The Adventures of Lucky Pierre (1961)
* 1/2 (out of 4)
Director Herschell Gordon Lewis and producer David F. Friedman would certainly two mavericks and they really broke the bank with this film, which was the first of its type (a nudie) to be in color. The story is pretty simple as Pierre (Billy Balbo) finds himself in various vignettes where he ends up seeing all sorts of women naked. Each segment has a title card and then we see the "action" of Pierre doing a variety of jobs (photographer, plumber and so on), which gives him the chance to see some pretty ladies naked. It's no secret but I really do prefer Gordon's "gore" films to these nudies that he made but considering I'm a fan of the man I keep trying to locate new ones to watch. This film here really caught my attention simply due to the history behind it, which was actually a lot more entertaining than the film itself. Apparently the two men were paid to create a short but then they got extra money to make it a feature. Once the film was complete it doubled its budget in just four days at one theater! Now that there is impressive business. Of course, the fact that the film was shot in color probably helped get extra people into the theater. I will at least give the film credit in regards to the cinematography, which is actually pretty good. The problem is that there's really nothing here outside the nudity. The so-called story is pretty lame and the attempts at humor often come up very short. The movie has an extremely slow-pace, which certainly doesn't help matters and it also does help that leading man Falbo is more annoying than anything else. Fans of the nudie genre will want to check this one out for the history but the rest should just stay clear.
