THE NAKED VENUS can best be described as KRAMER VS. KRAMER with a nudist camp setting. The main plot is an overheated family melodrama in which nudism is frowned upon by modern society leading to a custodial battle in the courts. The legal drama material is slow and dated and quite difficult to sit through, while there are precisely two 'nude' scenes in the film. The first has a pair of photographers spying on a skinny dipping girl in some teasing moments while the latter is the stock visit-to-a-nudist-camp complete with sports action and the like. This is a harmless curio, nothing more.
4 Reviews
Morality play, not exploitation flick
manuel-pestalozzi7 April 2003
Warning: Spoilers
The Naked Venus is in fact a morality play and although a nudist camp plays an important role, the movie can hardly be compared with the usual nudist camp exploitation flicks. It has a coherent, quite serious message, genuine artistic qualities and addresses an educated adult audience, not the usual drive-in crowds. The soundtrack consists almost entirely of Classical Music. The nudist colony is used (well, some may say: exploited) to expose the hypocrisies of American society in the fifties.
POSSIBLE SPOILERS AHEAD
Simply put you might say that The Naked Venus represents the antagonism between a "liberal", cultured outlook on personal freedom and a more virulent version of "Americanism". The story line represents views that even today some might call radical. It does it pungently and with some bitterness.
The story goes roughly like this: A young, aspiring American painter lives in Paris with his French wife and their little daughter. He wants to return California because his father recently died. He feels it is his duty to be at the side of his mother. His wife is scared of moving to America and meeting her mother-in-law. She is persuaded, and the little family moves to a spacious Californian Ranch style house. Latent tensions between the two women quickly arise. The mother is the painter's "close friend" and has a strong hold over his rather weak and insecure character. She claims to be shocked, that her daughter-in-law posed in the nude for artists in Paris. Wh ile mother and son are away on business, an unknown man calls on the French women. He presents himself as a lawyer friend of the family and tells her that her husband has filed for a divorce. She is completely surprised by this move and flees with her daughter to a nudist camp as she and her family belongs to the nudist movement.
The second part of the movie is dedicated to court proceedings in the divorce case. The central question is whether the French woman's willingness to display nudity in public is immoral or not. But it is really a trial against a mentality that is dominated (as shown in the movie) by bigotry and unmitigated material greed, that wants to eradicate anything that stands for individual freedom and an attitude towards it that many call liberalism. The nudist camp is idealized as a world where freedom and the liberal mind rule. The picture of the people in the nude are quite artistic and studied. They have a solemn dignity that sometimes verges on the ridiculous.
Much care was taken to present the court proceedings as a really fair trial. There is some really good, straight dialogue. Women (especially the artist's mother, his American girlfriend and the defense counsel of the French women) dominate the scene. The artist breaks down in the end, and the "good side" wins.
The Naked Venus represents the "liberal" cause. "Liberals" who are depicted as the more decent people who discuss their grudges and doubts openly and don't try to scheme behind the others backs.
The opening of this movie is very beautiful. The French woman is shown in the nude from a distance, bathing with a girl friend in an isolated mountain lake whose surface is rippled by a gust of wind. The scene is filmed by a detective hired by the artist's mother. This movie making in the movie seems to me a clear statement against voyeurism and, well, against making this very movie. Very odd, but quite powerful and certainly interesting.
POSSIBLE SPOILERS AHEAD
Simply put you might say that The Naked Venus represents the antagonism between a "liberal", cultured outlook on personal freedom and a more virulent version of "Americanism". The story line represents views that even today some might call radical. It does it pungently and with some bitterness.
The story goes roughly like this: A young, aspiring American painter lives in Paris with his French wife and their little daughter. He wants to return California because his father recently died. He feels it is his duty to be at the side of his mother. His wife is scared of moving to America and meeting her mother-in-law. She is persuaded, and the little family moves to a spacious Californian Ranch style house. Latent tensions between the two women quickly arise. The mother is the painter's "close friend" and has a strong hold over his rather weak and insecure character. She claims to be shocked, that her daughter-in-law posed in the nude for artists in Paris. Wh ile mother and son are away on business, an unknown man calls on the French women. He presents himself as a lawyer friend of the family and tells her that her husband has filed for a divorce. She is completely surprised by this move and flees with her daughter to a nudist camp as she and her family belongs to the nudist movement.
The second part of the movie is dedicated to court proceedings in the divorce case. The central question is whether the French woman's willingness to display nudity in public is immoral or not. But it is really a trial against a mentality that is dominated (as shown in the movie) by bigotry and unmitigated material greed, that wants to eradicate anything that stands for individual freedom and an attitude towards it that many call liberalism. The nudist camp is idealized as a world where freedom and the liberal mind rule. The picture of the people in the nude are quite artistic and studied. They have a solemn dignity that sometimes verges on the ridiculous.
