An early Doris Wishman Nudie Cutie AND a little known Edgar (Detour) Ulmer black and white sexploitation melodrama have been combined on disk with over an hour of extras thrown on top to created a unique Something Weird/Image DVD you might want to add to your collection.

It would certainly be a conversation piece if you pull this one out to end a dinner party of friends.

Diary of a Nudist 1961

Directed by Doris Wishman. Written by DW (as Melvin Stanley). Produced by DW. Camera: Raymond Phelan. Featuring: Davee Decker, Norman Casserly, Dolores Carlos, Joan Bamford, Maria Stinger, Allison Louise Downe, Harry W. Stinger, Charles Allen, Ronald M. Ziegler. Color. Juri Productions/ JER Pictures Inc. Also known as Nature Camp Confidential.

A newspaper editor (Norman Sherwood) is outraged that a nudist camp is located just 60 miles outside of town so he sends blonde ace reporter, Stacy (Davee Decker) to do an expose on the place. The reporter however soon discovers, there is nothing terrible going on and finds herself enjoying frolicking in the buff.

There is naked volleyball (the team that faces the camera have shorts on, the other is naked shot from behind)and naked swimming. No sex orgies, just friendly happy polite people who happen to be naked. Stacy winds up writing a positive piece about the place. The editor promptly fires her and goes to nudist colony to do his own exposé.

Do you think he winds up being charmed by the place? Perhaps it has a happily ever after ending, making this a naive', innocent and very hokey nudie cutie.

Now don't worry, there's plenty of terrible dubbed dialogue, strange cutaways to feet, knick-knacks, ash-trays and everything else you would expect from a Doris Wishman movie.

Despite all the nudity there's nothing particularly sleazy or dirty about any of it.

The quality of the video is over-all quite good, but there are many places where the colors bleed, where during reel changes specks, and tints appear before settling into a the corrected colors. The mono-sound is crisp and clear.

From the advertisements: "Woman Reporter Poses as Nudist!", “Live as a Nudist with utmost Gorgeous Campers in the World.”, “To write this story she had to live it !“

Edgar Ulmer's Naked Venus is not just another nudist camp film filled with unimpressive looking naked folks. This is a morality play kind of movie with a story, some decent acting and message movie that has decent acting, some impressive camera work in what is a tense courtroom melodram with some nude scene inserted into the story.

Yvonne (Patricia Conelle) a French nude model marries American Artist Bob (Don Roberts) and with their daughter travel to the U.S. to visit Bob's mother, who doesn't approve of Yvonne's past. She seperates the couple and sends Yvonne divorce papers.

Yvonne needs time to think about what is happening so naturally she goes to a nudist camp. It's a scientific fact you can think better without clothes. Lynn (played by the director's daughter Arianne credited as Arianne Arden) is a lawyer who is ready to fight for Yvonne to get custody of her daughter.

But wait... Yvonne's morality is questioned. It seems they have all this footage of the French Woman frollicking about in the altogether at the nudist colony. What kind of a mother would run around naked like that.

Nearly half the movie is set in the courtroom. The mono audio has some problems, but most of the black and white photography of the 1958 film looks very good.

Like most of Ulmer's work, there's some impressive camera-work, a decent script, and acting and pacing that makes this short movie very entertaining.

DVD BONUS PACK

But that's not all. The disc also is packed with a whole bunch of off-the-wall nudist camp extras. There's trailers for other films like Wishman's BLAZE STARR, GENTLEMEN PREFER NATURE GIRLS, NUDE ON THE MOON, a stripper movie called EVE OR THE APPLE but also known as NAUGHTY NEW YORK and THE NUDIST STORY. We also see the trailer for NAKED VENUS which positions the movie as a serious movie that discusses the morality of Nudist camps.

There's 8 minutes of deleted nudist camp footage from Naked Venus that was not seen in the version distributed in the U.S.

The shorts included are a condensed version of the 1941 feature: THEY WEAR NO CLOTHES. A narrator shows us nudists strippers and women in the buff being silly. There's a pro-nudity public service kind of movie from the
The shorts are an interesting, entertaining bunch: "They Wear No Clothes" is a condensed version of the 1941 feature of the same name. A friendly narrator shows us strippers, nudists, and humorous naked women.

NUDIST RECRUITS is is a pro-nudity public service announcement type propaganda short from the 1930s. We see naked women being measured and then going through what looks like Army basic training. Then we see women and men naked on the beach.

NUDISTS UNCENSORED is from Barry Mahon's 1965 film CENSORED which is the same footage that is in Mahon's movie THE BEAST THAT KILLED WOMEN. Here it is in black and white rather than color.

The Beatlettes Go Nudist features Delores Carlos visiting pin-up fave Ann Howe (46-26-36) at the Coral Lake Nudist Camp. It's a long excerpt from the 1964 feature; LULLABY OF BARELAND, directed by Manuel Conde. There's swimming, sunbathing, volleyball and even trampolines!!!
Yes Beatlemania was so prevalent in '64 it would show up absolutely everwhere. Any connection to the Beatles? Nope.

You can also watch an extra feature that shows you Nudist Camp Exploitation Posters as you listen to various rare radio spots.

The DVD movies and extras add up to about 3 and a half hours worth of stuff.

Impressive!!!!

Again, I've listed this as part of the Erotic Movie Write Off and although this DVD package is entertaining it's not particularly erotic... but what the hey...

You can find out how to be part of the Erotic Movie Write Off (which began in June of 2006 but will continue on and on, year after year....) by going right here:

http://www.epinions.com/content_234288680580


Thanks for playing.

Recommended:
Yes

Viewing Format: DVD
Video Occasion: Good for Groups