editor-19
This film is the famous "Candid Camera" television show in a feature format, and much more Risqu'e that could have been broadcast. But beyond the amusing laughs of Alan Funt's situations lies a surprising glimpse into the uncensored attitudes of American culture in the midst of social upheaval. Prevailing sexual and racial attitudes are both surprising and tantalizing. Taboo subjects are tackled in an unflinching way, without comment by the filmmakers - leaving you an unobstructed view on our past culture.Andy Somers
bensonj
How often does one remember only a few brief scenes from a film and find on re-viewing years later that it was only those few moments that are worth remembering? NAKED LADY, one might think, being a film of individual moments, could well be such a film. Happily, this is not the case. (Only the little kids on the lawn and the extended reprise of faces and "smile" moments at the end seemed at all tacky.) The passing years have only added to the film's value, for it turns out to be a revealing portrait of changing attitudes to sex in the late sixties, when people of all ages with open minds were receptive to new ways of thinking about sex. The film has an innocence and a hopefulness, a simple charm that we've all lost today for many reasons. It's Funt's film all the way, of course, and it's his masterpiece! His personality dominates the film; his voice constantly heard, challenging his subjects to say what they think and to think about what they say. The naked ladies in unusual places are there to sell the film, to provide entertainment value, but people are what endlessly fascinates Funt. He really likes people, and he loves to talk to them. The core scenes are all talking heads; the co-eds talking about guys on the dorm, the young people and their parents talking about sex, the woman who "prostitutes" for free because she likes it, his interview with a prospective model, even the "man in the street" comments about "how birds do it." It's no accident that the film is interracial, because Funt's belief is that you can't judge a person by their looks. Sometimes people are true to type, but just as often they're not. An IMDb viewer says that, based on his recollection, the current version differs from the original release. I wouldn't have remembered the changes he mentions, but my own recollection suggests an excision of a character in the greatest sequence in the film in which Funt, as a bus ticket clerk, feels people out on their feelings about an interracial couple. I recall clearly that there was a young, long-haired hippie type who was very outspoken against the couple, who was contrasted with the older man who says, "what's the difference, it's a big world," and prefers love to war profiteering. I did misremember that great line of the passing English bicycler at the beginning which I recalled as, "What you got there, Charlie?" when it's actually, "Charlie, how'd you get caught with that one?" But I can't see how I made up the young long-haired hippie; I'm certain he was there in the original release. The comments of the older man whose son married a Mexican girl, his difficulty in accepting the marriage so touchingly mixed with his pride in his grandchildren, again brought a lump to my throat. Moments like this must have been what Funt lived for. In his earlier days, going way back to "Candid Microphone" before TV, the emphasis was always on human interaction. (I remember, for example, a theatrical short where Funt, as a travel agent, insisted, with total courtesy and friendliness, on selling a customer a fancy vacation when they wanted something plain and simple.) The TV show had moved away from that to sight gags like cars splitting in half. This film was Funt's attempt to return to his roots. It's a very serious film by a very serious filmmaker, Funt challenging his audience to examine their own feelings and beliefs, and gently urging tolerance for the infinite variety of mankind. It's a far better, more enduring film, in fact, than some of the documentary "classics" (GREY GARDENS, for example) that were made in the same era.
David Edward Martin
This is one of those films where you come expecting titillation and end up getting educated. As mentioned in the other post, people are set up in situations where they unexpectedly encounter nudity-- elevators, classrooms, roadside, etcetera. Then Funt discovers an interesting thing, that when people ARE expecting nudity, in an art class or museum gallery, when the rules change people get flustered. In the art class, for example, the women who were calmly drawing the male nude seem unable to have a conversation with him when he talks to them.There is an unexpected section of the film, one that Funt admits in the film even surprised him. It is a frank discussion with a call girl, Funt and the woman sitting by a hotel pool talking about prostitution. Funt was posing as a client; the woman is surprising and refreshing in her candor.People may wonder why the film was rated X. At the time the Film Ratings board had a firm rule that if penises were shown, the film was given a X rating.
