The Naked Kiss

The.Naked.Kiss.1964.Criterion.1080p.BluRay.x265.HEVC.AAC-SARTRE

The South Bank 1983

Constance Towers

Cineastes de notre temps 1967

Cinema cinemas 1987

sample

Trailer

source: The Naked Kiss

Weird and quite unique are the words that spring to mind after seeing "The Naked Kiss". Samuel Fuller's melodrama about middle class hypocrisy features some characters and a small town which beneath their respectable exteriors are actually corrupt or perverted. Prostitution, violence and sexual deviancy feature prominently and the action is delivered in a style which is predominantly forthright and candid. Some sequences, however, also have a surreal quality which effectively adds another level of strangeness to this already bizarre morality tale. Cult auteur Samuel Fuller (who wrote, produced and directed this movie) is renowned for his ability to make a powerful impact and this quality is strongly evident in "The Naked Kiss" right from the start. In the attention grabbing opening scene, a prostitute is seen viciously attacking her drink impaired pimp and during their confrontation her wig falls off to reveal that she's entirely bald. This attack had been triggered by the working girl's need to collect some money which she was owed and in an act which illustrates her integrity, she is seen taking only the precise amount of cash which is due to her, despite having the opportunity to take considerably more. Some time later, Kelly (Constance Towers) arrives at the small town of Grantsville where the first person (and client) that she meets is Police Captain Griff (Anthony Eisley) who, after their business is complete, advises her to leave his community because he runs a clean town! He recommends that she should go to Candy's place "across the river". Kelly doesn't take his advice and instead stays in the town and decides that she wants to live the "straight life". After getting a job as a nurse's aide in the local hospital for handicapped children, Kelly develops an extraordinary rapport with the patients, her ability is admired by everyone and she's soon fully accepted by the townspeople. The town's most respected citizen is a wealthy philanthropist who's a descendant of the town's founder and also a benefactor of the hospital in which Kelly works. When she meets Grant (Michael Dante) they're immediately attracted to each other and their relationship grows steadily from that point. Kelly deters one of her work colleagues from becoming a prostitute and in the process gets into a physical conflict with Candy (Virginia Grey). She also arranges help for another pregnant girl who, as a consequence, decides not to go ahead with the abortion she was planning to have. When Kelly tells Grant about her past, he's totally unconcerned. Griff who is Grant's best friend has some misgivings about their plans but is ultimately reassured when Kelly convinces him of her feelings for Grant and the fact that she's given up her old profession for good. Kelly's fairy tale transformation into a respected member of the community and her seemingly wonderful romance both suffer spectacular reversals when she discovers that Grant is actually a child molester. Her shocked response is typically violent and what follows illustrates forcibly just how distorted the moral values of middle class society can become and how the citizens' inbuilt prejudices can prevent them from distinguishing clearly between what's right and wrong. "The Naked Kiss" makes its point very clearly but is also distinctly offbeat and it's this quality which gives it its strange atmosphere. Sometimes it all feels like a peculiar dream or fantasy where odd things happen and where eccentric behaviour is the norm. The spectacle of a prostitute who has a propensity for sudden outbursts of violence magically transforming into a nurse who's a cross between Florence Nightingale and Julie Andrews really is quite breathtaking but it's also very entertaining. Kelly's experiences ultimately make her much wiser but also very disillusioned by the values that she found within a so-called respectable middle class community.

Samuel fuller is everything but a conventional director.When he tries his hand at western ,his western does not look like a routine one ("40 guns" and "run of the arrow").When he tackles thriller,he is so ahead of his time he predates "cuckoos's nest" by more than 10 years( "shock corridor").And when he broaches melodrama (the atmosphere of "kiss" is more melodrama than film noir,Cinderella's prince recalling the one in "barefoot contessa"),he tramples on something that was sacred in the fifties: the romantic drama,redemption... Constance Towers' magnetism is spellbinding.So horrendous were the chances taken by Fuller's screenplay that with any lesser talent (actress and director) the result could have been disastrous.The script seems sometimes desultory but Fuller always lands on his feet. His film is some kind of tapestry of Bayeux which sometimes verges on bad taste but I guess it's part of the game. The film is ,in turn,a film noir (the prologue and the last scenes) , a romantic drama (Venice) , a musical (and the song in the hospital exerts a certain queer fascination that impels listening which a lilting chorus encourages), a reversal of the eternal clichés (Griff's phone call or the biter bit)of melodramatic blackmail. In its form "Kiss" has moments of magnificence: Kelly imagines she can cure the disabled children with her marvelous tales and she takes them for a happy running in the garden of the hospital;a symmetrical scene shows the nurse and Grant watching an amateur film on Venice and it really takes them there;The discovery of Grant's terrible secret is treated with very restricted means,and the fiancé's behavior really makes sense ,we are not even surprised. A guilty pleasure,but that kind of pleasure,I ask for more!