You may or may not recognize her name, but you definitely know her voice. You’ve heard it for the last 40 years on The Simpsons, where she plays Lisa. (The characters debuted on The Tracey Ullmann show in April of 1987, so it will be 40 years in the Spring!)
Ginger Ale Afternoon was released in 1989, when she had already played Lisa on The Tracey Ullman show, but before the debut of The Simpsons that December. She would never again do any nudity.
This film has now been released in a widescreen 1080hd version. Unfortunately, the topless scene shown below, which was seen in the full screen version, has not endured intact.
It now looks like this. I suppose that’s how it was supposed to look when it was projected. We were fortunate to see a little more on the video tape.
VHS releases often consisted of the full frame seen by the photographer rather than the part that was supposed to be visible. That was simply the easiest way to transpose films to VHS, since the aspect ratio of the full 35MM film (1.37) was almost exactly identical to the 1.33 aspect ratio of standard television and VHS. These full-screen versions were called “open matte.” It wasn’t the best way to transfer films to VHS, but it was the easiest, and therefore was how most low-budget films were transferred. That worked out well for us, since we occasionally got to see something interesting that was intended to be out of the frame.
(Major productions would pay video editors to create customized versions for their debuts on broadcast TV. This was done either by completely re-editing the film into a 4:3 version, or by blocking out the extra information at the top and bottom to replicate the intended widescreen projection. These custom television versions occasionally appeared on VHS as well, since the standard TV ratio and the VHS ratio were the same.)
Anyway, here is the original VHS version of Ginger Alle Afternoon, and an enhanced version of same, both of which have the topless scene intact.
Another scene, a topless cuddle with her lover, managed to survive to 1080hd without losing any nudity. Unfortunately, there is never really a good look at her large breasts. It’s all side-boob and hand-bra stuff like this:
Between the Lisa Simpson voice and the fact that she was older in most of the live action things I’ve seen her in, I never really thought of her as attractive. But damn, she was pretty cute when she was younger (or at least she was in this movie).
As for the open matte thing, I’ve always been curious as to how they came about. Like, were the actresses just okay getting naked as long as the director told them the nudity wouldn’t be in the shot? Did they not have pasties back then? I know modesty probably wasn’t as big of a concern back then as it is now, but it seems like they must have had some apprehension about doing nudity or else it just would have been in the movie in the first place. So it just seems strange that they’re fine getting naked on set even when it’s not supposed to be in the actual film.
From what I’ve seen it’s a mixed bag. In many cases the extra visible portion reveals that the apparent nudity was fake. In Vacation, for example, the extra portion revealed that Bev D’Angelo was wearing panties in the shower.
I don’t have any insight to offer on Ginger Ale Afternoon.