Before I talk about Samuel Fuller's The Naked Kiss, I'd like to state how annoying it is that Criterion has this one numbered just before Shock Corridor. This annoys be because I typically like seeing how an artist changes over time (even just a year), and also because this film has a shout out to Shock Corridor as our hooker protagonist Kelly walks by a movie theater showing said film. Come on Criterion. I feel like you're just fucking with people now. I guess they wanted this to follow Salo so they could have a kind of "children in peril" double feature.
The Naked Kiss tells the story of a hooker trying to go straight. She gets a job in a children's hospital but is continuously harassed by asshole cop Griff, who screwed her on her first night in town and refuses to believe that she could stop hooking. She eventually gets engaged to a rich man about the town who turns out to be a child molester. Kelly kills him, goes to jail, and then is released when a little girl admits that he almost molested her. I typically don't like writing plot summaries, but this is some edgy shit for 1964. It's a neo-noir film, so of course it's going to have all the sexual perversions and lurid thrills of that genre, but Fuller amps it up to a degree that I don't think had been done at that point. It's a vicious film, but it has a "protect the children morality" running through it that softens the edge ever so slightly. At one point a girl is knocked up while hooking, and Kelly gives her cash but tells her not to have an abortion.
I enjoyed the hell out of this film. It has the trashy feel of the best of the pulps, the performances are frantic enough to work (though Griff's screaming ass-hattery gets hard to take near the end), and it doesn't feel like anything else you'd see at the time. I can't stomach scenes of off-key children singing, but it works here because the song plays an important role later in the film, and on a second viewing feels much creepier when the camera pans up to show the smiling molester recording the song. I like how rough this film feels, without the slick veneer of studio polish that you typically see in Important Issue films. This film straddles the line between trash and art, and as an example of both, I highly recommend it.
Right now it's starting to get much more interesting when I'm trying to rank these films. The memory of the good times I had with The Lady Vanishes and A Night to Remember are starting to fade away, and films with lasting, powerful images are growing in my estimation. For example, for all its greatness, I'm starting to wonder if perhaps I've ranked The Silence of the Lambs a tad too high. But for now, that doesn't matter. The Naked Kiss is great trash art, and I have it fighting with This Is Spinal Tap for the #10 spot. The Killer is too iconic to drop down, as is everything above it. Strangely, though my review for This Is Spinal Tap was admittedly a bit limp-dicked, I'm finding myself remembering certain gags from that film and laughing. Plus I can't get that fucking Big Bottom song out of my head. Therefore, Tap stays at #10, and The Naked Kiss squeezes into the #11 spot.
1. Beauty and the Beast (1946)
2. Seven Samurai (1954)
3. The Seventh Seal (1957)
4. The Silence of the Lambs (1991)
5. Grand Illusion (1937)
6. Hard Boiled (1992)
7. The 400 Blows (1959)
8. Walkabout (1971)
9. The Killer (1989)
10. This Is Spinal Tap (1984)
11. The Naked Kiss (1964)
12. A Night to Remember (1958)
13. The Lady Vanishes (1938)
14. The Samurai Trilogy (1954-1956)
15. Amarcord (1973)
16. Salo, or the 120 Days of Sodom (1975)
Next time: I revisit my favorite Samuel Fuller film when I check into Shock Corridor.
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