Record · 1960s
Sophia Loren Trained by a Crazy Horse Choreographer for the Film's Risqué Striptease
Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow / Sophia Loren / 1960s
For the third segment, “Mara,” Sophia Loren performs a brief but memorable striptease that was not left to instinct or star charisma alone. De Sica and Loren brought in Jacques Ruet—the very choreographer behind Paris’s famed Crazy Horse cabaret—to coach Loren on the movement and timing, lending the sequence a burlesque authenticity that a conventional film choreographer might not have supplied. The decision reflects the production's appetite for textured realism: Mara is a high-end rooftop prostitute whose dances are part of her tradecraft, and the Crazy Horse influence gave Loren's gestures an explicit theatrical pedigree. While the scene itself was relatively short, the backstage detail—an Italian film from 1963 importing Parisian cabaret technique—became part of the movie’s lore and helped fuel critics' descriptions of the film as steeped in “sensual gusto.” This bit of cross-cultural choreography shows how even small production choices could cause ripples in how European cinema portrayed sexuality during the era.
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