NAKED KISS, THE (director/writer: Samuel Fuller; cinematographer: Stanley Cortez; editor: Jerome Thoms; cast: Constance Towers (Kelly), Anthony Eisley (Griff), Edy Williams (Hatrack), Michael Dante (Grant), Virginia Grey (Candy), Patsy Kelly (Mac), Betty Bronson (Miss Josephine), Marie Devereaux (Buff), Karen Conrad (Dusty), Betty Robinson (Bunny), 1964)
Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz
The movie shockingly opens with Kelly (Constance Towers), a bald, statuesque prostitute, have her wig fall off in the fight that she is having with her drunken pimp, as she beats him unconscious with the spiked-heel of her shoe and takes from him only the $75 she says he owes her. The studio offended Samuel Fuller by cutting his film against his wishes. He was so dissatisfied, that he wanted his name removed. It did ruin the film to a certain extent, as it looked disjointed in parts and did not appear up to Fuller's usually high standards of filmmaking. Nevertheless, it resulted in a disturbing film about American morality that has something to say about hypocrisy and something modern to say about being an independent woman.
Flashback from 1961 to 1963: A banner proclaims the town's name to be Grantville, which is the small town Kelly arrives in by bus. She meets the police captain, Griff (Eisley), at the bus terminal and does a prostitute trick for him in his house, where he gives her $20 to sleep with her. He then tells her to clear out of his town by tomorrow, that this town doesn't want her kind, but he says that she can go across the river to the next town, which is wide open, and he gives her the name of the local madam to look up, Candy (Virginia Grey).
Kelly walks the quiet, tree-lined streets of Grantville, sees a vacancy sign in a boarding house and decides to live here and become respectable. She gets a job in the local hospital as a nurse's aide for handicapped children and becomes an angel of mercy overnight. She is able to give the children the hard love they need and becomes readily accepted into the community.
She helps a nurse out who wants to join Candy's prostitute racket by going over to Candy's bordello and stuffing two ten dollar bills and one five dollar bill down the madam's mouth. She is incensed that this whore is trying to corrupt an innocent child.
The pillar of the community, who has the family name the town was named after, the handsome Grant (Dante), returns home from his visit to Europe. He is very wealthy and esteemed for his charity work, most notably building the town's hospital. He is also considered to be one of the most eligible bachelors in the world and is Griff's closest friend. At a reception party for his return to America, the head nurse Mac (Patsy Kelly) brings Kelly along and he is instantly attracted to her.
Kelly tells Grant about her past as a prostitute and expects him to dump her, but he instead asks her to marry him. She is surprised and elated, though she is disturbed about the way he kissed her, there was something chilling about it that she can't put her finger on. Their relationship is dreamlike, with her chasing her dream for happiness. The couple talk about Byron's poetry and about Venice being a special place for lovers, and everything seems too good to be true.
She comes by Grant's place to show him the wedding dress and catches him in the middle of molesting a little girl. He tells her that is why he forgave her, that they are a perfect couple, they are both abnormal. The former prostitute with the soft heart but with a quick-temper, picks up the phone receiver and fatally beats him over the head with it. She then calls Griff and tells him what happened.
Griff doesn't believe her reason for killing his friend, taking the side of respectability over her outcast life. But eventually the little girl is located who Grant attempted to molest and relates what happened. The town forgives her, but she leaves the community anyway.
For Towers, the naked kiss is that of a pervert. For Fuller, this film is a morality story, where honesty can't seem to exist within the law but only outside of it. It is a tale of showing the need for all the misfits and handicapped people and unfortunate ones to open up their imaginations and live out their inner fantasy worlds, or else live an unsatisfactory life. The weakness in the film, is that it asks you to believe its flighty story without questioning it. But its moral premise is on solid footing.
REVIEWED ON 4/1/2000 GRADE: B-
Dennis Schwartz: "Ozus' World Movie Reviews"
http://www.sover.net/~ozus
ozus@sover.net
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