NAKED – AS NATURE INTENDED/SECRETS OF A WINDMILL GIRL

Another double-bill of typically British "slap and tickle" from those kind souls at Odeon Entertainment.

The fun begins with George Harrison Marks’ seminal 1961 nudie NAKED – AS NATURE INTENDED.

We start with a striking opening titles sequence in which a gorgeous blonde saunters towards the camera with her breasts exposed, a towel held to her groin but flapping in the wind so as to threaten to expose a glimpse of minge at any moment.

Then the film begins proper as an earnest male narrator (Guy Kingsley Poynter) introduces us to three female friends – shoe shop saleswoman Jackie (Jackie Salt), office worker Petrina (Petrina Forsyth)and sole blonde Pam (Pamela Green – Marks’ long-term partner off-screen), a dancer.

They are three seemingly different women who are each bored in their jobs on a Monday-to-Friday basis. But they are bonded by a love of the weekend, when they meet up to travel together to Cornwall and indulge in their love of nudism. Rock on.

Along the way, the women stop for petrol and this allows our narrator to introduce us to Bridget (Bridget Leonard) and Angela (Angela Jones), who work at the petrol station as pump attendants. They’re best buddies, and they’re also into naturism. Hence, they will also be making their way separately to Cornwall’s select club very shortly ...

"That’s where they’re going now – so let’s go with them, shall we?" entices Poynter with an air of excitement.

And follow all five of these girls on their two differing journeys we do. Through their uneventful journeys to Stonehenge, strolls through fields, drives through the country ...

Yep, Marks makes sure the audience stick around for the promise of any flesh (after all, he was clever enough to suggest it in the opening frames). But it’s not until the film’s culmination that we get to finally see these women disrobe and reveal their "healthy bodies". It was his way of duping the censors of the time, apparently.

Anyway, the upshot if it all is that NAKED is a quaint and incredibly dated film that can’t help but amuse now with its mixture of innocence and naivety. It’s all good-natured, the bad comedy that spills from the narrator’s mouth is charming in its own way, and there’s something curiously sexy about not being shown the goods until the final hurdle, so to speak.

Relying mostly on the narration, there’s little to say about the performances here, other than that the women all smile on cue and bounce a lot. That’s a positive. Marks directs with an eye for location – and so he should, he had the best part of three decades to his credit as a photographer before descending into hardcore porn shorts in the mid-70s.

Music is obtrusive, being of the inappropriately grandiose fashion for the most part. But NAKED is hard not to like, such is its vibrancy and willingness to marvel at the splendour of women just because that’s what they are. Ultimately, it’s refreshing in its harmless cheesiness.

SECRETS OF A WINDMILL GIRL is credited as having been written and directed by Arnold Louis Miller.

It opens with a soft-core stripper dance on stage at the infamous Soho club, The Windmill Theatre. And this is where the bulk of the unfurling action will take place.

Pat (Pauline Collins) enjoys a joyride with her beau late one evening. But he’s fucking about behind the wheel and ends up pile-driving his car into a wall. Bad idea, which doesn’t work in their favour.

The following evening, Windmill dancer Linda (April Wilding) returns to her dressing room after finishing her night’s act and is confronted by policeman, Inspector Thomas (Derek Bond) who presents a photograph of Pat for her consideration. Confirming that Pat was her friend and colleague, Linda is asked to accompany Thomas to the police station and formally indentify Pat’s corpse.

After giving Linda a short while to recover, Thomas visits her at her apartment to gather more notes on the dead Pat’s tragically short life. Cue a tale told in flashback from Linda’s perspective, including the unintentionally hilarious sights of Wilding and Collins dressed as schoolgirls, and some hip dancing that helps place the film firmly in its 1966 setting.

Mildly diverting as drama, and kinkily subtle as a suggestive sex expose, SECRETS feels sincere even if not authentic. It retains the cheery irrepressibility of NAKED, and adds the allure of Collins (SHIRLEY VALENTINE) in such an early role.

NAKED – AS NATURE INTENDED looks good for its age (fifty years and counting) in a bright, colourful presentation that preserves its original aspect ratio. While print damage is evident, it’s also a remarkably clean transfer and is without question the best the film has ever looked domestically.

SECRETS looks better still, despite the odd frame that suffers from washed-out colours and soft images.

English mono audio on both films is a solid proposition.

Odeon Entertainment’s disc is region-free and opens with a colourful animated main menu page which imitates a Soho cinema screening, complete with red curtains that part from the middle. Nice.

Each film has its own sub-menu page, allowing you to watch the films individually and negotiate their own scene-selection menus – both of which contain 6 chapters. All sub-menu pages are also animated.

The only on-disc extras are a clutch of intriguing trailers for other titles in Odeon’s excellent ‘Best of British’ range: COOL IT CAROL, DIE SCREAMING MARIANNE, FRIGHTMARE, SECRETS OF SEX, THE FIEND, VIRGIN WITCH, SPACED OUT and INTIMATE GAMES.

The best addition to this set is a 4-page booklet boasting typically fine notes from Simon Sheridan. Concise, witty and informative – these notes are just the ticket.

Both of these films will be of massive interest to aficionados of their era, and rightly so. The history surrounding Marks and his breakthrough film is fascinating; the inclusion of a young Collins in GIRL is bizarre and intriguing.

Odeon Entertainment have done it again: a great double-bill, on an excellent disc.

Review by Stuart Willis