she is wearing Cornish Pasties?

Get ready for the 4K restoration coming soon on blu-ray. Then we all can get a better look. LOL.

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Yeah, I also can't recall seeing this scene. I must watch it again.
Hey there, Johnny Boy, I hope you fry!

I didn't assume they were prostitutes, just women who dance with a guy for a song for change. But since everyone is broke, no one is in the bar, especially that particular dive.
Still, $$$ gets you whatever.

I've always thought that as well.
What hasn't been mentioned in this thread is, that after the scene of the stripper dancing, there is a short cut to the bar where four young-ish women are all looking in the same direction as Holly Martins. I'd always assumed they were prostitutes but they aren't dressed flashy or trampy like movie prostitutes are shown today. My thought was that these were "normal" women who had fallen to desperate circumstances.

I think that is probably to highlight the plight of the average post-war Viennese.
People of good standing reduced to the irreducible.

Agree much on what you wrote. Well said.
It is strange.. The music is cheap but the dancer is young and nice and the whores at the bar are NOT cheap looking.

I was thinking of posting something about the music in that scene. As far as I can tell, it's the only piece - apart from the Baron's violin - which is not played on the zither.
I have always found that music laughably incongruous. It isn't even sympathetic to the dancer's movements. It sort of reminds me of something from a Laurel and Hardy gag. I think it's there because it sound cheap. Martins is feeling low and he's turning to the lower side of life for a while - getting drunk and hanging around in cheap bars.

That scene with the young stripper haunts from the very 1st time i saw it The cheap muted trumpet, the quietness.. but this is an apparantly sweet young girl doing a muted non-erotic strip dance that the war had reduced people to realities of life ??.. But I'm hypnotized every time i see it..
And that's just one of a dozen scenes that can freeze my thinking..

Me too. My first thought was "Wow, that's a lot of skin for a 40s film." Too bad it was a long shot. They appeared very supple from a distance.

Not even a blip on the radar today, but I saw it, my jaw dropped, and I said "1949? Really?!" She had a nice bounce to her, as well.

Yes, I remember that scene, Zip.
Schrodinger's cat walks into a bar, and / or doesn't.

It was always my impression that the music in the bar scene was purposely cheap but recently I found out the song was very popular at the time: Managua, Nicaragua, was the name and the record by Edmondo Ros sounds just like the movie.

In the trivia section, it's stated that the American released version by Selznick had 11 minutes cut out of it, as well as a different narrator at the beginning. It's probably a pretty safe bet that the whole stripper/bar scene never played in Peoria.
It really was a somewhat pointless scene, so losing it wouldn't have really changed the story. All we really learned from it was where Holly got the flowers for Anna when he went to see herbut he could have got them anywhere.

At the second scene set in the Cafe when Martins is getting drunk after finding out what Lime had done, a character walks from the rear of the cafe towards him and the dancer can be seen dancing and twirling behind him.
I have to say I was quite surprised this got through both UK and American censors (maybe it didn't?) She is wearing a long harem style skirt and seems to have generously sized pasties - it's possible she has a sheer body suit (the monochrome film quality and depth of field limitations make this impossible to tell for sure)but it sure gets your attention!
Come on lads, bags of swank!