The Naked Kiss (1964)

Director:

Samuel Fuller

Writer:

Samuel Fuller (written by)

Release Date:

29 October 1964 (USA)

Genre:

Crime | Drama

Tagline:

Candy's Place--where all kinds of men find all kinds of sweets!

Plot:

Kelly, a prostitute, finds redemption in the town of Grantville, where she arrives working as a medium-time seller...

Plot Keywords:

Love | Children | Hospital | Prostitute | Kiss

Cast

Constance Towers	...	Kelly
Anthony Eisley	...	Capt. Griff
Michael Dante	...	J.L. Grant
Virginia Grey	...	Candy
Patsy Kelly	...	Mac, Head Nurse
Marie Devereux	...	Buff
Karen Conrad	...	Dusty
Linda Francis	...	Rembrandt
Bill Sampson	...	Jerry
Sheila Mintz	...	Receptionist
Patricia Gayle	...	Nurse
Jean-Michel Michenaud	...	Kip (as Gerald Michenaud)
George Spell	...	Tim
Christopher Barry	...	Peanuts
Patty Robinson	...	Angel Face

Also Known As:

The Iron Kiss

Runtime:

90 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.66 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (Westrex Recording System)

Certification:

USA:Approved (PCA #20645)

Filming Locations:

Columbia/Warner Bros. Ranch - 411 N. Hollywood Way, Burbank, California, USA

Company:

Leon Fromkess-Sam Firks Productions

Trivia:

When Griff and Kelly are talking on the park bench just after her arrival in town, she is reading "The Dark Page", a 1944 novel by Samuel Fuller that was the basis for Scandal Sheet (1952).

Goofs:

Continuity: When Kelly approaches the porch of the house with the room for rent, she picks up the newspaper and hands it to the landlady who has opened the door. The newspaper, as picked up by Kelly, is snugly rolled up and bound with a rubber band. But in the next frame, taken from inside as we see landlady and Kelly come through the door, the newspaper in the landlady's hand is not a rolled up paper, but one that is simply folded in half.

Quotes:

Capt. Griff: [Interested in the champagne that Kelly is selling] "Angel Foam"... Never heard of it.
Kelly: It's an exclusive line I'm introducing in this state.
Capt. Griff: Domestic, or... imported?
Kelly: Angel Foam goes down like liquid gold, and it comes up like slow dynamite... For the man of taste.

Movie Connections:

Edited into Dusk to Dawn Drive-In Trash-o-Rama Show Vol. 10 (2007) (V)

Soundtrack:

Santa Lucia

The naked truth

Samuel fuller is everything but a conventional director.When he tries his hand at western ,his western does not look like a routine one ("40 guns" and "run of the arrow").When he tackles thriller,he is so ahead of his time he predates "cuckoos's nest" by more than 10 years( "shock corridor").And when he broaches melodrama (the atmosphere of "kiss" is more melodrama than film noir,Cinderella's prince recalling the one in "barefoot contessa"),he tramples on something that was sacred in the fifties: the romantic drama,redemption...

Constance Towers' magnetism is spellbinding.So horrendous were the chances taken by Fuller's screenplay that with any lesser talent (actress and director) the result could have been disastrous.The script seems sometimes desultory but Fuller always lands on his feet. His film is some kind of tapestry of Bayeux which sometimes verges on bad taste but I guess it's part of the game.

The film is ,in turn,a film noir (the prologue and the last scenes) , a romantic drama (Venice) , a musical (and the song in the hospital exerts a certain queer fascination that impels listening which a lilting chorus encourages), a reversal of the eternal clichés (Griff's phone call or the biter bit)of melodramatic blackmail.

In its form "Kiss" has moments of magnificence: Kelly imagines she can cure the disabled children with her marvelous tales and she takes them for a happy running in the garden of the hospital;a symmetrical scene shows the nurse and Grant watching an amateur film on Venice and it really takes them there;The discovery of Grant's terrible secret is treated with very restricted means,and the fiancé's behavior really makes sense ,we are not even surprised.

A guilty pleasure,but that kind of pleasure,I ask for more!