# First Nudity and F-Word in a major feature film? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [May 25, 2001, 1:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-nudity-and-f-word-in-a-major-feature-film/66432 "2001-05-25T01:55:22Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![jab1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ee7513/32.png) [@jab1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jab1)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2001, 12:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-nudity-and-f-word-in-a-major-feature-film/66432/21 "2001-05-26T00:20:56Z")
I found that Guinness book I mentioned earlier. It’s called _The Guinness Book of Movie Facts and Feats_. According to it, a woman was seen topless in Sydney Lumet’s _The Pawnbroker_ (1964), “the first time nudity had been allowed on screen since the setting up of the Production Code Administration Office 30 years earlier.” The book also has this to say: > [@](#): > > **1966** The “blue language” barrier [was] finally crashed by _Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf_, the Production Code Administration agreeing to give it a Seal (with audiences restricted to over 18s) because it reflected “the tragic realism of life.” This would pre-date _What’s His Name_ by a year. ---
**Author:** ![astorian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ad7895/32.png) [@astorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astorian)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2001, 5:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-nudity-and-f-word-in-a-major-feature-film/66432/22 "2001-05-26T05:06:29Z")
Nudity was fairly common in American films before the Hays Code. Most reference books I’ve seen say that Carroll Baker was the first actress to appear nude in a mainstream Hollywood film AFTER the Hays Code (the film was “Baby Doll,” adapted from a Tennessee Williams play). ---
**Author:** ![Cervaise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cervaise/32/16693_2.png) [@Cervaise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cervaise)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2001, 10:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-nudity-and-f-word-in-a-major-feature-film/66432/23 "2001-05-26T10:48:57Z")
Just to clarify something from above: The Hays Code was created in 1930, but wasn’t seriously enforced until 1934. My source: [this book](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0231110952/o/qid=990874082/sr=2-3/ref=aps_sr_b_1_3/102-9937546-2794545), which I highly recommend. So you’re both right, kinda. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Baker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bb73d2/32.png) [@Baker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baker)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2001, 3:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-nudity-and-f-word-in-a-major-feature-film/66432/24 "2001-05-26T15:13:40Z")
In the silent film version of Ben-Hur there is male nudity(full-backal, not frontal) In one of the galley slave scenes there is a guy chained against face against the wall of the vessel. He’s never named or referreed to, I guess it is presumed he is being punished for something. And in one scene where Judah is criving his chariot in a victory procession in Rome there are topless girls throwing flower petals. ---
**Author:** ![mobo85](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b19c9b/32.png) [@mobo85](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mobo85)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2001, 4:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-nudity-and-f-word-in-a-major-feature-film/66432/25 "2001-05-26T16:39:31Z")
Some people believe Bosko (a small, stereotypical black boy, and Warner Bros.'s first cartoon star) says “The dirty fuck!” when a villain appears on the movie screen in “Bosko’s Picture Show” (1933). However, another version of the cartoon has shown up with Bosko calling the villain “cur,” and some believe that the “cur” version was the one shown to movie-goers in 1933. ---
**Author:** ![edwino](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/35a633/32.png) [@edwino](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/edwino)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2001, 4:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-nudity-and-f-word-in-a-major-feature-film/66432/26 "2001-05-26T16:51:37Z")
I heard (maybe an UL) that the centaur scene from “Fantasia” (1940) originally featured topless centaurettes. The MPAA got wind of this and made em draw clam shells over the centaur boobies. IMDB mentions nothing of this (although it has an interesting tidbit about black versus white centaurs from that scene : [http://us.imdb.com/Trivia?0032455](http://us.imdb.com/Trivia?0032455)) Anybody heard similar? ---
**Author:** ![jab1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ee7513/32.png) [@jab1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jab1)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2001, 5:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-nudity-and-f-word-in-a-major-feature-film/66432/27 "2001-05-26T17:58:10Z")
Guinness says the same thing about _Fantasia_. They also say that the first full-frontal male nudes (in the post-Hays era) were Alan Bates and Oliver Reed in Ken Russel’s _Women in Love_. (I believe _every_ Ken Russel film has nudity. Not that I’m complaining.) **edwino** , your link to [http://www.imdb.com](http://www.imdb.com) doesn’t quite work because of the “)” at the end of it. You do get into the site, but you get a “search failure” page. As for “fuck”, Guinness says on another page that it was first heard (post-Hays) in _I’ll Never Forget What’s 'is Name._ I guess it was never spoken in _Virginia Woolf_ after all. However, imdb says _Ulysses_ was released on March 14, 1967, but _What’s 'is Name_ wasn’t released until December, 1967. Looks like _Ulysses_ wins. I wonder when nudity was first seen on American TV…? (excluding documentaries). Was it _Roots_? ---
