Dynamixor The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

Benas Mcloughlin Worth seeing just to witness how winsome it is.

Brenda The plot isn't so bad, but the pace of storytelling is too slow which makes people bored. Certain moments are so obvious and unnecessary for the main plot. I would've fast-forwarded those moments if it was an online streaming. The ending looks like implying a sequel, not sure if this movie will get one

Dana An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

edwagreen Asinine film where an Amish girl comes to New York to do biblical dancing and winds up at Minsky's Burlesque instead. She is put to the test so that her bible dancing will not lead to a raid; yet, her father shows up and has it out with her causing her to literally bare all.This is a very inane production with a ridiculous plot. Unfortunately, Bert Lahr's part had to be cut as he died suddenly during the production of the film.Jason Robards tries real hard as a king-pin of burlesque, but he is no leading man and his routines are quite stale at best.Britt Ekland is that Amish girl, Elliot Gould runs the club, but is at odds with his orthodox Jewish father, Joseph Wiseman.What's really the point of this total farce?

bigverybadtom This movie is most significant in that the Cowardly Lion (Bert Lahr) had died during the making of the film, and he gave a good performance. The burlesque dances and slapstick comedy sketches were well done too. Unfortunately the movie overall was rather disappointing.For one thing, the outdoor sequences went from black and white to color, then back to black and white and to color and back. This was purposeless and annoying. Instead of setting the old-time atmosphere, it worked to spoil it. Also, the film was choppily edited, which served to make the story confusing. Third, Britt Ekland was unconvincing as a religious Amish girl-and we never see any of the Biblical dances she was supposed to be able to perform.You might enjoy the movie for the reconstructed burlesque shows, but the story behind the scenes falls flat.

dglink An affectionate look at early burlesque, "The Night They Raided Minsky's" is at once nostalgic and funny. Grainy black-and-white footage of street life on New York's Lower East Side fades into color; a dapper Bert Lahr, an authentic vaudevillian from the period, strides past pushcarts laden with produce; a chorus line of over-painted, over-ripe ladies kick their legs in unison to the applause of a motley male audience. The atmosphere reeks of authenticity and the producer's love of the subject. The script by Arnold Shulman and Norman Lear revolves around a scheme to embarrass the local morals guardian into raiding the performance of a mythical Madame Fifi, who reputedly drove a million Frenchmen wild. When Madame Fifi appears, she would be an innocent Amish girl dancing scenes from the Bible. Combine some romantic entanglements and an expiring theatrical lease, stir with lots of slapstick and corny jokes, and serve with excellent performances: presto, the recipe for a breezy entertaining movie.The lovable and endearing Norman Wisdom is the primary scene-stealer, whether mooning over a girl, doing pratfalls on stage, or trading barbs with Jason Robards. Unfortunately, many of Wisdom's scenes with Bert Lahr were cut when the Cowardly Lion died during production. If the lost footage were found, Wisdom fans would welcome its restoration as a supplement to a future DVD release. Another scene-stealer is Joseph Wiseman, who, as the elder Minsky, delivers some of the movie's best lines with pitch-perfect precision. Lovely Britt Eklund is naive perfection as the talent-less Amish girl, Denholm Elliott makes an excellent puckered prude, Harry Andrews fumes as the stern Amish father, and Elliott Gould as the younger Minsky and Forrest Tucker as a smooth gangster fill out the capable cast. Only the caddish Jason Robards seems out of place; while his comic delivery is good, his mistreatment of the likable Wisdom comes across as harsh, and he has an unconvincing character shift that has necks snapping in disbelief.William Friedkin directs with a fast pace and uses rapid-editing techniques that keep the movie moving at a good clip. The fine photography by Andrew Laszlo captures the period, and the memorable music by Charles Strouse is engaging. "The Night They Raided Minsky's" seems to have been undeservedly forgotten. If the film had been a hit and Lahr had not passed away, Norman Wisdom would have gone on to a successful career in the United States. Unfortunately, events worked against the multi-talented Wisdom and, except for his Broadway role in "Walking Happy," his major work was done in Britain, where his legacy is a national treasure. Perhaps those who appreciate Norman's comic genius in this film will locate his British films from the 1950's and 60's and discover a talent unfairly overlooked in this country.

Robert J. Maxwell This movie, honest, has something in common with the comedy interludes in many of John Ford's movies. Both describe a milieu in which no emotions, desires, or thoughts are hidden. Even the fake emotions, desires, and thoughts are very openly fake. How can you be a phony when everyone around you automatically assumes you're lying? Jason Robards, caught hiding in Britt Ekland's bedroom by her father, coolly explains how he was checking the plumbing when the wind blew the door closed. Victor McLaughlin guzzles booze and throws everyone out the door of the saloon in "She Wore a Yellow Ribbon," and when an authoritarian elderly woman demands to know if he's been drinking, he explains, "Well, I had a cold, so I just had a little nip." But the movie embodies a cultural clash which lends this comedy a darker underside: that between the flamboyantly exposed and highly charming Jewish community behind Minsky's burlesque and the stultifying Old Order Amish religious community of Smoketown, Pennsylvania. The Jewish community comes off by far the best in this portrayal, providing as it does a laugh a minute, at the expense of the Amish, who keep their clothing secured with straight pins instead of buttons. I laughed pretty much all the way through "The Night They Raided Minsky's" and don't want to be a spoilsport, but that's pretty unfair to the Amish. The Amish are one cohesive and highly principled community. Only the oppressive religious aspect is presented here -- and it exists -- but what is left out of the picture is the part that's valuable. And there must be something of value in Amish culture, right? Or it wouldn't exist. This is the story of a rebellious Amish girl who has learned how to dance stories from the Bible. She comes to the Big Apple and winds up in Minsky's, where she is deflowered by a lying, shallow Jason Robards, and humiliates her stern father (a demonically made-up Harry Andrews with eyebrows like Lawrence Talbot's) by doing bumps and grinds onstage in front of a lewd hysterical audience and finally drops her bodice. It isn't easy being Amish. They build things to last, including their society, while our stuff tends to be disposable, from diapers to spouses. You could take a sledge hammer to their furniture and not bust it up. They ride around in buggies instead of cars, they discourage their kids from formal schooling, they cover their bodies and their heads with garments, they are incredibly industrious, they don't buy insurance because they insure each other through voluntary help, they worship in plainsong, they don't use tractors although they are successful farmers, they don't seduce their women, they don't go around babbling about their feelings, they don't take photos of themselves. Yeah, a demanding life style. But I don't know why it's so easy in our culture to admire the army or the marine corps, almost as disciplined, and so easy to make fun of Old Order Amish values. Enough crabbing. I enjoyed this movie. The story is nothing much, but there are grand moments in it. Jason Robards in the deli trying to smooth talk a young woman into a roll in the hay; trying to hide the Murphy bed before Ekland's father bursts through the door, while raucous burlesque music alternates with the Halleluia chorus on the sound track. (The score deserves special mention; the lyrics are sometimes extremely amusing.) Gould ordering a rye sandwich, half pastrami, half corned beef, with mustard, pickles, and cole slaw -- no saurkraut, his stomach's been acting up. The nostalgia theme hovers constantly in the background. It's a funny movie, with the kind of lightning fast editing that was popular in the late 1960s. But I do wish the seduction of the innocent virgin, Britt Ekland, subject to what one imagines to have been seventeen minutes of rather rough road, hadn't been handled as if it were just another joke.