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.

During the mid-1960’s most of the movies shown in grind houses were New York productions that addressed subjects that were grim and gritty – with titles that announced the fact – and that starred the same group of actresses from one film to another.

But much more common were brunettes in just about everything else, and foremost among them from 1964 to 1966 were Darlene Bennett and June Roberts.

Ms. Bennett has 34 credits on IMDb, including both full-length movies and short films, all within the period of 1963 to 1969.  In a couple of the shorts, she appears with her sister, Dawn.  That is true for 1966’s Double Trouble, which has the distinction of feeding three of the prime fantasies of your typical 60’s American man.  1) A guy stumbles onto a semi-clothed gal (Dawn Bennett) who seems utterly unaware of his presence; 2) The guy and gal hit it right off, so she invites him up to her apartment; 3) The guy, the gal and her sister (Darlene) wind up in bed together.  Tis the trifecta of every man’s dreams.

 

which co-starred Judy Adler, one the most attractive women to ever star in grindhouse fare.

I don’t know much about The Beast because I did not work on it.  The collages were from a decade-old post by a retired imager who called himself Unique1 – all I did was balance the color a bit and add the names.

I did watch Darlene and Judy’s other 1965 effort, Sin Syndicate, and I am sorry for it.  The movie is a sordid, miserable mess that qualifies as a roughie – usually not my cup of tea, but the star power was too great an allure.  Darlene is in a lesbian-lite scene with Marlene Eck (neither party disrobes)

.

Those movies included Flesh and Lace,

The Girl From Sin,

My Brother’s Wife,

The Sexploiters.

and Rent-a-Girl

Those who made the movie claimed it was composed of scenes cut from other films but all that is bullshit – they are just a series of poorly filmed and barely edited clips strung together with some modicum of  narration.  The inestimable Oz sent me the clip from Censored that included Ms. Roberts’ scenes at the beginning and end – I stitched them together – and a bunch of gals playing nudists in between.

Also noteworthy in the June Roberts classics are:

Darlene Bennett, who was featured in Rent-a-Girl,

and Gigi Darlene, whose challenge in The Sexploiters was to strip out of her clothes while eating ice cream – the gal had talent.

By the end of 1966, the winds of change were blowing at gale force.  Mainstream movies shown at reputable theaters began to include nude scenes and hardcore movies began to show up at places that might get  raided now and again, but that offered the viewer much more than shower scenes shot from the waist up or lesbian scenes in which neither party got out of her clothes.  Grindhouse movies would have two more years – 1967 and 1968 – to use the same formulas that had brought in customers for a while, but they would need to go much farther in the years that followed if they wanted to keep those customers.

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

to be continued …

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.)

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.

So far we have looked at the nudie cuties as they dominated grindhouse fare in the first third of the 1960s. Bachelor Tom Peeping (1962), starring Patty Casse, is another movie that lays claim to showing nudists in their natural habitat.

Nude on the Moon (1962) was also solidly in that tradition even though they moved the nudists from Florida to outer space, which really isn’t that much of a stretch. That one featured:

But there are two points to make: 1) nudie cuties were not the only exploitation movies shown in grind houses in the early 60’s and 2) nudie cuties stayed popular at least into the early 1970’s.

A good example of grittier grindhouse movies in the early 60’s was Girl In Trouble (1963), about a country gal who loses her way in the big city and winds up a sex worker.  The blond and buxom Tammy Clarke played the title character in her only appearance on the screen.  Love the hair-do.

If we look for nudie costume comedies like those that Harry Novak made in 1970, we see much the same thing that same year with The Joys of Jezebel.  And like Harry, the producer of Joys was wise enough to hire

to bathe and dance and pretend to bed a willing young man.

In the same genre of nudie costume comedy – perhaps its earliest example – is Sinderella and the Golden Bra (1964).  The send up here is Sinderella loses not her golden slippers but her golden bra on her way out the door at the royal ball.  This gives the love-stricken prince a chance to find Sinderella by forcing every maiden in the land to try on the precious under-garment.  Good premise to a movie meant for the grindhouse audience, but the execution is terrible.  Let me tell you why.

