There is also a lot of backstage action not directly related to the evolving murder mystery but highlighting the characters and lifestyles of the performers and crew.

At a New York City burlesque theatre, performer Dixie Daisy (the stage name of Deborah Hoople) is becoming an audience favorite with her singing and striptease act.

A few nights later, another performer, Lolita LaVerne, is found strangled with a g-string after a violent argument with her boyfriend, gangster Louie Grindero.

When Biff and Daisy are on stage for a comedy skit, the body of another rival, Princess Nirvena, falls out of a prop; she has also been strangled with a g-string.

Biff fills in additional information, having discovered that Stacchi was actually Lolita's grandfather, driven to an insane hatred of burlesque performers.

When reviewing the film script, which still carried Gypsy Rose Lee's original title, Joseph Breen, head of the Production Code Administration, the movie industry's self-censorship board, commented, "We are concerned about the prominent use of the object known as the 'G-String' as the murder weapon.