**Author:** ![furryman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/furryman/32/99_2.png) [@furryman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/furryman)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2001, 7:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-nudity-and-f-word-in-a-major-feature-film/66432/28 "2001-05-26T19:46:53Z")
There are definitely some semi-nude women in Fantasia. Check out “The Night on Bald Mountain” sequence. Supposedly the breif scene showing two black Zebra centauresses serving Baccus was cut out sometime back due to PC concerns. The video release restores this scene. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2001, 7:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-nudity-and-f-word-in-a-major-feature-film/66432/29 "2001-05-26T19:48:03Z")
I don’t recall any topless centaurs in _Fantasia_, but there were certainly several fully-nude nymphs and female færies. This was in the most recent theatrical relase, which would have been about 1990, I think. Was the nudity restored sometime along the way? Along the the line of Disney færies, there were a few frames in _Peter Pan_ where Tinkerbell’s legs meet at a point below the bottom of her skirt, but there wasn’t anything there. Interestingly, full-rear male nudity doesn’t even seem to warrant a PG-13 anymore. _The Mask of Zorro_ had such a scene (bandits tying up the townsfolk they robbed, all tied together naked around a large cactus facing inwards), and I think that that was a PG. ---
**Author:** ![jab1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ee7513/32.png) [@jab1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jab1)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2001, 8:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-nudity-and-f-word-in-a-major-feature-film/66432/30 "2001-05-26T20:33:11Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Chronos \* > **I don’t recall any topless centaurs in _Fantasia_,** After the opening sequence involving the winged horses, they cut to several centaurettes bathing in a pool fed by a waterfall. They are topless, and we don’t see that they are centaurettes until they walk out of the water and reveal their horsey halves. After that, the cherubs start dressing the centaurettes’ hair and making hats with flowers and tree bark and bird’s nests and draping flowers over their bosoms. After that, the centaurettes are never topless again. (Actually, they are nude in the beginning and remain bottomless thereafter. Their horse halves are never dressed!) And unless I’m mistaken, while the centaurettes’ breasts are shown, they lack nipples. Nipples are seen on some of the demons in the “Bald Mountain” sequence. They flash by so briefly, most people didn’t notice them in 1940. Today, though, we have the miracle of freeze-frame VCRs and DVDs. BTW: A 'centaurette" is a Disney invention. In Greek mythology, all centaurs were males. They mated with human women. (Insert bestiality fantasy here.) ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2001, 3:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-nudity-and-f-word-in-a-major-feature-film/66432/31 "2001-05-27T03:58:55Z")
There was a movie on Bravo! a while ago called, 'Hollywood Babylon", which consisted of nothing but clips of nude scenes from Early hollywood movies, dating from the silent era all the way through the 1970’s. There was a surprising number of nude scenes in movies in every decade of the last century. And it’s “Hedy Lamarr”. There was no Hedly. Her real name was Hedwig Eva Kiesler. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Lao](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/2bfe46/32.png) [@Dr.Lao](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Lao)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2001, 5:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-nudity-and-f-word-in-a-major-feature-film/66432/32 "2001-05-27T05:51:17Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Sam Stone \* > **And it’s “Hedy Lamarr”. There was no Hedly. Her real name was Hedwig Eva Kiesler.** **dropzone** was referencing [_Blazing Saddles_](http://us.imdb.com/Title?0071230) in which Harvey Korman played a character named Hedley Lamarr. Almost every time another character addressed him, they called him “Hedy.” To which he replied, “It’s Hedley!” Not a very funny joke, but repeat it a couple of hundred times and it grows on you. Incidentally, I read somewhere that Hedy Lamarr sued Mel Brooks for unauthorized use of her name. ---
**Author:** ![Cervaise](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cervaise/32/16693_2.png) [@Cervaise](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cervaise)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2001, 7:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-nudity-and-f-word-in-a-major-feature-film/66432/33 "2001-05-27T07:54:39Z")
FWIW, _The Mask of Zorro_ was and is PG-13. I have the video on my shelf. There’s also a male bareass shot in the current _A Knight’s Tale_ (cough cough [sucks](http://moviegeek.homestead.com/files/aknightstale.htm) cough cough), and that’s PG-13 as well. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/first-nudity-and-f-word-in-a-major-feature-film/66432.md?page=1)