Once again Brainscan takes a deep dive into a forgotten chapter in the history of film nudity: the grindhouse era. Brainscan alone created all the commentary and collages, as well as the myriad of film clips that accompany this article in the members’ version of the Fun House.

So far we have looked at the nudie cuties as they dominated grindhouse fare in the first third of the 1960s. Bachelor Tom Peeping (1962), starring Patty Casse, is another movie that lays claim to showing nudists in their natural habitat.

Nude on the Moon (1962) was also solidly in that tradition even though they moved the nudists from Florida to outer space, which really isn’t that much of a stretch. That one featured:

Lacey Kelly

Marietta

But there are two points to make: 1) nudie cuties were not the only exploitation movies shown in grind houses in the early 60’s and 2) nudie cuties stayed popular at least into the early 1970’s.

A good example of grittier grindhouse movies in the early 60’s was Girl In Trouble (1963), about a country gal who loses her way in the big city and winds up a sex worker.  The blond and buxom Tammy Clarke played the title character in her only appearance on the screen.  Love the hair-do.

If we look for nudie costume comedies like those that Harry Novak made in 1970, we see much the same thing that same year with The Joys of Jezebel.  And like Harry, the producer of Joys was wise enough to hire

Dixie Donovan

and Ruth Liben

to bathe and dance and pretend to bed a willing young man.

In the same genre of nudie costume comedy – perhaps its earliest example – is Sinderella and the Golden Bra (1964).  The send up here is Sinderella loses not her golden slippers but her golden bra on her way out the door at the royal ball.  This gives the love-stricken prince a chance to find Sinderella by forcing every maiden in the land to try on the precious under-garment.  Good premise to a movie meant for the grindhouse audience, but the execution is terrible.  Let me tell you why.

Real early in the movie is a village fair, complete with a topless belly dancer, played by Jackie De Witt. That is good news.  Jackie also plays one of the village maidens, forced by royal decree to try on the bra. That is even better news, because the bra is much too small for her.  Much.

But then starts the bad news.

Althea Currier plays one of the maidens and yes, indeed, she also tries on the bra, but she turns her back to the camera.  Althea Currier… topless as usual… with her back…to the camera.  What in THE fuck?

Perhaps you think she asked for too much to appear topless, but there she is an earlier scene, appearing as a lady-in-waiting, with not a stitch on above her waist.

So she was uninhibited as an aristocrat but bashful as a peasant?  Tis a mystery.

That is bad execution #1.

Bad execution #2 is the casting of the other village maidens; they were not, shall we say, the most delectable women in Hollywood and would not have been in the top tier of any good-sized village.  The movie credits and IMDb give us the names of these maidens, but who is who escapes me.  That is too bad because one actress credited as a Village Maiden, Donna Anderson, had major roles in Inherit The Wind and On The Beach.  You can find a lot of pictures of her on the web,

and a comparison of images suggests that of all the village maidens, number 2 looks the most like her, but nothing is certain. (I numbered the maidens in order of appearance; Althea was #1)


Playing Sinderella is the one-movie wonder, Suzanne Sybele.  She is a nice enough looking woman, but you can see why both Althea Currier and Jackie De Witt failed to squeeze into a bra made for her.

And when you see her act, you will understand why this is her only film credit.

One last note about Sinderella: it is a fairy godfather who gets her ready for the royal ball, not a godmother.  And this godfather is played not by Brando or De Niro but by Sydney Lassick.  You might be asking. “Who is Sydney Lassick?” but you will recognize him if you have seen One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.  He played Cheswick and he did a great job as a looney.

Part 1 of this series, The Immoral Mr. Teas, can be found here

Part 2, Nudie Cuties and More, 1963-1965, can be found here.

Part 3, The Nudie Cuties of 1963, can be found here

Part 4, The First Nudie Musical, can be found here

to be continued …

 


 

If you enjoy Brainscan’s work, here are the other series that can be found on Other Crap:

The Films of Harry Novak

Part 1, The Sixties, can be found here.

Part 2, Hicksploitation, is here.

Part 3, The Seventies, is here.

Part 4, The Models in Print (and in his films), is here

 

The Early Years of Film Nudity

Part 1: 1932. Peak Pre-Code Talkies.

Part 2: 1929-1934. The Other Pre-Code Talkies.

Part 3: 1927. The Swan Song of the Silents.

Part 4: 1900-1926. The Silent Era.

Part 5: 1935-1951. The Dry Years.