Real early in the movie is a village fair, complete with a topless belly dancer, played by Jackie De Witt. That is good news.  Jackie also plays one of the village maidens, forced by royal decree to try on the bra. That is even better news, because the bra is much too small for her.  Much.

But then starts the bad news.

Althea Currier plays one of the maidens and yes, indeed, she also tries on the bra, but she turns her back to the camera.  Althea Currier… topless as usual… with her back…to the camera.  What in THE fuck?

Perhaps you think she asked for too much to appear topless, but there she is an earlier scene, appearing as a lady-in-waiting, with not a stitch on above her waist.

So she was uninhibited as an aristocrat but bashful as a peasant?  Tis a mystery.

That is bad execution #1.

Bad execution #2 is the casting of the other village maidens; they were not, shall we say, the most delectable women in Hollywood and would not have been in the top tier of any good-sized village.  The movie credits and IMDb give us the names of these maidens, but who is who escapes me.  That is too bad because one actress credited as a Village Maiden, Donna Anderson, had major roles in Inherit The Wind and On The Beach.  You can find a lot of pictures of her on the web,

and a comparison of images suggests that of all the village maidens, number 2 looks the most like her, but nothing is certain. (I numbered the maidens in order of appearance; Althea was #1)

Playing Sinderella is the one-movie wonder, Suzanne Sybele.  She is a nice enough looking woman, but you can see why both Althea Currier and Jackie De Witt failed to squeeze into a bra made for her.

And when you see her act, you will understand why this is her only film credit.

One last note about Sinderella: it is a fairy godfather who gets her ready for the royal ball, not a godmother.  And this godfather is played not by Brando or De Niro but by Sydney Lassick.  You might be asking. “Who is Sydney Lassick?” but you will recognize him if you have seen One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.  He played Cheswick and he did a great job as a looney.

Any other last-minute suggestions for nude scene of the year?

Lara Fontan in The Hockey Girls (s2e1)
Jamie Chung in Lovecraft Country, e6
Beatrice Barichella in We Are Who We Are, e4
Margot Robbie in Dreamland
Alexandria Daddario in Lost Girls and Love Hotels
Elle Fanning in The Great, e1
Matilda De Angelis in The Undoing, especially e1 and e4
Alicia Agneson in Vikings, s6e10
Thomasin McKenzie in True History of the Kelly Gang
Alison Brie in Horse Girl
Charlotte Hope in The Spanish Princess, s2e3
Elizabeth Debicki in The Burnt Orange Heresy
Clara Ponsot in Des Gens Décents
Saiorse Ronan and Kate Winslet in Ammonite
Elarica Johnson in P-Town, several episodes
Jurnee Smollett-Bell in Lovecraft Country
Ida Engvoll in Love and Anarchy
Daisy Edgar-Jones in Normal People
Kristen Stewart in Sebring
Eva Green in Proxima
Samara Weaving in Last Moment of Clarity
Jenny Slate in Sunlight Night
Erendira Ibarra in Dark Forces.
Elisa Echevarria Menendez in Invisible (aka Unseen).
Brunna Martins in Hard
Margaret Qualley in Love Me Like You Hate Me
Sienna Miller in Wander Darkly
Veronica Falcon in Perry Mason
Madeline Zima in Perry Mason
Addison Timlin in All Roads to Pearla
Frances McDormand in Nomadland
Cecile de France in The New Pope, especially e2
Riley Voelkel in Hightown (e2 or especially e5)
Rosamund Pike in Radioactive
Juno Temple in Little Birds
Natalia Lage in Hard
Inma Cuesta in El Desorden Que Dejas
Audrey Tautou in The Jesus Rolls
Ana de Armas in Wasp Network
Ana de Armas in Sergio
Ana de Armas in The Night Clerk
Carol Duarte in Invisible Life
Natasha Jascalevich in Todas as Mulheres do Mundo
Clair Catherine in Castle Freak
Emily Sweet in Castle Freak
Kika Magalhães in Castle Freak
Tuppence Middleton in Possessor
Sierra Goddard in Carrion
Catrinel Marlon in The Whistlers
Maria Casadevall in Girls from Ipanema
Katelyn Pearce in Porno
Laurence Leboeuf in Catch and Release
Sabrina Alfonso in Initials S.G.
Laure Calamy in Call My Agent, s4e1
Lela Loren in Altered Carbon, s2e8
Rieke Seja in Get Lucky
Antje Traue in Konig der Raben
Julia Chatys in Hamlet X 4
Sara Celler-Jezierska and Agnieszka Zulewska in Erotica 2022
Anna Maria Sieklucka in 365 Days
Aubrey Plaza in Black Bear
Roosa Soderholm in Baby Jane
Thandie Newton in Westworld, s3e2
Noemie Merlant in Jumbo
Melissa Barrera in Vida, s3
Trine Dyrholm in Queen of Hearts
Shannon Lucio in Adam
Betsy Holt in Snakes in the Water
Anna Brewster in The Last Days of American Crime
Ana Nogueira in Hightown, e4
‎Kacey Rohl in White Lie
Tanya Reynolds in Deliver’d
Esme Creed-Miles in Jamie
Laura Houvenagel in Le Livre de L’Antechrist
Naomi Said in In Corpore
Clara Pagone in In Corpore
Kelsey Gillis and Sarah Timm in In Corpore

