The Naked Kiss (1964)

This noir film dealt openly with topics that generally weren't dealt with at all (e.g., pedophilia) or only peripherally (e.g., prostitution, procuring)in 1964. It is the only film noir I know of in which a woman is the lead. Rather than being an adjunct or adversary to the hero, Kelly carries the film from beginning to end, and the twists and turns of the plot will surprise throughout. What mars it somewhat is some bad acting in the smaller roles.

Fmovies: This is the second Fuller film that I've seen (the other one was "Shock Corridor"). I can't say that I was bored, but I really don't see why these films are held in such high esteem by some people (including famous film-makers like Scorsese). "The Naked Kiss" is certainly a good-looking film. The black and white cinematography is excellent, as you would expect from those involved. But stylistically, the film is kind of a mess -- a weird mixture of soap opera, film noir, 1960's-style psychological drama, and kinky shocker. For fans of the latter, that infamous opening scene certainly promises a lot more than the rest of the film delivers. As it seems to belong to no particular genre, perhaps Fuller's work could be considered a genre in itself. As has been pointed out elsewhere, if watched in the right company it can be a real camp hoot. But honestly, I think this film is far too flawed to be called a masterpiece, as some people have. The acting is fairly nasty, the script not much better. And that horrendous scene where our heroine sings that sickeningly sweet, cloying, endless song with the kids at the hospital! Good Lord, it's one of the most embarrassingly awful things I've ever seen on film! It seemed to induce actual physical pain, I kid you not! The subject of child abuse, which occurs in the film, was fairly progressive for its time, I'll grant, but hardly unique. If you can, see an even earlier film (1961) called "The Mark," with Stuart Whitman, Maria Schell and Rod Steiger. While staying in the confines of early '60s constrictions, it addressed the subject in a much more powerful and direct manner, to greater effect. I guess I'd have to consider Fuller one of those "cult film" figures. Either you get it, or you don't.

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!

The Naked Kiss fmovies. I began looking into Sam Fuller after seeing a documentary about him on TV in which Scorsese, Tarantino, and Tim Robbins discussed his films. Scorsese also mentions Fuller in his "Personal Journey" film retrospective, in which he sites "The Naked Kiss" as a major influence. From what I've read, the studios found the material in "The Naked Kiss" to be a tad on the heinous side, and re-edited Fuller's film to the point where he didn't even want his name in the credits. His name is very much in the credits however, for soon after the film opens with a prostitute beating a man unconscious with the heel of her shoe, Fuller is named writer, director, and producer. I suspect that the discomfited staggering between camp, noir, and grotesque melodrama, might be more a result of studio tampering than Fuller's misdirection. It is also difficult to discern just what sort of censorship the studios achieved, for whatever they did was austerely permeated by social taboos the likes of abortion, prostitution, child molestation, and murder. These issues are treated by Fuller in a way that is decisively an ideological digression from noir, despite the film's sporadic use of noir's aesthetic. In noir, women are the enigmatic femme fatales: deceptive, seductive, fatal, and the primary antagonism of all men. It appears to be precisely the opposite in "The Naked Kiss." Fuller's protagonist, Kelly, an ex-hooker, tells a cop that you can always tell when a man is "a pervert" from his "naked kiss." Throughout the film, as Kelly encounters women dealing with abortion, prostitution, and pretty much just general depravity, Fuller shows men reinforcing and furthering their depravity, then condemning it when need be. The character of Griff, the cop, is the essence of this. To Fuller, there is a perversity in the way men treat women in American society, and it is reflected in the title of the film itself.

If Sam Fuller is the father of Independent film then this is the point where the history of the Indie film begins. However, unlike most of Fuller's work this is not overtly shocking or wordy. In fact its best sequences are those which have no words. The acting, by mostly B actors is terrific, and the dialogue is well done. It tackled an issue that no film had before, and perhaps has not done so well since. A teriffic work.

B movies lack money so they have to compensate everywhere else; they take chances and risks and try to patch the holes with creativity. Most of them stink but there are a few true gems and this movie definitely belongs in the jewelry case.

This film is ostensibly about a hooker trying to go straight but it's really about the dark subcultures of our world which feed on the urges "normal" people must deny to maintain civilization.

Mainstream Hollywood loves the shiny parts of those subcultures, the random encounters, sexy young things and "pimps up, hos down" trappings of that darkness. But when it comes to showing the whole of the poisonous ecosystem, the popreligion-fueled evangelistas and their sycophantic bean counters in the MPAA and studio system have no interest in acknowledging, much less depicting, its existence.

The studios are happy to show you the yards of sweaty flesh and the figurative hunt/kill part of the act but the process someone goes through to try and get out of that world? Oh, that's a NC-17 art-house flick starring Jennifer Jason Leigh. The mainstream producers prefer to focus on what they think you want in a drama: achingly beautiful people living in penthouse apartments on a plumber's salary acting out plots lifted from "Search for Tomorrow". But what about real drama, the infinite and often-lost battle that stems from the eternal, fundamental conflict between what we wish and what we are? Save it for Sundance.

This movie is far from perfect but it gets so many points for originality and effort I'm giving it 9/10. It tells a difficult story with a very offbeat lead (a strong woman), a underused setting (I was one of those kids in the orthopedic ward for about a year in the mid-70s and when I saw them performing that odd yet haunting musical number I was really moved) and slightly unusual viewpoint and style (shoe-cam, the use of Beethoven, etc).

Constance Towers strikes the right note of bravery and inner strength without turning into a hard-hittin' miracle woman caricature and Grant strikes just the right note for playing a molester; despicable in action but also showing that basic human need to give and receive love, even in his twisted way. Griff moves the plot along, not the greatest acting chops but he hits the marks and reads the lines.

Definitely worth a rent. Check it out.