Pole Positions: Stripper Detectives!

Kathy O'Connor
Created by Harold Joyce

Live! Naked! Detecting!

Okay, KATHY O'CONNOR's not a private eye or even a cop. She's just another small-time showgirl (aren't they all?) who poses as a stripper to investigate her father's murder. It seems the owner of the nightclub where she works is somehow involved. Meanwhile, she has to choose between two men with the hots for her. And all this without showing any more flesh than you'd see in a beer commercial...

Finally released in 1941 as The Sunset Murder Case, the film starred Sally Rand, the notorious fan dancerd, which was reason enough to make various censor boards nervous. They also objected to the original title, "The Sunset Strip Case," because of the obvious double-entendre. Boston and several other cities promptly banned the film, and the film was tied up in law suits for until 1941, when it was finally under the title of "The Sunset Murder Case."

FILM

• THE SUNSET MURDER CASE
  AKA "High Explosive" and "The Sunset Strip Case"
  (1938, Grand National)
  59 minutes, black & white
  Story by Harold Joyce
  Screenplay by Paul Franklin, Arthur Hoerl
  Additional dialogue by Lawrence Meade
  Directed by Louis J. Gasnier
  Produced by George A. Hirliman
  Associate producer: Sam Coslow
  Supervising producer: Samuel Diege
  Starring Sally Rand as KATHY O'CONNOR
  Also starring Esther Muir, Vince Barnett, Paul Sutton, Lona Andre, Mary Brodel, George Douglas, Reed Hadley, Kathryn Kane, Dennis Moore, Frank O'Connor, Stanley Price, Henry King, Bruce Mitchell