STUNNING NUDES OF THE 1950's

STUNNING NUDES OF THE 1950's

Here we are again with the latest offering from the folk at Alternative Cinema/Secret Key Motion Pictures.

This time around we're served with a 2-disc compilation of no less than 68 loops spanning the 1950's and early 1960's. There's even one loop (or "peep" - short for "peepshow") that is likely to come from the late 1960's thrown in - it's also the best loop on offer, but I'll get to that later.

First things first: disc one. The main menu allows the option to "Play All" loops, or scour through them in different categories, via a sub-menu. The categories proposed to us are "Nudist Loops" and "Naughty Themed Loops".

In it for the long haul, I opted for the "Play All" method. I'm not sure if this feature presents the films in the same order as they'd appear when selecting the films by category (I'd suspect not, as the nudist stuff came and went in the mid-section of the loops I saw).

Anyway, the loops kick off with the short but sweet "Her Night Out", which takes less than two minutes to show a brunette girl enter her bedroom, undress then fall drunkenly onto the floor.

"Magic Pot" follows, and is unusual in that it has a little more of a "story" than most of the loops on offer, which are essentially striptease acts. This one sees a woman rub a lantern several times. Each time she does so, she loses a piece of clothing.

As with many of the peeps on offer, sound effects (the rubbing of the lantern here) have been added by Alternative Cinema. They don't impact either way on the viewing experience, but it's perhaps worth a mention regardless. As the loops were all filmed in silent, Alternative Cinema have also taken the liberty of scoring each one with old lounge jazz music - it grates before too long.

"Fisherman's Paradise" is the longest loop to be seen on disc 1, clocking in around the 10-minute mark. Essentially, it presents a girl stripping to sunbathe starkers on a riverbank, before dabbling in a spot of fishing with a makeshift rod.

"Duellin' And Foolin'" has the added appeal of two girls fencing against each other, ripping each other's clothes off with their swords. It's mildly amusing, but I've perhaps made it sound more interesting than it actually is.

Other "stand out"s include "Bows And Arrows", "Nudes on the Run" (the first of a few films populated by full-frontal naked males and females playing volleyball") and "Nudes Get Wet" - young females frolicking naked in a paddling pool, then chucking buckets of water over each other.

Best of all on disc 1 though is "Oh-h-h, Doctor!", the only colour loop on offer. It's not particularly different to the others, but does benefit from a strip act by a sexy redhead.

Disc 2 again presents with a choice to "Play All" of the 38 loops, or view them in the following categories: "Burlesque Loops, "Nude Posing Loops" and "Stunning Nudes in the 1960's". Pretty self-explanatory, I feel?

Again, I chose the "Play All" option and, again, it felt as though I was flitting from one category to the next.

It's all very tame stuff, as was the case on disc 1. Again, all the films are silent - no dialogue, no plot, just Alternative Music's added music scores (which, considering they only have half-a-dozen or so that they use throughout the 2 discs, start to get highly irritating).

The burlesque footage is pretty repetitive fare: women stripping in clubs. Elsewhere, we get an assortment of women stripping for bedtime, then performing various chores on their beds while in the buff. Don't get too excited though - by chores, I mean stuff like reading a book …

There's less bush on offer here than on disc 1, with largely only boobs and bums to be enjoyed. And some of the women are strikingly ugly!

"Sweet Sue" pops up in the second half of the loops though, and is a strange inclusion indeed. This is the one that seems to hail from the late 1960's, and is pretty graphic compared to the others.

It's 8 minutes of a pretty brunette lying naked on a sofa, fondling her body (though never touching her holiest of holes). Lots of explicit bush shots make this graphic in only a softcore way, but even then it's far more entertaining than anything else on these discs.

Only 2 of the loops on offer on disc 2 are presented in colour.

Wow, these 2 discs were a test of endurance. I felt quite delirious midway through disc 2! It's all very samey and frightfully boring, although there are surely people out there who would love this collection, if only from a historic or nostalgic point of view.

For them, I can at least say that each loop is presented uncut in it's original full-frame aspect ratio, with added title cards and the aforementioned added music and sound effects.

As is to be expected, the loops often look in pretty rough shape - specks aplenty and minor grain, with some soft images and lousy contrast on occasion. But it all adds to the squalid appeal of watching naked ladies in the same way that American teens did in the arcades of the 1950's.

The only disc extras are a plethora of trailers for films from the Secret Key and Bloody Earth vaults, on disc 1 - a mammoth 14 trailers in total.

Finally, there's a nice fold-out 6-page booklet with interesting liner notes from "The After Hours Collector". Offering an insight into the origins of these loops, the notes are more interesting than the peeps themselves.

Some would call the contents of these discs quaint. I'd call them sleep-inducing. But, different strokes and all that …

Review by Stuart Willis


 
Released by Secret Key Motion Pictures
Region 1 - NTSC
Not Rated
Extras :
see main review
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