The Naked Kiss (1964)

Featured Audience Ratings

• Graham J

  
  Fuller's take on melodrama is much more brutal. A very risque subject for it's time, this pulp classic holds up very well today.

• Stella D

  
  whoa. a great vehicle for constance towers and lurid as all hell. fuller strikes a blow for female empowerment.

• Randy T

  
  I have to believe that Sam Fuller just doesn't give a rat's ass about what the rest of the world thinks. He has a story to tell and he's going to tell it HIS way, style and etiquette be damned. You gotta respect a guy who has the huevos to make films that challenge… More
  I have to believe that Sam Fuller just doesn't give a rat's ass about what the rest of the world thinks. He has a story to tell and he's going to tell it HIS way, style and etiquette be damned. You gotta respect a guy who has the huevos to make films that challenge convention.

• Stephen M

  
  Like a lot of Sam Fuller's stuff, <I>The Naked Kiss</I> is melodramatic and corny in places, but it does contain some unforgettably powerful moments, not the least of them the starling opening scene, in which Constance Towers' prostitute beats her pimp… More
  Like a lot of Sam Fuller's stuff, <I>The Naked Kiss</I> is melodramatic and corny in places, but it does contain some unforgettably powerful moments, not the least of them the starling opening scene, in which Constance Towers' prostitute beats her pimp unconscious, losing her wig in the process to reveal the fact that she is completely bald! Fast-forward a couple of years and Towers is forging a new life for herself in a small town, caring for disabled children and engaged to marry a wealthy philanthropist. Now, you would expect Towers' colourful past to catch up with her, and it does, eventually, but not before Fuller has used her basic decency to expose the hypocrisies lurking behind a respectable small town façade, such as the police captain who doesn't want any vice on his own patch but is happy to visit a bordello over the river in the next state. I'm sure it's not the effect Fuller was aiming for but there's something about this movie that really creeps me out, particularly when it's trying to be tender. I'm not sure why; probably a combination of the strangeness of the subject matter, occasionally amateurish acting and the director striving for emotions outside the scope of his abilities. Whatever the reason, it's a film I admire much more than I like. In case you're interested: http://www.archive.org/details/The_Naked_Kiss

• Michael G

  
  Melodramatic, but great. It also has one of the best opening scenes you'll ever see.

• Walter M

  
  [font=Century Gothic]In "Underworld, USA", as a teenager Tolly Devlin witnesses his father being brutally beaten to death by four men and is able to idenify one of the men, Vic Farrar, but will not share the information with Driscoll(Larry Gates) from the district… More
  [font=Century Gothic]In "Underworld, USA", as a teenager Tolly Devlin witnesses his father being brutally beaten to death by four men and is able to idenify one of the men, Vic Farrar, but will not share the information with Driscoll(Larry Gates) from the district attorney's office. Tolly(Cliff Robertson) grows up to be a small-time thief who is in and out of prison. Eventually, he tracks down Farrar who is dying in a prison infirmary and convinces Farrar to give up the names of the other three men.[/font] [font=Century Gothic][/font] [font=Century Gothic]"Underworld USA" is a good, solid movie about revenge and justice that is occasionally weakened by uneven acting.[/font] [font=Century Gothic][/font] [font=Century Gothic][/font] [font=Century Gothic][color=navy]"The Naked Kiss" starts out with a bald woman, Kelly(Constance Towers), delivering a beating to a man to get the $75 she feels is due to her. Two years later, with a full head of hair, Kelly gets off the bus at Grantville, pretending to be a champagne saleswoman as a front for her mobile prostitution business. She strikes up an acquaintance with the town sherriff, Griff(Anthony Eisley), and they spend the night together at his place but Kelly leaves in the morning. She finds other lodgings and starts a new chapter in her life.[/color][/font] [font=Century Gothic][color=#000080][/color][/font] [font=Century Gothic][color=#000080]"The Naked Kiss" gets off to a great start but the film does not come into its own until late with a particularly disturbing scene. The movie is about the possibility of redemption and how people can change, given the chance.[/color][/font]

