Watch The Night They Raided Minsky's (1968) Free Online

Release Date: 1968

Cast: Forrest Tucker, Bert Lahr, Denholm Elliott, Elliott Gould, Jack Burns, Joseph Wiseman, Jason Robards, Britt Ekland, Norman Wisdom, Harry Andrews

Categories: Movies, Comedy

The Night They Raided Minsky's is a 1968 musical comedy film directed by William Friedkin and produced by Norman Lear. It is a fictional account of the invention of the striptease at Minsky's Burlesque in 1925. The film is based on the novel by Rowland Barber, published in 1960. Rachel Schpitendavel (Britt Ekland), an innocent Amish girl from rural Pennsylvania, arrives in New York's Lower East Side, hoping to make it as a dancer. Rachel's dances are based on Bible stories. She auditions at Minsky's Burlesque, but her dances are much too dull (and chaste) for the bawdy show. But then Billy... MORE

The Night They Raided Minsky's is a 1968 musical comedy film directed by William Friedkin and produced by Norman Lear. It is a fictional account of the invention of the striptease at Minsky's Burlesque in 1925. The film is based on the novel by Rowland Barber, published in 1960. Rachel Schpitendavel (Britt Ekland), an innocent Amish girl from rural Pennsylvania, arrives in New York's Lower East Side, hoping to make it as a dancer. Rachel's dances are based on Bible stories. She auditions at Minsky's Burlesque, but her dances are much too dull (and chaste) for the bawdy show. But then Billy Minsky (Elliott Gould) and the show's jaded straight man, Raymond Paine (Jason Robards), concoct a plan to foil moral crusader Vance Fowler (Denholm Elliott), who is intent on shutting down the theater. Minsky publicizes Rachel as the notorious Madamoiselle Fifi, performing the "dance that drove a million Frenchmen wild." This will invite a raid by Fowler and the police. But they will let Rachel perform her innocuous Bible dances, thus humiliating Fowler. During the run-up to her midnight performance, Raymond and his partner, Chick (Norman Wisdom), show Rachel the ropes of burlesque, and they LESS