Indie drama from the USA.

Seeking redemption, a middle aged man drives cross the country in search of the daughter he abandoned as a child.

Amy Hargreaves

Kate Walsh

VIDEOS

French historical drama. Original title: De nos frères blessés (Literal translation: “Of Our Wounded Brothers”)

This is a true story. Fernand Iveton was a French citizen born in Algeria, then a French colony, who joined the war for Algerian independence in 1956. He was caught planting a bomb in his workplace in Algiers. and was eventually executed by guillotine.

Video

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Other posts about Vicky Krieps

Kate Bosworth in “Big Sur” (2013), one of her few nude appearances.

That performance made the list of our Top Nude Scenes of 2013, but mostly because she had been so stingy with nudity before that time (and since that time, for that matter). Her scene would not normally have made our list since it usually includes 20 scenes and she finished in a tie for 23rd, but 2013 and 2014 were such impressive years for nudity that the list was expanded to 25 scenes. Those two years produced: Rosario Dawson in Trance; Margot Robbie in The Wolf of Wall Street; La Daddario in True Detective; ScarJo in Under the Skin. That is four of the top seven nude scenes of the Millennium in just those two years. (Daddario #1, Rosario #3, ScarJo #4, Robbie #7). And there were many other great scenes in those years as well.

Back on topic:

Kate showed only a bit of butt-crack in Blue Crush (2002), and a “blink and you miss it” nipple in The Rules of Attraction (also 2002), so she had basically done no nudity until 2013. In that year she did the above scene in Big Sur and a brief topless scene in And While We Were Here (below). There has been nothing since then. Perhaps she is the human equivalent of an 11-year cicada and we will see her naked twice again in 2024.

Breaking News ALERT:

Don’t miss Margot Robbie’s new topless scene in Dreamland

You know her face, if not her ass.. She’s the woman they hire when they want Margot Robbie but can’t afford her. I’m completely honest when I say that if I see a picture of one of them, I can’t tell which one it is.

Even Margot’s fans can’t tell the difference.

In vaguely related news, Samara is the niece of “Agent Smith” from the Matrix movies.

By the way, her fully unclothed ass looked like this in Last Moment of Clarity (2020), and the rest of her looked pretty nice as well.

You can keep your bowl games and your In Memoriam segments. The best way to celebrate a New Year is to look at the best nude scenes from the previous one.

We’ve had ups and downs over the years. There have been spectacular years like 2014, when Alexandra Daddario, ScarJo and Margot Robbie all graced us with their full-frontal debuts. It was such a good year that I had to expand the list to 25 scenes in order to include some great scenes like Elizabeth Olsen in Oldboy. And there have been total duds like 2008, when lower frontal nudity had almost been declared extinct.

In general, 2021 was one of the best years overall for the quality of the nudity, but not for the familiarity of the performers. There was no great full-frontal standout from a big name or in a familiar production, so nothing matched the three performances I mentioned from 2014, but there is not a dud in the top ten, and our voters generally gave the great scenes the recognition they deserved, from the biggest releases to the most obscure foreign films. As I re-watched the scenes this week, I was again dazzled by the beauty of Vivi Koenig, the full-blown insanity of Agathe Rousselle and Daria Polasik-Bulka, the masterful writing and photography featuring beautiful Lea Seydoux, the incredibly lengthy exposure of Odessa Young, the dedication of Sarah Shahi, the unearthly figure of Sydney Meyer, the daring of Maryse Miege … and that’s just a sample. Some of those, and other brilliant scenes, couldn’t even crack the top 20. In fact, there are some great nude performances that didn’t even make it to the final poll: Paulina Gaitan and Daphne Patakia come to mind immediately.

I rarely give in to the “popularity contest” aspect of the competition. In general, I try to seek out a truly meritorious scene rather than a popular favorite. In my typical process I would have voted for Odessa Young or Daria Polasik-Bulka, but this year I didn’t vote with my head. I let other body parts determine the selection, and I realized that Sydney Sweeney creates as much of a stir in me as she does in everyone else. I joined many of you in giving her a record-breaking victory, in which she garnered as many votes as the next four choices added together.

Here is the 2021 recap, including a link to brief film clips from each of the winners.

Here is a list of the top tens from the entire Scoopy era (1995-2021, the lifespan of the site), with links to the full recaps for each individual year.

Here is a mini search engine that goes through all of the lists (and nothing else).

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For reference:

Here is the original list of nominees, with links to pics and/or clips from every performance.

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And most important, let’s all have a happy new year and a happy nude year in 2022. Thanks to all of you for participating in the poll, and for reading the “other crap” that appears here every day.

“Roberts reportedly collapsed at home following a walk with her dogs on Christmas Eve, a rep for Roberts told TMZ. She was hospitalized and put on a ventilator, but never recovered. The official cause of death is currently unknown.”

Few women contributed more to the celebrity nudity quest, in terms of both quantity and quality. She was a beauty.

