The Naked Road

"The Naked Road" has a pathetic overall score of 4.9 at this time...indicating that it's probably a very bad movie. However, despite a low budget and mostly unknown actors, it manages to work very well and is quite entertaining.

The story is about a young model who is at heart a very nice girl. When the film begins, she's on a date with a real creep who simply believes models are glorified prostitutes. The jerk even goes so far as to suggest they go to a hotel and that she put out! He's very blunt, crude...and married. Soon he ends up trying to drive her home, as she'll have none of this monkey business. But on the way, he's arrested for speeding and they're both brought to see the judge. Now why she had to do and what happens next are huge problems in the movie as it just doesn't make sense. The judged demands the jerk pay a fine in cash...and lets him go home to get the money and keeps the model as collateral!! This is pretty dumb...fortunately the rest of the film is much more intelligent.

Soon another law breaker arrives in court and after promptly paying his fine, he offers to drive the lady home. Instead, however, he takes her to a house and holds her prisoner for days...starving her and threatening to get her hooked on drugs to make her turn tricks. And, since no one seems to know where she is, rescue from this prison is unlikely...however, she steadfastly refuses to cooperate and become a prostitute.

The film is very tense and the acting surprisingly good. All in all, aside from the brief portion in court which made no sense, it's a gritty and exciting and tense little film you can currently find on YouTube.

"Unbelievably-Fantiscally TRUE! The brutal facts behind the expose of the so-called PUBLIC RELATIONS racket!"

Despite that titillating tagline, the only thing exploitative about THE NAKED ROAD is its title and what a missed opportunity it is, too, considering the storyline. A young model (Jeanne Rainer of YOU'VE RUINED ME, EDDIE! fame) who won't put out for the married ad man she's out with is held as collateral when they're pulled over for speeding and fined by a corrupt Justice Of The Peace. Another motorist is hauled in for the same reason and he pays both their fines but the erstwhile Good Samaritan later drugs the girl's coffee and kidnaps her, intending to make her work for his public relations firm as an escort girl. If she doesn't, he'll turn her into a drug addict...

Although rife with possibilities, the movie's all talk and very little action until the end when an escort girl gets thrown out a window and the cops chuck tear gas at the bad guys' hideout. Unfortunately, the only one home is the kidnapped model. The lethargic cast acts like they're under water and the whole thing looks like it was filmed for about a buck ninety-eight in an endless succession of living rooms and bedrooms. The same room with different furniture is probably more like it. Still, I can't say I didn't like it and why I don't know.

Jeanne Rainer was a pretty, shapely actress who reminded me of Adele Lamont, the attractive model in the cult classic The Brain That Wouldn't Die. They shared the same kind of sultry look and precise, serious acting style. Reading her bio here, I was very impressed.

I remembered Ronald Long best for his hilarious, snobby Sunsweet Prune commercials and also for his work on I Dream of Jeannie. Here Long is affably nasty in his plan to hook women into prostitution by drugging and kidnapping them. No doubt this was not a role and a movie that he looked back on with great affection. His henchman is even more scummy, casually killing girls for his boss when they are a threat, casually dropping one drugged girl out of a window. The acting got panned by most who bothered to review this quickie but the acting's not bad, just played out at a glacial pace. This snail pace is not for viewers hyperstimulated by the rapid cutting, action and diction of today's movies. There is no real action, just exposition. It's so mild and slow, it could have easily been broadcast on TV in 1959.

I think that adds to the credibility of the movie. It's not like these kinds of sleazy things are exactly glamorous, indiscrete, provide a great health care plan, and a 401k.

Model Gay Andrews, who looks rather like Shelly Fabares, is a loner in NYC. She gets a come on from married ad executive Bob Walker, a Steve Cochran look-a-like, after a gig in New Jersey. He wants to continue their necking session at a hot sheet motel. She turns him down but on their way back to NYC they get pulled over by a cop who hauls them to a corrupt JP who is in cahoots with a local pimp Wayne Jackson played by big man Ronald Long ( Love of Life (1951), The Notorious Landlady (1962) and The List of Adrian Messenger (1963)) who both resembles and sounds like an Alfred Hitchcock with hair.

When Walker leaves to get money so that he can pay his fine in cash, the JP detains Andrews as a hostage until his return. Long is on hand an hour later to rescue Andrews. He pays the $100 fine and the JP tells her she's free. Long offers to give her a ride, seemingly a good Samaritan. At a cafe Long slips a drug into Gay's drink and she wakes up at Longs house. A Classic tale of don't go home with strangers.

Koulias is good as Long's right hand man. The entire story is an instructional on white slavery, but its poster decries the "Public Relations Racket", the girl is first offered $50,000 for one year of service with the guarantee that she can go free after the year is up, then threatened with getting forced hooked on heroin if she won't cooperate voluntarily.

It's all done very on the cheap and is a bit clunky in spots, but the film still manages to entertain mostly by what is suggested during all the descriptive dialog (supplied mostly by Long) rather than what actually happens. So far so good in Something Weird's "Six Weird Noirs" DVD pack.