Carol Doda Topless At The Condor

Film Review

     I knew Carol Doda. Later in her life when she ran a lingerie boutique store (Champagne and Lace) off Union Street down an ally to a quaint garden-type shack, I dropped by to meet her one afternoon and thankfully she was a fan of mine from the TV news show I appeared on: Mornings on Two.

My first exposure to her was the station I.D.s she’d make for the UHF Channel 36. “You’re watching the PERFECT thirty-six” she would seductively say in body profile (a more accurate channel would have been forty-four). I would see every week The Condor sign in the opening credits of the Streets of San Francisco with the nipples that lit up and flashed in red. She was also briefly seen in DIRTY HARRY on the famous piano.

We’d occasionally meet for lunch a couple of doors down from her store where she knew the owner and around Valentine’s Day I came up with a gift idea segment just so I could put her on camera and get her store some promotion.

So when I found CAROL DODA TOPLESS AT THE CONDOR  streaming I was excited and already in a nostalgic mood having seen the Reggie Jackson documentary: REGGIE,  the day before where my ten year old self was awaken by old grainy color footage of the 1968 Oakland A’s and the memories of getting to the park early with my mother who ran the centerfield concession stand (Stand 18). I would do my homework sitting on the wooden bleachers before the A’s took batting practice. Once, Dick Green hit a long home run and I didn’t quite see where the ball landed. As I went from row to row, the hitting coach would gesture from the outfield helping me locate it. I finally did and waved a thank you. He waived back. The hitting coach was Joe DiMaggio.

Nostalgia is an unusual feeling. It’s sad and comforting at the same time. The Greek meaning is  “…a pain from an old wound.” It’s a twinge in your heart far more powerful than memory alone (Thank you, Don Draper).

I sharpened my knife and fork and ate this film up. Not only does it tell Carol’s story, it tells of the troubled 60s with footage I didn’t know existed reminding us of how far we haven’t come (similar in that way to REGGIE).

Just to hear Carol speak again was enough for me because that woman was funny. Pretty much everything she says in the doc is quotable and entertaining.

Reporter: Was it tough finding a topless dancer when topless first started here in North Beach?

Carol: It was tough but now it’s like…the deer are in season.”

Reporter: Carol what makes you go?

Carol: Vitamins and insecurity.

All the nudity in this film reminded me of passing a Drive-In theater in Union City where you could see the screen from the highway, “Eyes Forward!” my Aunt Alice would yell.

Having never seen footage of Carol dancing before I was transfixed. I only knew her from her shop. I wanted to step into a portal and be whisked to the Condor where I would sit in the front row, suit and tie, drinking a vodka gimlet and smoking a Lucky Strike. When that piano was lowered and she shook her ass then turned around with the very first topless bikini, the captured moment still had power. Seeing the photo of the throngs of spectators that filled the streets of North Beach you can only conclude that Carol Doda put North Beach and San Francisco on the map. My favorite celebrity that stopped by to check it all out was Liberace who said, “What a coincidence, we both use Baldwins.”

Legitimately, there are some jaw dropping information that I won’t reveal although I’m champing at the bit. My friend Rosie will tell you about the willpower she has to have not to hang up on me when she knows I’m about to spoil some surprise in a movie. (“Mark!”).   

This 1h 40m love letter to Carol lives up to the poster tag line, “Every City has a history. San Francisco has a legend.”

It’s all there: the trials, the protests, the raids, Vietnam, the topless shoeshine. I personally can’t get enough clips of bombastic lawyer Melvin Belli (“Mark!).

I’m happy to say Carol told me some things over tea that were not in the documentary like dating Oakland Raider Hall of Famer,  Fred Biletnikoff.

“We’d be in bed and he’d hear the garbage men outside and he’d leave me and go talk with them on the street!”

She spoke of her breasts and that at one time she had three. “One small one right in the center.”

The footage of her in her later years when I knew her was when the twinge in my heart activated. I remember that version of Carol the most. A little slower but always ready to have a laugh. I had this silly little device I got at a gift show, a tiny microphone where you could record a thought for 10 seconds. I turned it on for Carol and she seductively said, “I watch Mornings on Two. Do you?”

Carol Doda belongs in the same conversation with Jane Mansfield, Mamie Van Doren, Blaze Star, and Gloria Steinem. I’m glad this film was made. I knew Carol Doda.