1982 – The Beastmaster

1982 – The Beastmaster deleted scenes

1984 – Sheena

1984 – Sheena

1988 – Purgatory

1990 – Night Eyes

1991 – Inner Sanctum

1992 – Almost Pregnant

1993 Sins of Desire

1994 – Deep Down

The collages and notes from Fuzz appeared here previously. The remainder of the entries are new.

Once again Brainscan takes a deep dive into a forgotten chapter in the history of film nudity: the grindhouse era. Except for Scoop’s intro immediately below, Brainscan alone created all the commentary and collages, as well as the myriad of film clips that accompany this article in the members’ version of the Fun House.

Scoop’s note:

The approach of the 70s sounded the death knell for a grindhouse industry pressured from all sides.

• Mainstream Hollywood movies were adding more and more nudity, taking away what had been the unique selling proposition of the grindhouse offerings in the early 60s.
• Foreign films with nudity and sexual content were filling up some of the small theaters that used to specialize exclusively in grindhouse products.
• Hard core porn was becoming more accessible and acceptable in society, and was thus taking over other grindhouse screens.
• The first home media was making its appearance, making it possible to view female flesh without a trip to a theater. Cable TV completed the 1-2 punch some years later.
• The real estate boom was destroying the drive-in theater market, as more and more locations found that the sale value of their large tracts of land was greater than any reasonable forecast of future operating revenues from outdoor theaters.

Lacking the talent, production values and wide mainstream appeal of Hollywood or European films, and lacking the titillation of real porn, grindhouse film makers struggled to find a niche. The grindhouse film makers took various actions to defend their markets. Brainscan’s article below explains one strategy they tried – to create a “harder” product than Hollywood could offer, while maintaining a certain respectability and legal status still generally denied to hard core films.

As legal restrictions on complete nudity in movies decreased and pressure to reveal anything and everything increased, grindhouse directors pushed the envelope of what they would film. Some movies in the short period of 1969 to 1972 do a nice job of showing just how far these movies would go.

 

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Fuzz (1970) is as hard a softcore movie as you will ever find. It is filled with porn stars, including John Holmes, some prominent cross-over stars (Maria Arnold), a grindhouse legend (Uschi Digard) and a cult goddess (Neola Graef) who would sometimes use the name, Malta. I have been to Malta and found it filled with filled with gorgeous women, but not many blondes. No matter.

Maria Arnold is in a pair of sport-humping scenes, one indoor and the other out in the sun.

Maria and Neola and Uschi sit around a fire toasting marshmallows – that is not a euphemism for a libidinous act – and then cheer on John Holmes as he pretends to do the double-backed monster with some other woman.

One highlight of the movie has Neola and Uschi getting very friendly with one another.

Story goes the two actresses really were friends, and they appeared together in what seems to be a dozen movies.  Neola was only 18 or 19 years old at this time; she seemed to know what guys wanted to see and she seemed to have no problem at all giving it to them.

The other highlight has Uschi and John Holmes pairing up for a session of softcore coupling.

 

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Eye Spy (1971) had the story, acting and production qualities of a hardcore film but none of the hardcore activity.  It stars Donna Stanley and Pamala Westcott, both of whom were very attractive and both of whom would try her hand at hardcore movie making for a very brief time.  The thinnest of stories has a guy installing hidden video equipment around a house so that its owner could spy on the comings and goings of his daughter.  Or  something like that.

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How I Got My Mink (1969) starred Donna Stanley, who would turn to hardcore movies, and Monica Gayle, who often played the girl next door turned wicked. There is not much to say about the movie except it is a hippie ode to free love, self-love and girls will be girls love.

Ms. Stanley has a most revealing set of performances with:

Ms. Gayle also jumps right into the act, as director Nick Millard appeared to have a Tinto Brass-level attachment to naked bottoms.

A scene with a pair of uncredited actresses – one of whom looks like Cathy Adams – completes the whole thing.

 

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as a couple of bi-curious women who spend a lot of time together.  Ms. Mills’ character seems more firmly decided in her choice of bed partners, whereas Ms. York explores the company of a hairy male who appears to be some sort of primate.  I know how most readers of the Funhouse will respond, but I have to ask this question: if you had the choice of the elegant beauty of Barbara Mills or the hirsute form of her male companion, which would you choose?  By the end of the movie, Ms. York comes to her senses and moves back to Barbara.

 

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None of these movies started with the best production values and all have suffered some damage with time, but the worst-off, by far, is The Adventures of Flash Beaver (1972).

She plays a super-heroine named Flash Beaver, yes indeed, whose super-powers include the ability to move from place to place at the speed of light, disrobe instantly and educate a couple in the ways of love.  The result is pretty much what you would expect.  I am a fan of both women, but this movie is really poor in every way that can be measured.

Five Loose Women (1974) is an escaped women-in-prison movie, which I suppose makes it a women out of prison movie.  There is this and that and the other thing that goes on, but the highlight of the whole shebang is when escapees meet hippies.

play the hippie gals whereas four of the five escapees – on the loose and therefore Loose Women (wink, wink, nudge, nudge) – are played by

Eve, Maria and Janet do what hippies do by running around and dancing, all the while topless.  When the loose women find the hippie encampment, they borrow clothes from the residents and change out of prison garb. The result, in glorious broad daylight, is Donna (ever so briefly) and the other women topless. That’s about it for exposure, despite the fact two of the women playing hippies (Eve and Maria) and one of them playing an escapee (Rene) spent considerable time doing hardcore movies.