Once again Brainscan takes a deep dive into a forgotten chapter in the history of film nudity: the grindhouse era. Except for the footnote, 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.

Grindhouse movies that claimed to show the nudist lifestyle did not start with Russ Meyer’s The Immoral Mr. Teas.  Pretty sure there are many more examples, but the earliest I have come across is a short from the 1940’s titled Lil From Brazil, which stars Margie Harrison, a future Playmate. ⁽¹⁾

But we can be sure the first nudist musical was Goldilocks and the Three Bares (1963).  The first half of the movie is a stage show captured on film with some dialogue about something and some singing about something else, but the second half is a nudist extravaganza with water skiing and yachting and horseback riding (yikes!).  That  second half starts with Allison Louise Downe getting into the correct attire for this nudist sort of thing.

and then proceeds to show her and maybe a dozen women posed so as to keep their furry bits hidden.

One BIG exception to that rule – no furry bits – is the scene in which Allison gets on her horse.  Shot from a distance, it nevertheless reveals parts of her that would rile any censor.

In the second of Allison’s clips you will see veteran nudist movie star, Dolores Carlos, in a swinging hammock.  That’s it – the sum total of her contribution to the movie, swinging topless, in a hammock, back and forth a half-dozen times.  Oscar-winning stuff.

One clip with neither hide nor hair of Allison is supposed to be funny, as some doofus in a fake mustache uses binoculars to spy on nudists five feet away from him.  Perhaps he was a dermatologist, in search of suspicious moles.  The actor playing this part has the subtle range of a warthog in heat.  Anyway, he spies Maria Stinger frolicking in a  nearby pool and thereby proving to one and all that she need never worry about drowning.

She was also a frequent sight to see in nudist movies, as you can see in the Funhouse archives, February 7, 2013, where you will find her in a legendary cinematic performance as nudist #3 in 1961’s Diary of a Nudist, as captured by Oz.

The credits say another veteran grindhouse actress, Ginger Hale (or Hall), appears as a nudist somewhere in this film but I’ll be darned if I can find her.  Truth be told, this movie almost broke me.  I gave up one evening after capturing images that were blah, just blah and despaired of finding a way to piece them together.  (Like random images of nudists by the pool.) The movie was no fun at all to watch and was hell to work with.  In a ten-tiered system of movie fun that ranges from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade at the top and Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull at the bottom, this one sleeps with the Skull.

————–

(1. Scoop’s footnote: The otherwise obscure Margie Harrison is famous for one thing – her appearances in Playboy. To begin with, she became the FIRST Playmate when she appeared in the second-ever issue of the Bunny-oriented publication.  “First Playmate” is a trivia question that will win you many bar bets. Most people think Marilyn Monroe was the first Playmate. You all know that Marilyn appeared in Playboy #1, but the magazine never applied the term “Playmate” to her. MM was the “Sweetheart of the Month.”

Margie was also the first Playboy centerfold, because Marilyn had appeared in the main body of the  magazine.