Much care was taken to present the court proceedings as a really fair trial. There is some really good, straight dialogue. Women (especially the artist's mother, his American girlfriend and the defense counsel of the French women) dominate the scene. The artist breaks down in the end, and the "good side" wins.
The Naked Venus represents the "liberal" cause. "Liberals" who are depicted as the more decent people who discuss their grudges and doubts openly and don't try to scheme behind the others backs.
The opening of this movie is very beautiful. The French woman is shown in the nude from a distance, bathing with a girl friend in an isolated mountain lake whose surface is rippled by a gust of wind. The scene is filmed by a detective hired by the artist's mother. This movie making in the movie seems to me a clear statement against voyeurism and, well, against making this very movie. Very odd, but quite powerful and certainly interesting.
Ulmer Does the Nudist Film
Michael_Elliott13 August 2017
The Naked Venus (1959)
** 1/2 (out of 4)
Yvonne (Patricia Conelle) is living in France when she meets the American Robert (Don Roberts) and before long the two are married. Everything turns to hell when they return home and Robert's mother learns that her new daughter-in-law was a nudist. Before long mommy is pushing for her son to get a divorce.
THE NAKED VENUS, believe it or not, comes from director Edgar G. Ulmar, the man behind Universal's THE BLACK CAT as well as countless other "B" movies. When they said Ulmer messed with every genre they really weren't kidding as this nudist/docu-drama is a pretty silly movie but it's clear that the producers wanted to try something a tad bit more serious and I'm going to guess that's why Ulmer was hired. Why he wanted to do the picture is a mystery to me but perhaps it was just a job that paid.
For the most part I found this film to be very entertaining, or at least once it gets to the scenes that were the reason someone like Ulmer would have been hired. A lot of the early stuff is basically nude camp footage where we see various people walking around naked. The scenes on the nudist camp really aren't anything overly special but for 1959 there's a lot of nudity and of course that's why people would come to a film like this.
The final portion of the film is devoted to a divorce trial where the woman has to get a lawyer (also a female) and the two must battle and prove that being a nudist shouldn't be looked at as a crime. We get countless experts testifying and of course some of it is rather campy but at the same time I must admit Ulmer does a good job at telling the story and the courtroom scenes play out quite effective and entertaining.
The performances aren't the greatest and that's what really keeps the "drama" from being better. For the most part THE NAKED VENUS isn't going to appeal to everyone but it's certainly an interesting little film.
** 1/2 (out of 4)
Yvonne (Patricia Conelle) is living in France when she meets the American Robert (Don Roberts) and before long the two are married. Everything turns to hell when they return home and Robert's mother learns that her new daughter-in-law was a nudist. Before long mommy is pushing for her son to get a divorce.
THE NAKED VENUS, believe it or not, comes from director Edgar G. Ulmar, the man behind Universal's THE BLACK CAT as well as countless other "B" movies. When they said Ulmer messed with every genre they really weren't kidding as this nudist/docu-drama is a pretty silly movie but it's clear that the producers wanted to try something a tad bit more serious and I'm going to guess that's why Ulmer was hired. Why he wanted to do the picture is a mystery to me but perhaps it was just a job that paid.
For the most part I found this film to be very entertaining, or at least once it gets to the scenes that were the reason someone like Ulmer would have been hired. A lot of the early stuff is basically nude camp footage where we see various people walking around naked. The scenes on the nudist camp really aren't anything overly special but for 1959 there's a lot of nudity and of course that's why people would come to a film like this.
The final portion of the film is devoted to a divorce trial where the woman has to get a lawyer (also a female) and the two must battle and prove that being a nudist shouldn't be looked at as a crime. We get countless experts testifying and of course some of it is rather campy but at the same time I must admit Ulmer does a good job at telling the story and the courtroom scenes play out quite effective and entertaining.
The performances aren't the greatest and that's what really keeps the "drama" from being better. For the most part THE NAKED VENUS isn't going to appeal to everyone but it's certainly an interesting little film.
Naked Soap Opera
Sargebri15 April 2004
This had to be one of the most overblown melodramas in the history of the cinema. The film basically is a soap opera with nudity thrown in as filler. It reminded me very much of every soap opera I have ever seen in my life, but the only difference here is the fact that the character of Yvonne is the typical soap opera heroine who is fighting not only her mother in law, but her reputation as most soap heroines do. Bob is the typical mama's boy as he is forced to divorce Yvonne just because his mommy doesn't like her. And the mother in law makes Endorra from Bewitched look like a sweetheart. Also, the nudist scenes only act as filler to help push the story along, and it definitely needs as much pushing as it can because the scenes away from the camp as well are some of the most excruciating to sit through. In fact the scenes inside the courtroom wouldn't even make a good episode of Divorce Court. This definitely is one of those films that aren't even bad enough to be called funny.
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