Five Loose Women has the look and feel, not of a grindhouse movie that was intended for a rundown theater in the low-rent district but of a drive-in theater that catered to couples busy with other pursuits. As Scoop said in his comments about grindhouse cinema, drive- in theaters were places for sexploitation fare, but they showed hicksploitation movies and costume comedies rather than the porn-without-penetration films that kept grind houses busy for a while in the 70’s.  Five Loose Women fits into that drive-in genre.

The drive-ins would outlast the grind houses.  You could still go a drive-in theater and see some impressive nudity in the mid-70’s and even into the early 80’s – I remember seeing Lifeforce at a drive-in when it first came out in 1985.  But video killed the grindhouse star and it also finished off the drive-ins by the end of the 80’s.

The replacement for grind houses and drive-ins would be the kind of direct-to-video movies that made Shannon Tweed famous, or at least respectably rich in 90’s, and it was followed by all sorts of cable series in the first decade of this century.  But all of that has come to an end and it is impossible to imagine what could bring any of it back.

 

Once again Brainscan takes a deep dive into a forgotten chapter in the history of film nudity: the grindhouse era. Brainscan alone created all the commentary and collages, as well as the myriad of film clips that accompany this article in the members’ version of the Fun House.

Today’s foray into grindhouse is a story of a beta version of an idea, full of bugs and rough edges, made closer to marketable after a lot more work a lot later on.; The final, memorable version of a sketch comedy on the silver screen is Kentucky Fried Movie (1977).; The beta version was called Miss Nymphet’s Zap-In (1970).; Zap-In has some strengths. One of them is the answer to the question, What is the lowest form of humor?; Slapstick?; Knock-knock jokes?; Puns?; Nope, it is Miss Nymphet’s Zap-In.; You can, with nothing but confidence, say that is the answer to the age-old question, because of the sheer number of atrociously penned and acted things that someone must have thought were jokes.

The other strength is 11 recognizable actresses and 1 unknown who spend some time unclothed.; These actresses include some familiar names, including Bambi Allen

are the highlights of the movie, and the reasons I gabbed it in the first place. They were grindhouse legends despite the limits to their filmographies. And the red-headed wonder, Luanne Roberts, also appears but – I am sad to say – in only a scene or two.

Phyllis Stengel shows up in the largest number of sketches and has, by coincidence, the longest list of movies to her credit.; The camera was not all that kind to her in Miss Nymphet,

but if you look at other movies, such as 1971’s Wow Cindy, you see how good she could look with the right director of photography.

are topless go-go dancers who fill in the spaces between sketches.; Their total screen time may be 5 minutes, but it is the same thing over and over again, which proves that yes, indeed, two topless women can be boring.

appeared in Miss Nymphet and not much else.

And then there is Loray White, who you might remember from The Notorious Cleopatra (she is the African-American woman who played the Greek-Egyptian pharaoh with a New Jersey accent).; Cleo and Miss Nymphet are the only performances in which Ms. White is in some state of undress, which I figured would make her performance worth seeing.; Good heavens, was I ever mistaken.; I know the movie is fifty years old, but I am embarrassed for everyone involved – writers, director and Ms. Loray White – that she was put into scenes as an African cannibal and asked to ham it up.; The movie, throughout, was terribly unfunny; her scenes were the terribly unfunniest.

 

From the collages and clips you will see the video was made from a print that had been roughly handled – it has scratches and spots and anything else you can imagine to obscure the content.; The phrase, better than nothing, kept coming to mind as I worked on this project.

Part 1 of this series, The Immoral Mr. Teas, can be found here

Part 2, Nudie Cuties and More, 1963-1965, can be found here.

Part 3, The Nudie Cuties of 1963, can be found here

Part 4, The First Nudie Musical, can be found here

Part 5, Early Nudie Costume Comedies, can be found here

Part 6, The Mid Sixties, can be found here

Part 7, 1967, can be found here.

Part 8, The Turn of the Decade, can be found here.

to be continued …

 

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If you enjoy Brainscan’s work, here are the other series that can be found on Other Crap:

The Films of Harry Novak

Part 1, The Sixties, can be found here.

Part 2, Hicksploitation, is here.

Part 3, The Seventies, is here.

Part 4, The Models in Print (and in his films), is here

 

The Early Years of Film Nudity

Part 1: 1932. Peak Pre-Code Talkies.

Part 2: 1929-1934. The Other Pre-Code Talkies.

Part 3: 1927. The Swan Song of the Silents.

Part 4: 1900-1926. The Silent Era.

Part 5: 1935-1951. The Dry Years.

Part 6: 1952-1959. Europe to the Rescue

The same articles, with the added bonus of all of Brainscan’s film clips,  can be found in the members’s version of the Fun House, along with the many thousands of other collages, clips and commentaries that Brainscan has created in the past two decades. (And his contributions represent only a tiny fraction of the content in the back issues.)