TCM just showed Extase, best known as the “Hedy Lamarr runnin’ around nekkid!!!” film. But I was quite surprised at how engaging and artistic a film it was about a triangle between a young bride, her middle-aged husband and her young lover (played by the adorable Aribert Mog who, it seems, died early in WWII).
A bit self-consciously artsy at time (esp. the last few minutes, which really needed editing), but much more than the cheap skin-flick I was expecting!
Dad gummit, you’re supposed to post this stuff BEFORE the movie airs!
So how did she look naked?
I dunno. I guess if you like that “gorgeous 17-year-old goddess running through the woods without a stitch on” sort of thing, she was okay.
Somehow, “Buy an Electric Refrigerator” and “Greeting by George Bernard Shaw” tonight just aren’t going to have the same ooooomph.
I dunno; I hear George Bernard Shaw runs through the woods nekkid.
Yes, but the sight of that is believed to be one of the chief causes of male and female sexual dysfunctions.
I TiVo’d the whole series of “before the Code” movies TCM ran on Friday night, starting with Tarzan and His Mate through Ecstasy, the documentary that followed, and Baby Face at the end. The only one I’ve watched so far is Tarzan and His Mate, which was primarily interesting not for Jane’s nude-swim scene but for the utterly appalling racism and casual great-white-hunter destructiveness of the two antagonists. Sure, they’re the bad guys, so they have to shoot Tarzan’s elephant and stuff to drive the plot, but then at the end they get to leave Africa with a slap on the wrist and an amused roll of Jane’s eyes? The elephants should have been playing soccer with their bloody skulls when the credits rolled. It’s definitely a cultural artifact, but less so for the nekkidness (which was artfully done) and more for the general air of sleazy cultural superiority suffusing the whole enterprise.
Will be watching the rest in the next day or two.
Aww. I need TiVo.
You will love Baby Face–take note of a very young John Wayne as one of Barbara Stanwyck’s conquests, and Teresa Harris–Hollywood’s sexiest black actress–as her friend in the early scenes.
I kid you not, George Bernard Shaw did pose naked for photographer A.L. Coburn, imitating Rodin’s sculpture The Thinker.
I thought that TCM censored out any nudity from the films they showed. I’ve recorded a couple of movies off of TCM that have the most sloppily done editing jobs I’ve ever seen – just to eliminate two seconds of fairly innocuous bare asses. Always struck me as somewhat hypocritical considering all their talk about “the preservation of the director’s artistic vision” and whatnot.
She’s always had an eye for the young hunk. I was flipping through the channels yesterday and caught a re-run of “The Thornbirds.” Barbara Stanwyck was standing in a doorway getting all damp and runny while looking at a naked Richard Chamberlain - she had to be at least 90 years old.
Robert Wagner just revealed that he had a five-year romance with Barbara Stanwyck when he was a young contract player. She was 23 years older than him!