MOVIE REVIEW : ‘STRIPPED TO KILL’ HAS SOME MEAT ON ITS BONES

“Stripped to Kill” (citywide) is a gritty little exploitation picture in the best Roger Corman tradition. This means that it fulfills its sex and violence quota--actually, it’s fairly tame in these departments--but also has some style and substance as well.

Kay Lenz stars as an L.A. cop whose spunkiness allows her partner (Greg Evigan) to con her into working as a stripper in an attempt to track down the unknown killer of one of the young women who perform at the Rock Bottom Club (run by a no-nonsense Norman Fell).

Actress-turned-director Kate Shea Ruben and her producer-co-writer husband Andy Ruben, a veteran TV writer, are more interested in what the strippers are like as people and how their work affects Lenz than in unraveling the murder mystery for its own sake. Lenz discovers that the power she exerts over men while performing is addictive, and when Evigan blames her stripping on lousing up their budding romance, she counters that the newly found power she is enjoying is no different from the charge he gets throwing his weight around as a cop.

Thoughts such as these rarely pop up in low-budget thrillers, and they benefit from being expressed by two well-drawn people. Lenz’s Cody and Evigan’s Heineman are attractive, ambitious types, likable in their ordinariness. Lenz has matured from the pretty teen-ager of Clint Eastwood’s “Breezy” to an elegant actress who masters Cody’s strip routines with no loss of dignity, and she and Evigan play off each other with much humor and feeling. “Hey, have you any idea of what a pair of fishnet stockings cost?,” complains Cody good-naturedly to Heineman.

Ruben does an exceptional job of turning actual strippers into actresses, which adds considerably to the film’s authenticity. The strippers come across as warm, down-to-earth types who take considerable pride in developing and perfecting their routines. (In truth, they seem more attractive and talented as dancers than one might expect to find in the movie’s seedy club.)

The Rubens are less successful in wrapping their picture up, resorting to a sub-”Psycho” twist that doesn’t connect with their commentary on stripping. Even so, “Stripped to Kill” (rated R for standard exploitation sex and violence), which has a potent neon-and-shadows atmosphere, commands respect.