Finally, Margie was also a two-time Playmate, as she graced both the January and June issues in 1954.)

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

to be continued …

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.)

The other years, 1929-1934

All commentary, captures and collages are by Brainscan. He also created all the many accompanying film clips in the members’ area. Part 1 of the series, dedicated to 1932, can be found here.

====

In the years immediately before and after the seminal year of 1932, Hollywood and European movie studios did what they could to skirt the rules laid down by the Hays Code.

1933, in particular, was another great year.  Perhaps the most famous of all early scenes, by Hedy Lamar in Ecstasy, still gets a lot of attention.

– both followed the strategy of getting an unclothed or barely clothed actress into some body of water.

Also in 1933, Barbara Stanwyck played a gal willing to screw her way to the top in Baby Face and she does spend some time a flimsy dressing gown.

But it was in 1931, in Night Nurse, that she reveals the most she ever would – which is to say, not much – when she strips down twice to some under garments.

 who also spiced up the screen in 1934’s Blonde Crazy
(the bathtub still is shot from a much more revealing angle than the scene, itself).

and a 1934 film titled Murder at the Vanities nicely illustrate another tactic used by Hollywood producers to introduce some skin. Those three are essentially stage musicals with the barest of plots, but with chorus gals wearing as little as possible.

1934 gave us more than just Murder.

Josephine McKim stood in for Maureen O’Sullivan and swam naked with Johnny Weissmuller in Tarzan and His Mate.

and – this is the high point of the year – Russian actress Illa Meery appeared topless

You just have to see that scene from Ladies Lake, because it starts out as typical Pre-Code tease, with Illa in a gossamer thin gown, but boy, does it evolve into something else. This was not the first time Ms. Meery had appeared topless, however.  For that you need to go back to 1929 in Cagliostro.

More typical of 1929 was the sort of clothes worn by Gilda Gray in Piccadilly,

but the point of Illa Meery’s scenes during these years is the rise of European cinema for Funhouse-worthy material.  That’s the way it would be for a long time.

Last things to consider with Pre-Code movies came out in 1931.  In addition to Blonde Crazy  and Night Nurse, there was Greta Granstedt in Street Scene (the stills show you what you need to know about her performance, or at least her wardrobe, in that movie)

Better than any other scene I watched, the one with Ms. Clark as a chorus gal in a dressing room shows how dearly producers wanted to reveal as much as possible  without going too far.

But my favorite movie of 1934 with my favorite actress of that era was Norma Shearer in Free Soul.  She was luminous and the director put her in a satin gown with nothing else and, my oh my, did she get close to showing off more than just her wonderful face and terrific acting talent.  So close…

Brainscan’s comments:

Some screen captures of Carole Lombard and Jean Harlow from movies I do not recognize. Jean’s scene has particularly impressive side-boobage.

Scoop’s notes:

Well, here is where my store of infinitely useless knowledge becomes almost useful.

• The top picture is Lombard in Bolero (1934)
• The next picture down is also Lombard in Bolero, this time with George Raft.
• The next one down is Lombard in We’re Not Dressing (1930)
• The last one is Harlow in Hell’s Angels, from 1930, when she was still sporting her natural eyebrows.

In previous editions of Other Crap, you will find Brainscan’s long series on the history of pre-code Hollywood

• 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.

All captures, collages and comments in this post are by Brainscan. He also created the accompanying film clips in the members’ area.

The First three parts of the series are found as follows:

Part 1: 1932. Peak Pre-Code Talkies.

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

Part 3: 1927. The Swan Song of the Silents

The Early Silents

1900-1926

If you look at earlier films, you run into something of a pattern.  Take the 1926 production of Faust and the 1925 production of Ben Hur.

It seems D. W. Griffith started the whole thing in 1916’s Intolerance, in which a scene from Ancient Babylon shows off several uncredited actresses as a way to introduce some salacious content in some suitable form (Babylonians were bad, ‘mkay?)

The two problems with silent films are the scarcity of surviving movies – age and a catastrophic fire mean many are simply lost – and the poor quality of the prints that did survive.  So Lil Dagover’s topless scene in Between Two Worlds is both brief and the dickens to work with because of print quality.

