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Diary of a Nudist
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| Year: |
1961
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Director: |
Doris Wishman
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| Stars: |
Davee Decker, Norman Casserly, Dolores Carlos, Allan Blacker, Maria Stinger, Harry W. Stinger, Brigitte Bernard, Allison Louise Downe, Ronald M. Zeigler, June Marko, Gustave A. Hoek, Nellie Hoek, Phyllis Hoek, Sandra Hoek, Charles Allen, Zelda R. Suplee
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| Genre: |
Drama, Sex, Trash |
| Rating: |
  4 (from 1 vote) |
| Review: |
Editor of The Evening Times Arthur Sherwood (Norman Casserly) was out hunting one sunny day when he got lost, and not knowing where to turn he ventured towards a line of trees in the hope of getting his bearings. But he got some barings instead, when he stumbled onto a nudist colony - the newspaperman was shocked that such goings on were happening so close to his home city, and made up his mind to get one of his reporters to write an exposé on the place...
Considering this was a Doris Wishman movie you might have expected most of the action here to take the form of shots of bare feet, but no, what was on offer was one of the nudist camp flicks that emerged around the start of the nineteen-sixties. These were the forerunners to modern pornography, now a multi-million dollar industry, but back then the preserve of opportunists taking advantage of the chance to pose as educational when what was actually on offer was acres of titillating naked skin - or at least that was what those who went to see them hoped.
They would either go with the straighforward documentary method of presenting the nudes, or, as Wishman was wont to do, lend a story to the proceedings so that you could feel as if you had been treated to a proper movie rather than a series of exploitative shots of young models in the altogether. This was not as bizarre as her magnum opus in this field, Nude on the Moon, but being a film from this director, some amount of amusement was to be had from attitudes which did not so much come across as hailing from another time, more from another planet entirely. It didn't help that it was obvious where things were going from the start.
Arthur wants someone to do his dirty work for him, so orders lady reporter Stacy Taylor (Davee Decker) to head off for the wilds of the Sunny Palms Nudist Camp. She is reluctant at first, but after some persuading and a membership procedure which makes the Freemansons look like an open club, she is ready to strip off and join her fellow naturists. Having met the leader of the camp, one Zelda R. Suplee (playing herself), one wonders why she gets to keep her clothes on while all around the younger, more attractive members do not, but it isn't that difficult to work out, so bad luck Zelda fans.
Although there is a great deal of nudity in this, it's of a very specific type, so everything apart from the nether regions are exposed, leading to much walking away from the camera, and if they're not doing that they're holding something over that area - a towel, a magazine, a hat, a pet, er, OK, not a pet. Yet the most curious aspect was that Wishman appeared to be taking the movement very seriously, and if you were not wise to this sex movie by stealth you could honestly believe she was perfectly sincere about her promotion of this healthy lifestyle without the benefit (or otherwise) of garments. And Stacy? She is won over by the cheery denizens of the camp, and cannot bring herself to pen that exposé, so Arthur fires her and steps in; will he be convinced as well? If so, how come he wears a pair of blue underpants throughout the second half of the movie? Probably fairly boring to all but the cult audience nowadays, Diary of a Nudist represented days gone by.
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| Reviewer: |
Graeme Clark
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| Doris Wishman (1912 - 2002)
American writer-producer-director regarded by many as one of the worst directors of all time, her idiosyncratic, low budget, often sexually-themed films include Nude on the Moon, Bad Girls Go To Hell, The Amazing Transplant, Let Me Die A Woman and the two "Chesty Morgan" films: Double Agent 73 and Deadly Weapons. Watch for her highly individual use of the closeup and dubbed dialogue, not to mention all those feet. |
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