The Naked Kiss

"Pickup on South Street" 1953, an 80-minute film noir gem, is a favorite of mine. Richard Widmark and Thelma Ritter (not just exceptional in romantic comedy supporting Rock Hudson and Doris Day in "Pillow Talk") were the two characters and performances I like best. Filmmaker Sam Fuller's creative writing, directing strength, and (indie) producing savvy continued to shine in "The Naked Kiss" 1964. It is the ultimate pulp fiction: high drama soap, touch of camp and tints of film noir. Beautifully shot in Black and White. Terrific cast with Constance Towers as Kelly, the central power of energy and charm, and undeterred determination; Anthony Eisley as Griff, the gruff, tough cop with a tender heart underneath; and the townsfolk of varying characters, nice and not-so-nice to downright sleazy, crooked ones, male or female, and a number of child performances for that matter. Yet with all this, there is a blossoming healthy, full of goodwill story about handicapped youngsters, being encouraged to stand up and be happy in spite of their weaknesses.

The opening segment (before the title/credits roll) is in itself an emphatic revelation. Kelly truly wants to turn over a new leaf, and she readily shares and helps others without guile. She is no loser. She's our heroine of the story. Tearjerker? Certainly can be. Thriller suspense, too? Definitely. Will she be innocently proclaimed? Will the witness precious be found? We would root for her, our Kelly. She is so 'gung ho' and downright nice to everyone (but she can also stand up tough against the 'bad' ones). Fuller's script runs its own natural course with surprises and satisfying plot twists never lacking.

This may not be for everyone (NFE). But if you can take high drama with wide human emotional range, appreciate energetic 'filmic' storytelling with intrigue, you'll enjoy this movie immensely. A Sam Fuller film doesn't disappoint but deserves applause practically guaranteed. His films are no fuss, straightforward and bold, frank and colorful in dialog, and there's the element of raw sophistication (sounds oxymoron, but life is full of contradictions). "The Naked Kiss" is available on DVD, Criterion Collection, widescreen, 91 minutes (just the right length).

The Naked Kiss opens with a shocking pre-credit sequence, shot partly with cameras harnessed to the actors, in which we see a furious woman beating a man with her handbag. He grabs at her and her wig comes off, revealing that she is totally bald - a prostitute who has been shaved in punishment by the pimp she is now assaulting. Kelly (Constance Towers), the hooker eventually makes her way to Grantville, a small town in New England and after a brief liaison with a law enforcement officer, abandons her bad ways and becomes a nurse in a children's hospital. In due course she becomes engaged to Grant (Michael Dante) a rich and handsome Korean War veteran. Grant, however, has a dark secret of his own... Sam Fuller started his career in newspapers, wrote some pulp novels and screenplays, and then wandered the United States as a tramp on freight trains during the Depression before serving with distinction in the US Army. Starting with I Shot Jesse James (1949) he directed a series of sometimes-controversial films that established him as a cult auteur, especially in Europe. His critical stock remains high today, for instance amongst such modern filmmakers as Quentin Tarantino and Tim Robbins. Perhaps Fuller's quote that "Film is a battleground. Love, hate, violence, action, death... in a word, emotion" is the most famous statement of his creative philosophy. Certainly the assaults come thick and fast in The Naked Kiss, either during the opening scene (where the camera angles suggest that blows are struck directly against the audience's point of view), or the two other attacks by an out of control Kelly on Candy (Virginia Grey) the Madame, or Grant respectively. Finally of course there is the 'battleground' of the legal process in which the heroine finds herself entangled.

The present film was the second of two notorious titles that Fuller made, one after the other in the early 1960s, the other being Shock Corridor. They polarised critics between those who found the results shallow and sensational and those others who discovered in Fuller's increasing disillusionment about American society a welcome, and brave aesthetic. There's no denying Fuller's in-your-face tabloid style has its rough edge, but this is part and parcel of the director's way of 'cinema as scoop' where his films were amongst the first to cover the pressing issues of the day. For instance, Steel Helmet (1950) early on brought the Korean War to the screen. The Naked Kiss goes the whole hog in sensationalism and manages to include abortion, prostitution, police corruption as well as paedophilia, often with the urgency of an on-the-spot report. At the centre of it all is Kelly, the poetry-loving prostitute who, despite her past, is both intelligent and sensitive. "Intellect rarely goes with physical beauty" the self centred Grant smugly actually tells her, "and that makes you a remarkable woman." For Kelly leaving her earlier profession is a matter of self-esteem just as much as it is social duty. When Buff (Marie Devereux) tries to follow her bad example she is forcibly reminded that prostitution is "a social problem, a medical problem, a mental problem" and that she will end up "a despicable failure as a woman."

