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Constance Towers, Michael Dante, Anthony Eisley, Virginia Grey, Patsy Kelly ... see more see more... , Betty Bronson , Marie Devereaux , Karen Conrad , Linda Francis , Barbara Perry , Gerald Michenaud , Christopher Barry , George Spell , Patty Robinson , Neyle Morrow , Gerald Milton , Sally Mills , Edy Williams , Bill Sampson , Walter Mac Neil , Betty Robinson , Breena Howard , Marie Devereux

Kelly (Constance Towers), a prostitute who wants to transform her life, beats up her pimp, takes the 75 dollars he owes her, and leaves town. Winding up in the small town of Grantville, she turns a tr... read more read more...ick with Griff (Anthony Eisley), who is actually the sheriff. After paying her for sex, Griff tells Kelly that Grantville is a clean town and orders her out, though he refers her to a brothel in a neighboring city. Instead, Kelly makes a final break with her past and becomes a nurse's aide at the local children's hospital. In that capacity, she meets Grant (Michael Dante), who is a benefactor of the hospital, a descendant of the town's founder -- and Griff's best friend. As Grant and Kelly fall in love, Griff viciously accuses Kelly of using her hospital job to hide ongoing illicit activities. When Kelly tells Grant about her past, he seems to accept her without reservation and proposes marriage; however, Kelly soon learns the perverse truth about her fiancée and takes matters into her own hands. Samuel Fuller's raw film noir exposes the hypocrisy of a supposedly proper society. Beneath the veneer of respectability lies an exploitive abuse of power, no different from that of any pimp. ~ Steve Press, Rovi

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78% liked it

2,890 ratings

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92% liked it

13 critics

Unrated, 1 hr. 30 min.

Directed by: Samuel Fuller

Release Date: January 1, 1964

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DVD Release Date: August 26, 1998

Stats: 187 reviews

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Flixster Reviews (187)

  • fb1664868775
    October 30, 2011
    fb1664868775
    Fuller's take on melodrama is much more brutal. A very risque subject for it's time, this pulp classic holds up very well today.
  • rubystevens
    March 14, 2011
    rubystevens
    whoa. a great vehicle for constance towers and lurid as all hell. fuller strikes a blow for female empowerment.
  • flixsterman
    March 13, 2011
    flixsterman
    I have to believe that Sam Fuller just doesn't give a rat's ass about what the rest of the world thinks. He has a story to tell and he's going to tell it HIS way, style and etiquette be damned. You gotta respect a guy who has the huevos to make films that challenge convention.
  • harrycaul
    January 25, 2009
    harrycaul
    Like a lot of Sam Fuller's stuff, The Naked Kiss is melodramatic and corny in places, but it does contain some unforgettably powerful moments, not the least of them the starling opening scene, in which Constance Towers' prostitute beats her pimp unconscious, losing her wig... read more in the process to reveal the fact that she is completely bald! Fast-forward a couple of years and Towers is forging a new life for herself in a small town, caring for disabled children and engaged to marry a wealthy philanthropist. Now, you would expect Towers' colourful past to catch up with her, and it does, eventually, but not before Fuller has used her basic decency to expose the hypocrisies lurking behind a respectable small town façade, such as the police captain who doesn't want any vice on his own patch but is happy to visit a bordello over the river in the next state.

    I'm sure it's not the effect Fuller was aiming for but there's something about this movie that really creeps me out, particularly when it's trying to be tender. I'm not sure why; probably a combination of the strangeness of the subject matter, occasionally amateurish acting and the director striving for emotions outside the scope of his abilities. Whatever the reason, it's a film I admire much more than I like.

    In case you're interested: http://www.archive.org/details/The_Naked_Kiss
  • mjgildea
    April 12, 2007
    mjgildea
    Melodramatic, but great. It also has one of the best opening scenes you'll ever see.
  • gator681
    April 30, 2010
    gator681
    [font=Century Gothic]In "Underworld, USA", as a teenager Tolly Devlin witnesses his father being brutally beaten to death by four men and is able to idenify one of the men, Vic Farrar, but will not share the information with Driscoll(Larry Gates) from the district attorney's offi... read morece. Tolly(Cliff Robertson) grows up to be a small-time thief who is in and out of prison. Eventually, he tracks down Farrar who is dying in a prison infirmary and convinces Farrar to give up the names of the other three men.[/font]
    [font=Century Gothic][/font]
    [font=Century Gothic]"Underworld USA" is a good, solid movie about revenge and justice that is occasionally weakened by uneven acting.[/font]
    [font=Century Gothic][/font]
    [font=Century Gothic][/font]
    [font=Century Gothic][color=navy]"The Naked Kiss" starts out with a bald woman, Kelly(Constance Towers), delivering a beating to a man to get the $75 she feels is due to her. Two years later, with a full head of hair, Kelly gets off the bus at Grantville, pretending to be a champagne saleswoman as a front for her mobile prostitution business. She strikes up an acquaintance with the town sherriff, Griff(Anthony Eisley), and they spend the night together at his place but Kelly leaves in the morning. She finds other lodgings and starts a new chapter in her life.[/color][/font]
    [font=Century Gothic][color=#000080][/color][/font]
    [font=Century Gothic][color=#000080]"The Naked Kiss" gets off to a great start but the film does not come into its own until late with a particularly disturbing scene. The movie is about the possibility of redemption and how people can change, given the chance.[/color][/font]
  • thirdway821
    October 11, 2010
    thirdway821
    I can see where Martin Scorsese gets his influence from. There is a scene in Sam Fuller's "The Naked Kiss" where Kelly(Constance Towers) goes to see an older woman who owns a brothel named Candy(Virginia Grey), Kelly is upset because Candy has given extra money to a girl who is a... read more nurse but wants to become a prostitute. As soon as the two women enter the room there is music playing in the background and a sudden burst of violence occurs. Another great scene is when Kelly is having a tough love conversation to the same woman who is thinking about getting into prostitution. Kelly immediately refocuses her thinking saying...

