The Naked Truth (1957 film)

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The Naked Truth
The Naked Truth - UK film poster.jpg
UK film poster
Directed by Mario Zampi
Written by Michael Pertwee
Produced byMario Zampi
Starring
Cinematography Stanley Pavey
Edited by Bill Lewthwaite
Music by Stanley Black
Distributed by J. Arthur Rank Film Distributors
Release date
  • 3 December 1957 (1957-12-03)
Running time
92 minutes
CountryUnited Kingdom
LanguageEnglish

The Naked Truth (U.S. title: Your Past Is Showing [1] ) is a 1957 British black comedy film directed and produced by Mario Zampi, starring Terry-Thomas, Peter Sellers and Dennis Price. [2] [3] The screenplay was by Michael Pertwee.

Contents

In the film, a blackmailer with his own magazine threatens several potential victims. He survives several murder attempts by his victims, but is then arrested and placed on trial for an earlier crime. His victims conspire to break him out of prison and send him into exile before he reveals anything about their respective pasts.

Plot

Nigel Dennis is a blackmailer who threatens to publish embarrassing secrets in his magazine The Naked Truth. After attempting to blackmail a famous scientist (who commits suicide), and an MP (who suffers a heart attack in parliament, and probably succumbs), his latest targets are Lord Henry Mayley, television host Sonny MacGregor, writer Flora Ransom, and model Melissa Right. Several of them decide independently that murder would be a better solution than paying. However, it is Mayley who by sheer bad luck nearly ends up the victim of both MacGregor and Ransom's schemes. The four eventually join forces and try again. That attempt also fails, but Dennis is then arrested for an earlier crime.

When Dennis threatens to reveal all at his trial, Mayley comes up with a scheme to break him out of prison and send him to South America, with the help of hundreds of his other victims. They phone in numerous fake calls for help, distracting the London police, while Mayley, MacGregor, and MacGregor's reluctant assistant Porter, disguised as policemen, whisk Dennis away.

Knocking Dennis unconscious periodically, they finally end up in the cabin of a blimp on the way to a rendezvous with an outbound ship. To their dismay, when he comes to, Dennis refuses to go along with their plan, as he in fact never wanted to reveal any of their secrets in court. He was, in fact, optimistic about the trial anyway, and reveals that the evidence was his copies of The Naked Truth which had been destroyed by the plotters earlier. Happy to have outsmarted his opponents again, but unaware of where he is, Dennis then steps out for some air and plummets to the ocean below. When MacGregor celebrates by shooting his pistol, it punctures the blimp, which shoots away into the distance.

Cast

Critical reception

Allmovie described the film as: "a prescient satire of tabloid journalists and celebrity culture, The Naked Truth, is a well-acted British comedy that doesn't quite succeed in melding its black and broad comedy". [1]

The Radio Times reviewer wrote: "This black comedy supplied Peter Sellers with some of his funniest, and finest, pre-Hollywood material. It's based – as the best British humour often is – on class and sex ... Mario Zampi directs the gags in Michael Pertwee's satisfying script with superb timing." [4]

Leonard Maltin observed: "Sellers (cast as a television star) is a special treat in this amusing satire." [5]

In British Sound Films: The Studio Years 1928–1959 David Quinlan rated the film as "good", writing: "Ealing-style black comedy, full of laughs." [6]

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References

  1. 1 2 "The Naked Truth (1957) - Mario Zampi - Review - AllMovie". AllMovie.
  2. ↑ "The Naked Truth". British Film Institute Collections Search. Retrieved 24 February 2024.
  3. ↑ "The Naked Truth (1957)". www.bfi.org.uk. Archived from the original on 14 April 2020.
  4. ↑ "The Naked Truth – review - cast and crew, movie star rating and where to watch film on TV and online". Radio Times.
  5. ↑ "Your Past Is Showing (1958) - Overview - TCM.com". Turner Classic Movies.
  6. ↑ Quinlan, David (1984). British Sound Films: The Studio Years 1928–1959. London: B.T. Batsford Ltd. p. 351. ISBN   0-7134-1874-5.
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