Part 6: 1952-1959. Europe to the Rescue

The same articles, with the added bonus of all of Brainscan’s film clips, can be found in the members’s version of the Fun House, along with the many thousands of other collages, clips and commentaries that Brainscan has created in the past two decades. (And his contributions represent only a tiny fraction of the content in the back issues, since the Fun House has been updated every day, seven days a week, without exception, for the past 24 years.)

Once again Brainscan takes a deep dive into a forgotten chapter in the history of film nudity: the grindhouse era. Except for the footnote, Brainscan alone created all the commentary and collages, as well as the myriad of film clips that accompany this article in the members’ version of the Fun House.

Grindhouse movies that claimed to show the nudist lifestyle did not start with Russ Meyer’s The Immoral Mr. Teas.  Pretty sure there are many more examples, but the earliest I have come across is a short from the 1940’s titled Lil From Brazil, which stars Margie Harrison, a future Playmate. (1)

But we can be sure the first nudist musical was Goldilocks and the Three Bares (1963).  The first half of the movie is a stage show captured on film with some dialogue about something and some singing about something else, but the second half is a nudist extravaganza with water skiing and yachting and horseback riding (yikes!).  That  second half starts with Allison Louise Downe getting into the correct attire for this nudist sort of thing.

and then proceeds to show her and maybe a dozen women posed so as to keep their furry bits hidden.

One BIG exception to that rule – no furry bits – is the scene in which Allison gets on her horse.  Shot from a distance, it nevertheless reveals parts of her that would rile any censor.

In the second of Allison’s clips you will see veteran nudist movie star, Dolores Carlos, in a swinging hammock.  That’s it – the sum total of her contribution to the movie, swinging topless, in a hammock, back and forth a half-dozen times.  Oscar-winning stuff.

One clip with neither hide nor hair of Allison is supposed to be funny, as some doofus in a fake mustache uses binoculars to spy on nudists five feet away from him.  Perhaps he was a dermatologist, in search of suspicious moles.  The actor playing this part has the subtle range of a warthog in heat.  Anyway, he spies Maria Stinger frolicking in a  nearby pool and thereby proving to one and all that she need never worry about drowning.

 

Maria was a glamour model for magazines of the time.

She was also a frequent sight to see in nudist movies, as you can see in the Funhouse archives, February 7, 2013, where you will find her in a legendary cinematic performance as nudist #3 in 1961’s Diary of a Nudist, as captured by Oz.

The credits say another veteran grindhouse actress, Ginger Hale (or Hall), appears as a nudist somewhere in this film but I’ll be darned if I can find her.  Truth be told, this movie almost broke me.  I gave up one evening after capturing images that were blah, just blah and despaired of finding a way to piece them together.  (Like random images of nudists by the pool.) The movie was no fun at all to watch and was hell to work with.  In a ten-tiered system of movie fun that ranges from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade at the top and Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull at the bottom, this one sleeps with the Skull.

————–

(1. Scoop’s footnote: The otherwise obscure Margie Harrison is famous for one thing – her appearances in Playboy. To begin with, she became the FIRST Playmate when she appeared in the second-ever issue of the Bunny-oriented publication.  “First Playmate” is a trivia question that will win you many bar bets. Most people think Marilyn Monroe was the first Playmate. You all know that Marilyn appeared in Playboy #1, but the magazine never applied the term “Playmate” to her. MM was the “Sweetheart of the Month.”

Margie was also the first Playboy centerfold, because Marilyn had appeared in the main body of the  magazine.

Finally, Margie was also a two-time Playmate, as she graced both the January and June issues in 1954.)

 

Part 1 of this series, The Immoral Mr. Teas, can be found here

Part 2, Nudie Cuties and More, 1963-1965, can be found here.

Part 3, The Nudie Cuties of 1963, can be found here

to be continued …

 


 

If you enjoy Brainscan’s work, here are the other series that can be found on Other Crap:

The Films of Harry Novak

Part 1, The Sixties, can be found here.

Part 2, Hicksploitation, is here.

Part 3, The Seventies, is here.

Part 4, The Models in Print (and in his films), is here

 

The Early Years of Film Nudity

Part 1: 1932. Peak Pre-Code Talkies.

Part 2: 1929-1934. The Other Pre-Code Talkies.

Part 3: 1927. The Swan Song of the Silents.

Part 4: 1900-1926. The Silent Era.

Part 5: 1935-1951. The Dry Years.

Part 6: 1952-1959. Europe to the Rescue

The same articles, with the added bonus of all of Brainscan’s film clips, can be found in the members’s version of the Fun House, along with the many thousands of other collages, clips and commentaries that Brainscan has created in the past two decades. (And his contributions represent only a tiny fraction of the content in the back issues, since the Fun House has been updated every day, seven days a week, without exception, for the past 24 years.)