• Brian R

  
  I can see where Martin Scorsese gets his influence from. There is a scene in Sam Fuller's "The Naked Kiss" where Kelly(Constance Towers) goes to see an older woman who owns a brothel named Candy(Virginia Grey), Kelly is upset because Candy has given extra money to a… More
  I can see where Martin Scorsese gets his influence from. There is a scene in Sam Fuller's "The Naked Kiss" where Kelly(Constance Towers) goes to see an older woman who owns a brothel named Candy(Virginia Grey), Kelly is upset because Candy has given extra money to a girl who is a nurse but wants to become a prostitute. As soon as the two women enter the room there is music playing in the background and a sudden burst of violence occurs. Another great scene is when Kelly is having a tough love conversation to the same woman who is thinking about getting into prostitution. Kelly immediately refocuses her thinking saying... "You know what's different about the first night? Nothing. Nothing... except it lasts forever, that's all. You'll be sleeping on the skin of a nightmare for the rest of your life. Oh, you're a beautiful girl, Buff. Young... Oh, they'll outbid each other for you. You'll get clothes, compliments, cash... And you'll meet men *YOU* live on... and men who live on you. And those are the only men you'll meet. And, after a steady grind of making EVERY john feel at home, you'll become a block of ice. If you do happen to melt a little, you'll get slipped a tip behind Candy's back. You'll be every man's wife-in-law, and no man's wife. Why, your world with Candy will become so warped that you'll hate all men. And you'll hate yourself! Because you'll become a social problem, a medical problem, a MENTAL problem!... And a despicable failure as a woman" Ok..ok..so I copied that memorable quote at IMDB but it just shows how sincere and blunt Kelly is as a woman because she used to be a slave to men and makes sure no other woman close to her becomes a worthless statistic. I also liked the scene where Fuller uses close up shots of small children who partake in a song at the hospital and I feel it's a way to give them hope dispite their disadvantages, but it's also a foreshadow that will haunt Kelly for the last remaining scenes in the picture. Fuller uses good use of the camera especially during the opening scene and he also makes his lead a woman who does not and will not take a back seat to men. Constance Towers can stand on her own two feet.

• Anastasia B

  
  This film has one of the most memorable scenes in the history of film-making. It's the introduction: the prostitute that beats the shit out of her pimp, gets her money back and in the process, she loses her blond wig, revealing that she is actually bald. Alain Silver has… More
  This film has one of the most memorable scenes in the history of film-making. It's the introduction: the prostitute that beats the shit out of her pimp, gets her money back and in the process, she loses her blond wig, revealing that she is actually bald. Alain Silver has written on this: "In film noir, women have as much potential to be killers as men. Here prostitute Kelly (Costance Powers) ...and her moral outrage and willingness to do something about [abuse] puts her in the same position as many male noir protagonists". In academic film jargon, the gender "transformation" from female to male is evident in the opening sequence - the woman functionally becomes a man, when she loses her hair (her "beauty" which defines her feminity) and physically punishes the perpetrator (a proof of masculinity). In other words...(yeah I know how to keep it simple, people) Kelly takes revenge when men abuse her- such a strong female lead is rare and you have to love Fuller and Towers for working it out like they did. Like Ellen Page in "Hard Candy" (to remind us of a more recent take on child abuse), the abuser has to pay... "The Naked Kiss"refers to the way a pervert's kiss feels. Watch the film and find out who was the perverted one- the "king" or the whore?!!!!

• Tom S

  
  The scenes with the children were great.

• Patrick D

  
  Only a corny critic buzz sentence will do this film justice, so here goes: Truly gritty pulp brilliance that teeters over-the-top, but what spills over is good to the last drop. Done.

• Leo L

  
  Interesting!

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