At times The Naked Kiss plays out like a garish Sirkian drama. Small town America, as displayed in Grantville, is just as full of hypocrisy and repression as anything found in Imitation Of Life (1959) or All That Heaven Allows (1955). The difference here is that the emotions are worn on the sleeve; the ironic reassurance of the German's widescreen colour is replaced by stark journalisms in black and white. Fuller's town is a personal one, where Shock Corridor is on the local cinema's marquee, and where Fuller's own paperback novel The Dark Page is being read by the heroine. This is a feminist noir with a controversial edge. If the result is the occasional miscalculation (such as the sugary song sung by Kelly and the children) then the overall effect can be judged a success. The film's title itself refers to the way one can, ostensibly at least, identify a pervert - by the nature of his or her intimate contact. The Naked Kiss, itself a title reminiscent of some garish dime fiction, is full of such distorted intimacies, much of which ends disappointingly or with violence. Of course 'naked' in one sense is also the way we first see Kelly, bald headed and frenziedly beating her pimp. As critics have observed, there's a characteristic contradiction in many of Fuller's films that antisocial characters perform the most necessary social actions. In Pickup On South Street (1953) for instance, it is the sociopath Skip McCoy who helps bring the communists to book. Here, although some still see the newly reformed Kelly as reprehensible - notably her first, and only, paying customer in Grantville, Captain Griff (Anthony Eisley) - it is she who provides the catalyst for the eventual exposure of Grant's perversions. Although still ostracised at the end of the film, she has performed a valuable, if uncomfortable, service to the community - her lack of sentimentality neatly sidestepping many of the 'whore with the heart of gold' clichés, which the director so despised. Fuller had an almost mystical faith in America's destiny, but sensationally recorded its sins and failings with increased pessimism as his career proceeded. The choice of Kelly as the vehicle for reform in The Naked Kiss is typical of his later films. In fact the present title was something of a watershed for the director. He next made the financially unsuccessful, and far more conventional, Shark! (aka: Maneater, 1969), before he eventually found his feet again in the American cinema in the 1980s.

Naked Kiss, The (1964)

*** (out of 4)

Sam Fuller's hardhitting melodrama about a prostitute (Constance Towers) who decides to go straight after she does one last job. Now, living in a small town, she begins working with crippled children and appears to have her life in order but soon twisted events leads to her past coming out in the open. This is an incredibly beautiful film to look at as the cinematography is top notch and the B&W scenery looks great. This is a pretty strong film from start to finish even though it begins to drag some in the middle. The film doesn't pull any punches and contains some pretty strong dialogue but I guess we should expect this from the director. The dialogue and its strong tone certainly set it apart from other films from its era. The cast does very good work for the most part and that includes Towers who is very strong in her role. I'm not sure I'd call it a great performance but the way she uses her eyes and facial gestures to tell what she's feeling is very well done and makes this character quite memorable. Anthony Eisley is also excellent as a local police Captain who is one of the biggest hypocrites in the town.

I just had to comment on this movie to give another view to the only other review that's here for this movie at the time. This movie was made in 1964 and thus should be judged according to its time. I thought the movie was excellent in the fact that it took alot of chances for 1964. It dealt with prostitution and child molestation in a very real way. The cinematography was very good for a picture of its time. The lighting on some of the scenes was absolutely erie and sometimes very emotional. I think in todays world of movie making the art of lighting has been lost or at least severely under developed. This movie is well worth seeing if you can find it.

Samuel Fuller could make whacked-out movies like no other, and "The Naked Kiss" was his most whacked out of all.

Constance Towers plays Kelly, a hooker who we see in the film's opening sequence shaved completely bald and beating up her pimp. She takes $75 dollars from him or, as she makes sure to point out to him, "exactly what I've got coming to me," and then proceeds to put on her wig and makeup while seductive music plays and the opening credits roll. From that moment on, we know we're in Fuller-land.

Kelly arrives in the quiet suburban idyll of Grantville, and hooks up with her first and last trick, the town's police captain. After that, she decides to wipe her slate clean, and she becomes a nurse in a children's hospital. But she can't escape her past. When she's accused of killing her fiancée, the town's founder, golden boy and Korean war hero, in a fit of rage after finding him molesting a young girl, Kelly's reliability and reputation is called into question, and her life hangs in the balance.

Along with her pimp, Kelly will pound around on a couple of other people before the film is over -- notably a whore house madame who tries to seduce one of Kelly's co-worker friends into a life of prostitution -- but Kelly is basically a good and decent person who believes in justice stripped of any sentimental or phony pretensions. Her fiancée's status and privilege don't prevent her from seeing the pervert underneath, and her love for the children and her young, naive co-workers is fierce but rough; she'll just as soon slap some sense into someone as she will hug some sense into him. The character of Kelly is a refreshing creation, and both she and Constance Towers, who brings her to life, hold this film together when it otherwise might have been a mess. I think Fuller's weakness was as a writer; parts of "The Naked Kiss" are hampered by ridiculous, overheated dialogue and melodrama of the most maudlin order. But he was such a striking visionary that his films always work on the strength of style alone, and that, coupled with Towers' performance, make "The Naked Kiss" something fascinating to behold.

Fuller was always interested in the outcasts and misfits of society. You can tell he didn't have much use for the civilized mainstream. In "The Naked Kiss," his camera lingers lovingly on the crippled children in shots that intentionally evoke impressions of war veteran hospitals. And Kelly leaves Grantville at the film's end, not because the town shuns her -- on the contrary, once they realize she was telling the truth, she's the new town hero -- but because its hypocrisy disgusts her. The implication is that she'd rather remain an outcast than be accepted by a society that she abhors.

"The Naked Kiss" is crazy, frenzied and trippy. It's deliriously nonsensical yet makes a pointed statement in that unique way that only Samuel Fuller could pull off. Check it out.

Grade: A