75-year-old director Bobby Roth has been a solid citizen in Hollywood for 50 years without ever becoming a household name. He’s won no Oscars nor Golden Globes, but he is certainly dear to our hearts, because he has created two of the greatest nude scenes in history:
Corinne Bohrer in Dead Solid Perfect
Carol Wayne in Heartbreakers
Not only do those scenes represent great nudity, but they represent the only worthwhile screen nudity those two women ever did. Corinne’s only other nudity was a slight peek in an arty B&W segment of an anthology film. Carol did no other screen nudity, although she did pose naked for Playboy’s February, 1984 edition, which came out shortly before this film.
If you don’t know or don’t remember Carol, she was one of Johnny Carson’s favorite guests in the 60s and 70s. With her platinum hair, her huge breasts and her cartoon voice, she was the perfect target for Johnny’s double entendres, especially when she was ogled by sleazy “Art Fern,” a Carson character who specialized in off-color remarks. Her story had a sad ending. Not long after the Playboy/Heartbreakers period, she drowned during a Mexican vacation, possibly a victim of some foul play, although that was never proved.
Corinne Bohrer’s great scene has never come out in HD, but Carol’s is now available!
By the way, Heartbreakers is on the internet in its entirety, but in very low quality. Roger Ebert gave the film the full four stars! (Truth be told, Ebert loved nude scenes as much as we do,)
I sometimes wonder why Americans are so against the idea that nudity can be part of the entertainment. I mean, of course, the “serious”, talented actresses who do quality work, not the noname extras or porn actresses.
People like to look at naked women and even more so when they are actually talented even beside the nudity, so why most American actresses do nudity only for drama? Is there today still an actual blowback if an actress does a casual full frontal nude scene in a movie where it’s not necessary for the plot?
The only American actress who comes to mind who works in high profile stuff and also did a completely casual nude scene is Riki Lindhome. She is in movies with top performers (see Knives Out) and also does a scene where she is chatting completely naked in Hell Baby.
Are there others? Maybe JLaw can be a contender with No Hard Feelings, though that was a fight scene, not a lighthearted casual chatting in the nude like Riki’s scene.
Lindhomme has really good representation.
She spent her early years singing about holy anal sex in Garfunkel and Oates. She did the extended nude in that awful movie. Yet she still gets cast in high end stuff. I don’t know what happened with her and Micucci, but Lindhomme is still making funny songs (Middle Aged Sex is hilarious) and Kate is back in NYC painting fun murals making money doing I don’t know what.
It makes no sense. She’s not attractive. Her body is the opposite of what the industry wants. She’s been neck deep in controversy for decades. Yet she gets regular, solid work.
Comedic nudity is what American movies can’t really do. Meaning a comedy movie with top talent where the top billed actress also have a full nude scene in the movie.
That JLaw movie may be the only exception, but if you know other examples, please list tem.
Best one I can think of: Susan Backlinie was the first victim in Jaws, & Spielberg brought her back for a gag in his movie 1941, where she’s suddenly skinny-dipping over not a shark but a Japanese sub – she gets caught on the periscope as it rises, & unlike Jaws she’s not silhouetted but completely bare-assed, & when he sees her the Japanese soldier yells in ecstasy, “HOLLYWOOD!!!” Underrated comedy.
I saw an offhand comment recently in an article published in a reputable publication – The Economist – talking about how “gratuitous” nudity that was more common in 1980s movies would now be considered “offensive”. That comment left me scratching my head. Why would it be considered offensive? Very strange.
I think it’s because of the PC Hollywood crap that it’s degrading to woman. And that woman only do it under duress. Both untrue. It’s part of life and should be shown that way. Causal nudity is films and TV should be the norm not the exception. I was producer (meaning I gave them some money) on a ultra low budget Frat House type movie. We put an ad in Crag’s List for actresses and extras for topless scenes around the pool and Frat house. No pay. And we had hundreds of woman applied in a couple days. They weren’t forced into it they wanted to be topless on film. As for the Carol Wayne that is a great scene!
Nobodies getting naked is not suprising. It was always this way. Casual nudity by established actresses is very rare these days. In America, that is. In other parts, of the world it’s pretty common. E.g. in the morning the actress gets out of bed, and she’s naked. Not because it’s important for the plot, but rather because it is how it happens in real life if one sleeps naked.
This is what American films are unable to reproduce. Everyday nudity without a specific dramatic reason.
E.g. Sienna Guillory in a casual sauna scene fully nude:
It’s not unknown in American productions, but it’s certainly uncommon. Larry Clark tends to be better at the kind of “I just got up and haven’t put pants on yet” kind of nudity. There’s the bit in the movie/show Kathryn Hahn did with Paul Giamatti where she’s bottomless for one scene, and that was more “it feels honest that she’s not put pants on.”
But you do absolutely get less scenes nowadays where the nudity is more… incidental? Like, you absolutely get the sense that most scenes have been negotiated and contracted to the millimeter and millisecond. I was thinking this with the Chinatown scene scoop posted yesterday: it’s not shot or framed to be A Nude Scene. It’s a scene where it makes sense for the character to be naked and she is, and she’s not framed or choreographed either to highlight her nudity or obscure it. What you happen to see when she moves around feels less deliberate and more organic.
Ebert was a huge fanboy for Russ Meyer and his nudie films. He wrote the original story for Up! and the screenplays for Beyond the Valley of the Dolls and Beyond the Valley of the Ultra-Vixens for Meyer.
The Tea Time Fuckin Movie.
I need to go cut off my Slauson.
Accompanied by Edward Durston when she “mysteriously died” after an argument with him. Same guy was also with Art Linkletter’s daughter Diane on the night she also “mysteriously died.” He said that he had attempted to grab her, but she had jumped over the balcony. Which sounds similar to his “losing track of” Carol, who was found dead in the water.
Sounds like this guy has such a lousy personality that women suddenly kill themselves to get away from him, or else he gave them a “helping hand” with their doom falls and got away with it. I’ve been on some bad dates, but none of them ever jumped out windows or into the ocean. This guy had both. Maybe they should go further back and see if he had any connection with Amelia Earhart.
Damn. This could have been one of the all-time great nude scenes but it falls short. The director allowed Carol to spend way too much time covering her wonderful breasts with her hands when she was upright, and also he got artsy-fartsy with the tits in the mirror bit. You don’t really get a good look at her chest when she is upright. Lying down is ok, but it would be much better to see them when she is standing.
**-Unless you see her lying down naked NEXT to you. Then that is an awesome view to be sure.
I thought she was the hooker in “The Man with Two Brains” but it turns out that was Randi Brooks.
Similar career arcs, though Randi is still alive and well.