Day 18: The Naked Kiss (1964)
After the exhausting experience of watching yesterday’s film, today’s “The Naked Kiss” was just the thing to get me back on the “Criterion Summer” track. Almost saccharine with its melodrama, Samuel Fuller’s tale is pitch-perfect pulp storytelling- both highly amusing and, at times, so bad its good.
Now this may seem a bit of a slight at first glance, but the opposite is true. For Fuller embodies in this film the trait of sensationalism, something that usually leads a film astray instead of focusing it. But in “The Naked Kiss,” we find topics of prostitution and even child molestation played with so coyly that we never feel them standing larger than the plot they embody or shadowed to the point of censorship. In fact, they are so well handled that we get lost in the plot instead of being detracted by the taboos.
As I’ve mentioned, the plot of “The Naked Kiss” is like something you’d find in a paperback on a dime store shelf. The story follows Kelly, a former prostitute, who moves to the small town of Grantville to begin life anew as a nurse for handicapped children. Though things begin looking up for the one-time hussy, she finds her past creeping back to ruin her new life as she becomes trapped in a curious love triangle. On one end there’s Griff, the local police captain and former client, who wants Kelly in his bed but not in his town, and on the other, Grant, the world traveling and well off “man-about-town” that Kelly intends to marry. But before the wedding bells chime, truths will be revealed that are far more shocking then those of a former prostitute and, for one lone soul in Grantville, it all ends in murder. Bum! Bum! BUM!
What did I tell you- pure pulp. But that is to be expected when Samuel Fuller’s at the helm. Born in 1911, Fuller got his first job as crime reporter for the “San Diego Sun” while still a teenager. From there, he wrote short stories and pulp novels like ”Burn Baby Burn” and began dabbling in screenplays. But, like most men of his generation, life took a vacation for World War II and soon Fuller found himself in the First Infantry Division dodging bullets in Africa. When the war finally came to an end, Fuller left with a Bronze Star, a Silver Star, and a Purple Heart- a true war hero. After that, he moved to Hollywood and directed his first film, “I Shot Jesse James,” in 1949.
But Fuller’s Hollywood success was more fringe than commercial. Though his films would only perform moderately well, if they weren’t banned out right for their taboo subject matters, he was considered a major stylistic influence on the French New Wave movement, especially in films of Luc Moullet. Later on, he would gain even more acclaim with the likes of Martin Scorsese, Quentin Tarantino and Jim Jarmusch praising his work. Upon his death in in 1997, the Directors Guild of America even held a three hour memorial in his honor. Now that’s the way to go.
In the end, Samuel Fuller’s “The Naked Kiss” is an excellent style mixed up with a overly wrought and melodramatic story, to the point that even a group of handicapped children sing a musical number right at the camera. But it is in this campiness that we can sit back and enjoy a plot that does touch on issues not spoken of in those days and respect the film for what it truly is- really fun cinema.
To learn more about “The Naked Kiss,” you can check out Criterion’s page here.
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