    "You know what's different about the first night? Nothing. Nothing... except it lasts forever, that's all. You'll be sleeping on the skin of a nightmare for the rest of your life. Oh, you're a beautiful girl, Buff. Young... Oh, they'll outbid each other for you. You'll get clothes, compliments, cash... And you'll meet men *YOU* live on... and men who live on you. And those are the only men you'll meet. And, after a steady grind of making EVERY john feel at home, you'll become a block of ice. If you do happen to melt a little, you'll get slipped a tip behind Candy's back. You'll be every man's wife-in-law, and no man's wife. Why, your world with Candy will become so warped that you'll hate all men. And you'll hate yourself! Because you'll become a social problem, a medical problem, a MENTAL problem!... And a despicable failure as a woman"

    Ok..ok..so I copied that memorable quote at IMDB but it just shows how sincere and blunt Kelly is as a woman because she used to be a slave to men and makes sure no other woman close to her becomes a worthless statistic. I also liked the scene where Fuller uses close up shots of small children who partake in a song at the hospital and I feel it's a way to give them hope dispite their disadvantages, but it's also a foreshadow that will haunt Kelly for the last remaining scenes in the picture.

    Fuller uses good use of the camera especially during the opening scene and he also makes his lead a woman who does not and will not take a back seat to men. Constance Towers can stand on her own two feet.
  • anastasia57001
    October 21, 2009
    anastasia57001
    This film has one of the most memorable scenes in the history of film-making. It's the introduction: the prostitute that beats the shit out of her pimp, gets her money back and in the process, she loses her blond wig, revealing that she is actually bald.

    Alain Silver has writte... read moren on this: "In film noir, women have as much potential to be killers as men. Here prostitute Kelly (Costance Powers) ...and her moral outrage and willingness to do something about [abuse] puts her in the same position as many male noir protagonists". In academic film jargon, the gender "transformation" from female to male is evident in the opening sequence - the woman functionally becomes a man, when she loses her hair (her "beauty" which defines her feminity) and physically punishes the perpetrator (a proof of masculinity).

    In other words...(yeah I know how to keep it simple, people) Kelly takes revenge when men abuse her- such a strong female lead is rare and you have to love Fuller and Towers for working it out like they did. Like Ellen Page in "Hard Candy" (to remind us of a more recent take on child abuse), the abuser has to pay...

    "The Naked Kiss"refers to the way a pervert's kiss feels. Watch the film and find out who was the perverted one- the "king" or the whore?!!!!
  • smootysveen
    July 23, 2008
    smootysveen
    The scenes with the children were great.
  • patrickdol
    May 27, 2008
    patrickdol
    Only a corny critic buzz sentence will do this film justice, so here goes: Truly gritty pulp brilliance that teeters over-the-top, but what spills over is good to the last drop.
    Done.

View All The Naked Kiss Reviews

Critic Reviews

Sean Axmaker
March 25, 2011
Sean Axmaker, Turner Classic Movies Online

... arguably the most aggressively defiant film of his career. Full Review

Christopher Long
February 26, 2011
Christopher Long, Movie Metropolis

Like Fuller, Kelly believes in the direct approach, and a good slap can get quick results. Full Review

James Kendrick
January 23, 2011
James Kendrick, Q Network Film Desk

uses it tabloid-sensational subject matter to probe at the country's darkest recesses Full Review

Sean Axmaker
January 18, 2011
Sean Axmaker, Parallax View

An audacious mix of cynicism, sleaze, sentimental gooeyness and social commentary, it's bizarre and at times an assault on the senses... Full Review

Jeffrey M. Anderson
September 20, 2007
Jeffrey M. Anderson, Combustible Celluloid

Fuller's The Naked Kiss is one of his oddest and most brutal works. Full Review

Eric Henderson
May 1, 2006
Eric Henderson, Slant Magazine

It's Sirk-on-a-shoestring, and twice as cynical. Full Review

Michael E. Grost
August 13, 2005
Michael E. Grost, Classic Film and Television

Melodrama masterpiece

Ken Hanke
August 26, 2002
Ken Hanke, Mountain Xpress (Asheville, NC)

Fascinatingly perverse Sam Fuller film

Dennis Schwartz
January 1, 2000
Dennis Schwartz, Ozus' World Movie Reviews

The studio offended Samuel Fuller by cutting his film against his wishes. Full Review

Eugene Archer
May 9, 2005
Eugene Archer, New York Times

Click to read the article Full Review

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