We recorded it a week or so ago and watched it last night. What fun and talk about kitch!
In Upper Egypt, 1249 AD, the advisor is drugging and controlling the king. The advisor's evil army suppresses the people, and the Princess Shalimar is imprisoned in the castle - or is she? Tora the Dancer gives courage to her people, but no one knows where she lives. She swims away, up the river, through a secret entrace into the palace and the Princess's private swimming pool... One afternoon the son of the Shiek of Bagdad arrives with his friend who is killed by the evil general, who craves the Princess's hand in marriage.. Tora the Dancer witnesses the crime and accidentally stabs the son of the sheik who falls madly in love with her at first glance...
But the plot is not the star of this film. The costumes are!! Tora first appears wearing a purple satin wrap top and sheer purple chiffon skirt with high heel shoes. Later she dances - and swordfights - in the Tamborine coffee house, dressed in, well, beads (and a sheer body suit beneath). The pants are strings of gold beads, all fastened together with a huge medallion that completely covers the belly button :). The Handmaidens dress in puffy harem pants and cholis covered with golden embroidery, or bandau bras with beads or gold chains for straps. The Handmaidens and the Princess always wear a face veil in public - a sheer scrap of chiffon that drips from the tip of the nose to the base of the neck, concealing nothing. In once scene the Princess appears in a gold satin full length dress - slit to the hip over both thighs and worn with matching heels. Two pink chiffon veils drape from behind her head to her elbows to her wrists. Oh, and don't forget the sheer face veil! She wears another silver wrap top, across the front of the neck, around the shoulder under the armpits (look closely and in one scene you can see the body suit they are probably sewn to to hold them in place), across the front, across the lower back, back to the front, then formed into a wide train or half skirt over lame pantaloons. But my favorite costume was the lime green chiffon veils, lime green bra, and lime green lame pleated skirt. The skirt is fastened to a belt at the front and back, concealing that bellybutton but showing plenty of skin on the hips. Oh, and don't forget the face veil!
It's been playing on AMC but you might be able to get a copy from the library.