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‘Carol Doda Topless at the Condor’ Review: The Cheeky Story of a North Beach Icon Who Broke Taboos
‘Carol Doda Topless at The Condor’ tells the story of a San Franscisco cocktail waitress who was the first woman to dance fully topless.
Even so, co-directors Marlo McKenzie and Jonathan Parker offer an absolute treasure trove of vintage film footage shot in, around and about San Francisco’s North Beach as they chronicle the parallel lines of her career and the cultural sea change that it precipitated. Though some of film’s historical experts suggest that the cocktail waitress and dancer was consciously subverting cultural norms, McKenzie and Parker rely on period interviews with individuals who lived and worked in the area, and Doda herself, for the real story: She was given designer Rudi Gernreich’s topless swimsuit by Condor publicist “Big” Davy Rosenberg and asked to wear it while doing her usual dance routine, and the rest is history. She exploited male desire for financial success while also, through supporting cosmetic augmentation, giving birth to an industry, and a perspective, that encourages women to scrutinize their perceived flaws — or inadequacies in comparison to a prevailing physical ideal.
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