It is widely regarded (isn’t it?) that Clark Gable’s “Frankly my dear, I don’t give a damn!” in Gone With the Wind was a scandalous use of harsh language in its day. In fact, isn’t it the first use of “profanity” in a mainstream movie?
My point, though, is what is the first use of nudity in a movie intended for mainstream audiences in wide release? I don’t mean intentionally “blue” movies or stag films. Instead, when did a major Hollywood star first show skin? What was the general reaction at the time? Does it seem as quaint now as Clark Gable’s foul language?
There was nudity in D. W. Griffith’s Orphans of the Storm back in 1921. IIRC, it was a scene showing a bunch of women jumping into a pool naked. There are other examples of this during other silent films (I see Intolerance listed – probably for the orgy scenes)
Hedy Lemarr had a nude scene in Extase in 1933, though she wasn’t a star yet and it was a German film.
There is a quick shot of a painting of a nude Mae West in She Done Him Wrong, also from 1933.
I’d heard that the 1912 Italian film Dante’s Inferno featured nudity. The IDMB seems to back this up:
I’d heard that portions of it, at least, showed up in American films, and that seems substantiated too:
I 've never seen any of this, but I’d heard that some nudity crept in. I’ll bet the full-frontal male nudity didn’t.
Some foreign films with limited nudity showed up in the US, I believe, in the late 1950s. Ceertainly by the 1960s. They were releasing “nudie cuties” by the late 1950s, like Russ Meyer’s The Immoral Mr. Teas: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0052920/
The earliest flick I recall seeing with it was Planet of the Apes, in 1968.
No, it was Maureen. Years ago I saw an interview with her and she talked about it. She did not think the brief bit of nudity* was a big deal, but many others though she was either acting like a whore (not her words), or being cruelly taken advantage of. I do recall from the interview that another female star offered her a place to stay out of the limelight until the hoopla settled down.
(* As she was jumping into the water, Tarzan/Weismuller held onto her dress which came off with nothing worn underneath. The quick full frontal flash as she dove off the tree limb probably lasted only a few frames.)
Apparantly producer David Selznick had to argue long and hard to keep “damn” in, which overall is pretty odd since the line appears in the bestselling novel (though without the “frankly”; that was added for the movie). Had the line been dropped, I suppose we’d’ve had “Windies” complaining about the betrayal of the adaptation.
Somewhere I think there’s an informative post by Eve about the surprisingly frequent use of of nudity in films in the days before the major studios adopted the Hays Code. Eve’s name is too short for the search engine, so I can’t find it.
There’s real question about all of this, both whether Maureen used a double and whether the nude scenes were excised before the movie was shown or just after.
Olympic swimmer Josephine McKim was the double, according to all other sources.
I would be extremely surprised if the nude scenes survived to national rollout of the picture. They may have been in a preview, but I’d bet they were gone before the official premiere. MGM did release the movie in different versions for different markets, but the American public never saw Maureen’s breasts until recently.
Back to the OP: I don’t know the exact first use of nudity in a major Hollywood film, but it would have been in the late 1960s or early 1970s. By that time foreign movies had become famous for nudity, and I am Curious Yellow already had on-screen sex. The culture had already moved on before the movies did. Playboy and imitators were increasingly mainstream, the hippies epitomized nudity (even if it was mostly in peoples’ salacious imaginations, rock stars were getting wilder with every year, and lots of non-mainstream movies had huge amounts of nudity. By 1972, the big three of porn - Deep Throat, The Devil in Miss Jones, and Behind the Green Door - would make mere movie nudity a trifle.
Some people certainly made a fuss, whenever it was, but it was just a ripple in the larger hurricane.
Here are some (pretty much work-safe) nude stills from the silent era. (Ramon was such a hottie; shame what happened to the old chicken hawk so many years later.)
Women in Love is commonly regarded (how correctly I don’t know) of being the first mainstream movie to feature full frontal male nudity (Alan Bates & Oliver Reed- two guys I never particularly wanted to see nekkid). I think Ewan McGregor and Harvey Keitel are still responsible for about 60% of the frontal male nude scenes in cinema history, however.
The word “damn” was not considered a scandalous use of harsh language in the 1930s. In fact, it was common in popular novels and magazines of the day. And you can find numerous uses of “damn” or “damned” in the silent era and early talkie era, before the Motion Picture Code began to be enforced in 1934.
The Bad Man (1930) Pancho Lopez: I make ze love to you myself — personal… What? Because you are marry you do not wish to spik of love! Leesen Lady — eef Pancho Lopez want woman, he take her, damn queek!
The Green Goddess (1930) The Raja: She would probably have been a damned nuisance anyhow. (closing line)
Blessed Event (1932) Mrs. Roberts: Well, I’ll be damned!
The Scarlet Pimpernel (1934) Percy Blakeney: Magnificent fight this afternoon, my dear. Gad! That Mendoza’s got quick ears. In the 10th round, when Jackson had him down, I shouted, “Get up, Mendoza!” And damn me, he did and sink me, he won!
Holiday (1938) Linda Seton: Out, damned spot!
Other pictures with “damn” or “damned” in the dialogue: The Big Parade (“goddamn” no less) (1925), Glorifying the American Girl (1929), Hell’s Angels (1930), Arrowsmith (1931).
Gone With the Wind wasn’t even the first Best Picture Oscar winner to use “damn” — Cavalcade (1933) beat it by six years.
As for nudity, in Tarzan and His Mate (1934), both Maureen O’Sullivan and her stand-in, Olympic swimmer Josephine McKim, appeared nude. McKim does a long and lovely underwater swim totally in the nude, and O’Sullivan’s breasts are briefly seen when she surfaces. From the American Film Institute Catalog of Motion Pictures, “M-G-M eventually released three different versions of the scene: one in which Jane is fully clothed, one in which only her breasts were exposed and the one in which she is completely naked.” (McKim also played the mermaid-in-the-bottle in Bride of Frankenstein.)
Marilyn Monroe actually wore a flesh-colored bathing suit while shooting the swimming pool scene in Something’s Got to Give. She later removed it to pose for still photos at poolside.
While Michael Parks was a minor star in 1966, other major actors appeared nude in Oscar-nominated performances: Alan Bates in The Fixer (1968), Jon Voight in Midnight Cowboy (1969), and Ryan O’Neal in Love Story (1970).
Lew Ayres had a nude swimming scene as the star of the Oscar-winning All Quiet on the Western Front (1930).