The Naked Truth (1957)

Tabloid Black Comedy - A Jolly Good Show

In this Mario Zampi black comedy, Dennis Price plays a black mailer threatening to publish dark secrets about the lives of the people portrayed by the acting ensemble:
--Terry Thomas, Lord Mayley the bumbling upper class cad who is his own worst enemy.
--Peter Sellers, primarily Sonny MacGregor the tv personality and others
--Georgina Cookson, a wonderful Lady Mayley who anticipates her husband's next move and is amused by his low cunning and his foibles.
--Peggy Mount, the mystery novelist who tries to obtain a "Mickey Finn"
--Jean Sims, who gives the "Mickey Finn" to the wrong man and helps Mount dispose of the body in a panic "Oh Mumsy, I could hang for this!"
--Shirley Easton, the young woman with the jealous boyfriend.

The Naked Truth has a wonderful richness of characters who come to life with great character actors playing off one another. It is Georgina Cookson's chain jerking that makes Terry Thomas's antics even funnier. Also, Jean Sims's horrified compliance with "Mumsy's" orders that make both of their characters work so well.

Terry Thomas is an extraordinary character actor. He was blessed with physcial characteristics---the gap tooth grin and gimlet eyed leer---which he then hones to a fine luster with British expressions ("Blast!") He plays his roles flawlessly and with invention. He is a joy to watch.

Peter Sellers is an entirely different sort of actor, although he plays very well with Terry Thomas in a number of movies. Sellers is a whole comedy company rolled into one man. His main character in this movie is Sonny Macgregor, a grating television personality from the period. From there he plays in a number of disguises including a manish female author, an old snoop "Creeping Alopecia", and an Irish rebel. Sellers was the greatest impressionist comedian, and completely unique. Unlike most stand up comics who do impressions, he creates memorable ordinary people. Dr. Strangelove is his most successful film in which he plays multiple characters.

The characters here fumble and flounder in their attempt to escape from the blackmailer's threat until they all come together and events bring about an ingenious solution to the problem. As Terry Thomas might say, "a jolly good show."

March 21, 2008

Funny, British ensemble comedy from 1957

First things first, the original title of this 1957 film seems actually to have been "The Naked Truth," if the standard filmographies for Peter Sellers are to be believed. Fifty years later, as I write this, the title seems a little unfortunate, considering the company this black little comedy currently shares here on Amazon and elsewhere. On the DVD itself, the title card shows not "The Naked Truth," but "Your Past is Showing." I presume that was the American title, for a movie called "The Naked Truth" was unlikely to gain much acceptance or profit in small- or even big-town America during the Eisenhower years. "Your Past is Showing" is hardly scintillating, but it's a better title, being perfectly appropriate to the story and having the advantage of removing the DVD from the present company of its booty-shaking peers.

This is one of that amazing series of relatively low-budget, witty, intelligent, often hilarious, usually black-and-white comedies that various English studios seemed to turn out at a rate of about one every couple of months throughout the 1950s and into the mid-60s. While "The Naked Truth" is hardly great, it's a perfectly respectable and sound representative of the class.

Like many fine British comedies, it has a heart of inky darkness: four individuals, initially strangers to one another, are being blackmailed by a particularly despicable character. Two of them independently hit on the notion of solving their problems by murdering the blackmailer. When their initial individual schemes fail in blackly humorous ways, they resort to the very British practice of forming a committee to carry out the murderous deed (or not, as the case may be) ... again with blackly hilarious results.

This is one of those films in which the plot is of secondary consideration, for the cast is a mini-Who's Who of mid-century comedic talent and skill. This crowd would have an audience rolling on the floor with laughter with a reading from an airline arrival and departure list: gap-toothed Terry-Thomas, ever formidable Peggy Mount, indomitably unaware Miles Malleson, so-gorgeous-you-don't-realize-she's-smart Shirley Eaton, incomparable Joan Sims (frazzled here rather than brassy), smooth, charming, despicable Dennis Price and Peter Sellers.

This is Sellers' third major film role. He made his movie debut in 1955 in "The Lady Killers." His second film was "The Smallest Show on Earth" in 1957. All three of these films are ensemble films and in all three, Sellers was teamed with, to say the very least, performers of impressive talent: Alec Guinness in "The Ladykillers," Margaret Rutherford in "The Smallest Show on Earth" and Terry-Thomas in "The Naked Truth." In each of these films, Sellers has a memorable but subordinate part. That would all change in his Wunderjahr, 1959, when he became a one-man picture franchise with back-to-back international triumphs in "The Mouse That Roared" and "I'm All Right Jack." In the former, he played (at least) three starring roles. In the latter, he outshone the brilliant Ian Carmichael.

