Bob Hope & Raquel Welch in The Bob Hope Christmas Special (1967)

This time capsule collection of footage from Bob Hope's 1967 USO tours features performances by Raquel Welch, Barbara McNair, Les Brown and his Band of Renown and a bevy of beautiful starlets. It's interesting to note that these shows are what the 1991 Bette Midler film, For The Boys were based on. Watching Hope's monologues gives you a window into the unpopular pro-war point of view of the time and seeing the boys is both heart warming and heart breaking at the same time.

This film is apparently in public domain, but is still available on DVD and can be seen in full on YouTube. The entire production is above, uploaded by thefilmarchive.

Obscurity factor: 8 (available on YouTube and DVD, well remembered in theory but not practice)

Raquel Welch in Raquel! (1970)

When it comes to outrageous representations of the zodiac, no one can beat Raquel Welch in her 1970 television special (unless it's Anthony Newley, but that's another story). Raquel! is one of those strange, pre-MTV specials that's full of what we now call music videos with Raquel singing and dancing in some of the most gravity defying outfits. Her special guests are Bob Hope, Tom Jones and John Wayne - all in all it's a very strange show.

Here's a small sample of it. Raquel sings The Age of Aquarius in the desert with dancers in some of the most amazing costumes. It's uploaded to YouTube by jmannen77. This special is available on DVD.

Obscurity factor: 8 (available on DVD, but largely forgotten)

James Coburn & Raquel Welch in The Last of Sheila (1973)

Obscurity factor: 1

One night after a party at their home, Sheila Green, wife of film producer Clinton Green is killed in a hit and run accident. A year later, the guests from the party are invited for a week on Clinton's yacht. There's the script writer (Richard Benjamin) and his wife (Joan Hackett), the agent (Dyan Cannon), the starlet (Raquel Welch) and her manager (Ian McShane) and the director (James Mason). But a gathering organized by Clinton is never just a gathering - all the guests are to play a game. They're each given cards with a secret on them and must discover each others secret without letting their own be revealed. Each night there is a trip to shore with a clue given that leads to the answer to one of the secrets. What makes the guests uneasy is that each of the secrets relates to an incident in one of the guests lives. When the game leads to murder all bets are off!

This was on TCM last night. Its obscurity is dubious in that it's notorious for being written by Anthony Perkins and Stephen Sondheim. The plot is full of extremely clever twists and turns and you must watch closely to keep up with them all, but the film is, in some ways, a bit too clever for its own good.

It's available on DVD and can be watched instantly on Amazon. The trailer for it is above, uploaded to YouTube by Nederama. The poster above is available from MoviePosterShop.com.

Obscurity factor: 1 (somewhat notorious, available on DVD)