Carnival Girl - Beacon, 1959

This is a much better carny stripper tale. It’s essentially the same as Carnival Honey: Rhonda has a father who runs a carnival but never wanted her to be a part of it. He has a heart attack and dies, leaving her with bills and a failing carnival that can only make real money from the stripper show.

Rhonda gets her car repossessed and her house might go to. She has a teaching degree but can’t get a job.  With $50 to her name, she joins her father’s carnival first to take care of the books, then to dance in the girly show, learning the sleazy ropes.

She sleeps with one man and then one of the dancers, learning lesbian love, while her former boyfriend chases after her to marry him and forget the carny life.

Not bad.  On the Hitt Scale, a 7.5.