Her surviving still pictures give us a good idea of how attractive she was.

The real shame is with the movies made by Betty Blythe.  She was attractive and not the least bit bashful both in posing topless

and in appearing in movies with very little on.  1925’s She is a wonderful example of how little she wore on screen, which she acknowledged by saying only her husband and her director could tell her what to wear.  The quality of the print for She is horrid, but at least it survived.

The Queen of Sheba did not survive- at least no one has found a print – and all we’re left with is a host of production stills that show Betty under something we would  scarcely call a wardrobe.  She was quoted as saying she wore more than 40 outfits in that movie, but had she worn them all at the same time, they would not have kept her warm.

If we go back much farther we run into Angele Guys in J’accuse, Gloria Swanson in Male and Female, and Julia Faye in Don’t Change Your Husband, all in 1919.

both of which I believe are lost films, with only the above production stills to hint at what they might have been.

Finally, there are two actresses in these years that compete for the title of earliest sex goddess.  Audrey Munson (“America’s first Supermodel”) and Annette Kellerman appear in movies where they play artist’s models or some such stationary and  partially clad figures.

But you have to go all the way back to 1900 to find an uncredited actress wearing what looks to be a body suit in The Temptation of St. Anthony to find perhaps the first on-screen semi-nudity.  Again, the problem of lost films and of prints in really bad shape leaves only still photos to admire.

So, fine – even the earliest and best directors saw the wisdom of filming attractive women in various states of undress, all of which would lead to the revelations of the Pre-Code Talkie Era. Then along came enforcement of the Hays Code and what  followed was a grim 30 years for those of us in the Funhouse and Other Crap readership.

This will take you back a few years. Most of us probably lusted after her when she was on Maude.

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.

1963 had two other nudie cutie movies. Bare Hunt was shot in black and white, and She Should Have Stayed in Bed was shot in color.

I had my doubts about the format of the She Should Have Stayed in Bed, so washed out was the color, until I got hold of the trailer.  This was one of Gigi Darlene’s first movies, which makes the miserable condition of the DVD border on the tragic. I used the DVD for the first two collages,

but then in the third collage you see The Goddess of All Things Grindhouse in
vivid color.  She was to die for as a blonde but as a redhead Gigi was off-scale.

She Should Have purports to show the viewpoint of a cameraman as he follows women around from one apartment to another, with a running gag about a wedding cake and a repeating performance of Audrey Campbell brushing her hair.

Through it all is the voice of he who is supposed to be the director, speaking lines written by the wife of the real-life director; they are amusing in the same sense that Tiger King’s comments at his husband’s funeral were.

A few other women revealed in their natural habitats are:

Bare Hunt also uses voice over for most of its length, as a detective follows a trail of dead women who had been naked only moments before they met their maker. Not so much a whodunnit as a who gives a shit about it, the movie manages to reveal:

Someone manages to slip a noose around Ms. Moore’s neck without her noticing anything amiss until the noose tightens, such is the magic of hemp.

The detective hangs out a pool with Marge London in a verrrryyy long photo shoot.

It all ends when he confronts Marilyn Savage, his secretary and serial murderess.

The scene with Ms. Savage is the only one shot with dialogue, and by the sound of it, the director set up a microphone in the kitchen but shot the scene in the living room.  Ms. Savage is a hoot to watch as she goes from enticing – y’all wouldn’t shoot little ol’ me because I am too sexy for my shirt – to seriously pissed off in less than a second.  She then runs out the door.  Roll credits.

This is what grind houses had to offer their customers in 1963, desperately awful movies for desperately horny men.  And the producers could get away with it because in the early 1960’s they had no competition.  All of that would change in the space of 5 years and when it did, grindhouse would become much more  interesting.

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.

To be continued …

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, since the Fun House has been updated every day, seven days a week, for the past 24 years, except for one month in 2023.)

This time in La Famiglia (2017)

She’s the star of the week, isn’t she?

Earlier in the week, she appeared fully nude in the premiere of the new HBO mini-series The Undoing.

And we also saw a capture of her topless appearance in a 2018 film called Youtopia