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Released by: MGM Limited Edition Collection
Released on: December 14, 2011.
Director: Allen Funt
Cast: Allen Funt, Joie Addison
Year: 1970
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The Movie:
After mastering the art of hidden camera highjinks on television with the hit series Candid Camera, Allen Funt decided to take a slightly more adult approach to his next project, the feature film What Do You Say To A Naked Lady?, which was released in 1970.
The film starts off with a great scene in which a buck naked woman (Joie Addison) walks out of an elevator and onto a bustling city street where she asks various passersby for directions. From here she wanders around a bit, talking to people, bumping into people - really doing anything you or I might do on any given day, albeit without any clothes on. The film captures the reactions of those who happen to make her acquaintance, and not surprisingly they're quite varied. Some react in abject horror, others in natural curiosity, others very obviously see the humor in the situation while others still do their best to continue on and pretend as if nothing out of the ordinary is going on at all.
From here, Funt gets a little more cerebral with the film, showing us snippets from screenings of his footage shown to different audiences, generally to just gauge the different sort of reactions he can get with the material. As you could probably guess, given the obvious supposed morals of middle America during the sexual revolution, the older (and generally more conservative) viewers tend to react with revulsion, declare the footage immoral, and look down their noses at it while the younger viewers have quite the opposite reaction, seeing nothing particularly offensive about any of this at all. The middle aged participants tend to be all over their place, some siding with their older cohorts, some with the younger viewers.
None of the nudity in the film isn't presented with the intent to arouse - rather, it's all very matter-of-fact and presented with almost clinical intent. The humor in the film stems from the various reactions Funt manages to capture. Not surprisingly, it's a lot like Candid Camera, just with naked people in it (and for the record the film has just as much male nudity in it as female nudity, though it never goes all that far with either, really). Upping the oddity factor considerably are two bits that can't go without mention, the first of which is a simulated rape scene. This is played pretty straight and not really for laughs and it is neither effective nor funny, instead it just feels awkward and out of place against the rest of the material which is far more playful. The other strange aspect of the film is the musical score from Steve Karmen which uses quirky little songs to introduce each segment (including the rape scene). Eventually what are essentially roundtable discussions take the place of the reactionary footage that starts the movie off, presumably in an attempt to get a social context going and to offer up some insight into the differing opinions on the merits of the naked human body. Subjects covered include dating between races, experimenting in the bedroom and with different partners, and various other subjects which were no doubt controversial at the time, but which are far more commonplace in modern society.
The end result is a movie that's amusing and entertaining enough but which doesn't really seem to ever get to much of a proper conclusion. If offers up a look at how different people view nudity and sex but fails to get too deep into why those views are held. Outside of some interesting statements that it makes about generational differences, it's more or less just random and odd.
Video/Audio/Extras:
What Do You Say To A Naked Lady? looks pretty good on DVD by way of MGM's 1.85.1 anamorphic widescreen transfer. Grain is moderate throughout but it adds to the atmosphere of the film and isn't ever a problem. Only minor print damage shows up here and there in the form of the occasional speck, there's nothing serious to note in that regard. Skin tones look nice and natural, black levels are strong and there are no compression artifacts or edge enhancement problems to complain about.
The English language Dolby Digital Mono track sounds just fine, offering up clear dialogue without any noticeable background hiss or noise. The levels are well balanced, the score sounds good and if it's a bit limited in range, that stems back to the source. No problems here.
Sadly, aside from the standard static menu and chapter stops that we get on these releases, the only extra is the film's trailer.
The Final Word:
Worth seeing out of curiosity value, What Do You Say To A Naked Lady? is amusing enough even if it isn't usually laugh out loud funny. Attempts at social context are welcome but sometimes don't really wind up going anywhere. Regardless, it's a movie worth seeing, just because it's such a strange picture and MGM's MOD/DVD-R release is probably the best way to do just that.