If memory serves me correctly, I first became aware of Sellers' new star status when the then-mighty Life Magazine devoted a full picture spread to the wonderful new, satirical comedy about labor relations, "I'm All Right Jack." (The magazine even felt obliged to explain to puzzled Americans what the title meant.) The only star that I can recall receiving an equivalent accolade was Jacques Tati in "Mr. Hulot's Holiday."

Time and the publication of tell-all memoirs place this film is a rather different light than the one in which I viewed it in 1957. I certainly see things in "The Naked Truth" (by whatever title) that I entirely missed fifty years ago. Amazon's editorial reviewer, Adrian Edwards, touched on this, but his gaze was firmly fixed on what he perceived as gay elements in the film: the relationship between Sellers' character and his Welsh dresser (heh-heh), and perhaps an overly butch caricature of Agatha Christie. Well ... maybe.

Of more significance to me is the nature of the character played by Sellers. He's a widely-loved television personality who is massively insecure in his private life. He's a man who hops manically from persona to persona, never taking rest in any one of them, while on the hop, he concocts grandiose and unworkable schemes that only bring him pain. This, it turns out, was a coldly accurate portrait of Peter Sellers, himself, whose agonized cry to the universe was, "I don't know who I am!" Who knew?

This is a funny picture from a brilliant epoch with a superb cast. Of course it deserves five stars. September 20, 2007

The Naked Truth

Unfortunately the DVD was in the USA format so unplayable in the UK. This was not clear on the Amazon description.. Disappointed May 12, 2007

Your Past is Showing (recommended)

You can't judge a book, or in this case, a movie, by its cover. From prior reviews, I knew beforehand that THE NAKED TRUTH was not, as the title may suggest, risque. As the credits begin rolling, I was surprised to discover the title either didn't go over well with British audiences or the movie was renamed for more impact. Don't be surprised when the title sequence names the film YOUR PAST IS SHOWING.

THE NAKED TRUTH is, as Lord Mayley (Terry-Thomas) says, "a rather vulgar" title for a scandal magazine. It's editor, Nigel Dennis (Dennis Price), digs up dirt on prominent victims and blackmails them with a sample issue. With the oft-repeated phase, "Pay in a fortnight or I publish in a month," the targets of his extortion are left in suicidal despair. Led by multiple disguises of Sonny MacGregor (Peter Sellers), several would-be victims, including Melissa Right (Shirley Eaton of GOLDFINGER fame) revolt with a plethora of unsuccessful murder plots against Dennis.

Armed with British humor, prepare for numerous disguises, madcap adventures, and unexpected surprises.

Movie quote: "Are you crazy? We've just been killing ourselves trying to murder him!" March 5, 2007

Hilarious!

This is one of my favorite comedies, not far behind other British offerings from the 50's and 60's, such as Make Mine Mink.

In this madcap farce, a group of hapless people find themselves being blackmailed by a sleazy tabloid publisher played to perfection by Dennis Price. The blackmail victims independently and jointly decide to "eliminate" their problem. But since none of them are murderers by nature, their attempts end up more in bungled backfire than in relief.

The first problem they face is obtaining the means to do the deed. Peter Sellers is featured in one of the funniest scenes as he crosses over to Ireland assuming he can readily obtain some bomb material there from the notoriously explosive Irish rebels. He goes into a typical Irish pub, sprouting shamrocks from his lapels, confident of passing as a true Irish patriot in their midst. But of course, it doesn't quite work out that way. The Irish townspeople in the pub all too readily "smell the blood of an Englishman" and respond accordingly.

Every comedy needs a straight-man (woman) and in this movie, that part is filled by Georgina Cookson who plays the wife of Terry-Thomas in his role as Lord Mayley. Lady Mayley is coolly long-suffering, used to expecting very little from her wastrel husband. Terry-Thomas, not wanting to add fuel to her disaffection, tries to slip past her every night as he returns, defeated from his night's misadventures. He doesn't succeed. She catches him time and again sneaking up the staircase, covered in seaweed, showing other ludicrous dishevelments.

When Norman Cousins adopted the philosophy that "laughter is the best medicine," he fought againt his disease with all the comedy films he could muster. I hope he included The Naked Truth and the other Rank Studio comedies in his armamentarium. If watching this doesn't cure what ails you, nothing will. April 26, 2006

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