“I’m not rolling you – you drunken leech! I’m taking only the $75 that’s coming to me.”
A hooker beats her pimp, laying blow after blow relentlessly, not stopping even when her wig is torn off, revealing her shocking (for the time) bald head. The camera swings wildly with each blow, jazz raging on the soundtrack, until eventually, the whipped man collapses to the floor, begging for mercy.
It is a brilliant, unusually violent opening that comes screaming out the gate from the first shot and subverts the usual male/female dynamics prevalent in early 60s Hollywood cinema. Then again, expect nothing less from B-movie auteur Sam Fuller, as his potboiler classic The Naked Kiss takes a deep dive into prostitution, blackmail, small town hypocrisy, paedophilia and all the miscarriages of justice and corruption inbetween.
Hold on, this is going to be a bumpy ride.
Two years later, Kelly (Constance Towers) has regrown her hair and rocks up in apple pie perfect Grantville to ply her trade, under the guise of travelling champagne saleswoman. Her introductory client is policeman Griff (Anthony Eisley) who advises her to move on (post-bunkup) to the next town. However, after a long, hard look in the mirror, Kelly decides Griff will be her last client and decides to go straight, otherwise she’d have “nothing but the buck, the bed and the bottle” for the rest of her life.
She stays in town and reinvents herself as a nurse at the local orthopaedic children’s hospital (“born to handle children in crutches and babies in braces”). Here, this blonde angel catches the eye of international playboy and philanthropist Grant (Michael Dante), whose grandfather founded the town.
The wealthy heir is unpertubed by Kelly’s confession of her past sins and proposes, believing they complete each other (“I wasn’t cut out to be a monk and you’re not the type to turn nun”). Unfortunately, as the wedding day approaches, Kelly discovers Grant’s secrets are far darker than her own and her brief dreamlife is brutally shattered…
If this sounds like overcooked melodrama tis because writer-producer-director Fuller knows how to turn the oven up for 90 minutes. The movie swings between angelic sentimentality (Kelly serenading her harem of crippled kids with sweet songs) to two fisted dynamism (she beats the crap out of whorehouse owner Candy, stuffing dollar bills into her mouth).
The terrific dialogue is full-throated and punchy, rolling out of the character’s mouths in exclamation marked speech bubbles. The B-movie cheapness of the production works as a strength – the economy and directness has a rawness A-cinema rarely touches.
Constance Towers delivers a bravura central performance as Kelly, running the gamut of emotions from tears to anger as a true thoroughbred. Each scene races to the rhythm of her mood, swinging between OTT cheer and noir darkness.
The naked kiss of the title refers to the taste of a pervert, a taste true professionals like Kelly know too well. As the eternal outsider, always looking in, it is easier for her to see the truth everyone else is blind to – the supposed ‘good world’ she aspires to can be just as corrupt and venal as her past.
Kelly is a classic Sam Fuller underdog protagonist, fighting the power alongside Richard Widmark’s pickpocket in Pickup on South Street (1953) and Peter Breck’s undercover journalist in Shock Corridor (1963). Fuller was a film-maker ripping stories from the headlines, as befitting someone who spent his pre-war teenage years in newspapers, working up from copyboy to crime reporter.
The sensationalist tabloid scream never left him and the sheer pulp energy and expose style of The Naked Kiss was prevalent throughout his prolific career. He mainly toiled in the B-movie yards, but this may have suited him more as higher budgets frequently bring the restrictions of studio censorship. Cigar-chomping Sam Fuller was too colourful and outspoken a character to be tamed by the suits.
Although looked down upon in America, in Europe he was revered as a true artist by the French New Wave and idolised by young film-makers. Jean-Luc Godard even gave him a cameo role in Pierrot Le Fou (1965) where he delivers the perfect encapsulation of his own film-making ethos. “A film is like a battleground – love, hate, action, violence, death – in a word, emotion!”
This famous quote distills how exploitation cinema triumphs over the blander mainstream. The sheer directness – be it through savage editing, stripped down sets, crackerjack pace, blunt to the bone dialogue – encourages a raw honesty higher budgets squirm from.
The B movie doesn’t have the time or inclination to pussyfoot around. Their dirty energy reflects the lowlife sensibilities of bottom of the barrel characters. The hardships on screen have been enacted behind the scenes getting those stories told.
Time and fiscal restrictions encourage creative solutions and with them – freedom. Such freedom allows film-makers to cut loose and hold a clear eyeglass to the great and the good, poking fun and bringing down as they see fit.
And that, dear viewers, is why we love the movies.
The Naked Kiss (1964) (r/t 90 min)
(Constance Towers, Anthony Eisley, Michael Dante) (w/d/p. Samuel Fuller)
“Shock and Shame Story of a Night Girl! Candy’s Place – where all kinds of Men find all kinds of Sweets!
Hove Press 