An exploration of sexuality in 1970, Allen Funt’s documentary “What Do You Say to a Naked Lady?” combines elements of the popular Candid Camera show but featuring nudity and also interviews with adults from different generations and their feelings towards sexuality. Hilarious and also intriguing, this film may not be for everyone but for those interested in perceptions of sexuality and society back in 1970, may find this documentary enjoyable.
© 1970 Candid Camera, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
DVD TITLE: What Do You Say to a Naked Lady?
FILM RELEASE DATE: 1970
DURATION: 86 Minutes
DVD INFORMATION: Color, 1:85:1, Monaural
COMPANY: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer/Twentieth Century Fox
RELEASE DATE: January 2012
Written and Directed by Allen Funt
Produced by Allen Funt
Assistant Producer: Richard Briglia
Music by Steve Karmen
Cinematography by Urs Furrer, Gil Geller, Tom Mangravite, George Silano
Edited by Arnold Friedman, Irving Winter
From Candid Cameraman Allen Funt comes a hysterical feature film that tells and shows all. Witness America’s response to one of the most titillating stunts of all time in this hilarious expose of sex and society.
Back in the late ’40s, Allen was known for his radio program “Candid Microphone” and followed up with “Candid Camera” which has aired on television the ’40s through 2004 via syndication.
One of the most resilient TV shows that is known to have several year runs and often coming back to television, Allen Funt was one of America’s well-known faces as he would pull pranks on unsuspecting individuals and feature it on his television series.
And while the TV series had its most notable run from 1960-1967, Funt would take his Candid Camera antics to the big screen via two documentaries “What Do You Say to a Naked Lady?” (1970) and “Money Talks” (1972). The former was Funt’s first foray into featuring nudity in relation to Candid Camera and would explore it even more via adult video releases in the 1980’s via “Candid Candid Camera”.
But “What Do You Say to a Naked Lady?” is a documentary that features video of how American’s of different ages would react if they came across a naked woman or a naked man in a public area? And to get their reactions towards those scenes, but also interview about their sexual experiences and giving viewers a chance to see how perceptions were of sexuality and society in 1970.
Scenes from the documentary include candid camera scenes capturing people’s reactions such as how would one react to a woman who comes out of an elevator fully nude? How would one react if they saw a nude woman hitchhiking? How one would react to a woman who asks a man to hold a ladder for them while trying to retrieve a kite caught on branches (and the woman is not wearing any underwear)? How would a man react if a beautiful woman comes up to them and asks to be kissed? How do people react to nude statues? How would women react when their pants tailor feels them up? How do women react when a nude male model for a painting is left alone with them? How would college students react if a woman comes into their class fully nude? How would parents react in hearing their teenage children talk about their sexual experiences? And much more!
“What Do You Say to a Naked Lady?” explores sexuality ala 1970.
MOD PLAYABILITY:
Part of the worry of viewers who had bad experiences with MOD DVD’s are the printing quality. There are some who can’t get them to play and are literally now just coasters.
With “What Do You Say to a Naked Lady?”, its printed quite well with printing on top of the DVD, it’s not a plain silver disc with letters. If you didn’t know it was MOD, you would think it was an actual DVD release.
As for playability, I played it on my Blu-ray player and DVD player with no problems. I then played it on my Mac, no problems whatsoever.
VIDEO AND AUDIO:
As far as picture quality goes, the film has been manufactured using the best source available. The picture quality for “What Do You Say to a Naked Lady?” varies as different cameras were used to shoot the candid camera scenes, the interview scenes and so some scenes have more grain and noise than others, as one would expect in a documentary, especially one shot in 1970. Colors were good, not faded or soft.
As for audio, dialogue is clear and detected no audio problems such as hissing or crackle.
SPECIAL FEATURES:
“What Do You Say to a Naked Lady?” comes with a theatrical trailer.
“What Do You Say to a Naked Lady?” is definitely a film of its era. The sexual freedom of the 1970’s fully explored in a documentary and capturing the essence of the view of conservative and liberal Americans of the time.
Granted, while the beginning of the documentary tend to focus on the “Candid Camera” aspects of people’s reaction to nudity, the second half of the film becomes more inquisitive and trying to get people’s reaction to sexuality.
While the reactions are what you would expect from people who are shocked to see a nude person around them in a public space, and I have no doubt in my mind that people watched this movie for those portions, I suppose for those wanting something deeper from this film are the debates among people of their perception towards sex. What is deemed appropriate and inappropriate?
The reactions by the people who watched the scenes are as expected. The older generation were disgusted, the college students were intrigued. But I suppose the second half was rather interesting as it started to focus on questions to individuals about their sexual experiences. As the first half focused on the hilarious nude segments, the interviews were quite interesting as one woman talked about her two divorces and how men can’t expect sex anytime they want it. But then she starts getting even darker with her comments of how she likes to be spanked during sex, an interesting tangent.
Another scene featured basketball athletes told by their coach that they have to quit having sex for the entire season and immediately, the reactions by some guys with the thought of having no sex was quite hilarious as their face would change from happy to sad, and one ready to quit the team immediately.
But possibly the most invasive is the interviews with teenagers and how many sexual partners they had. One young man said he had 90 partners since the age 11 and interesting enough, the other young men interviewed also said they had sex at 11 and were convinced there were no male or female virgins, until one young woman is interviewed and is proud that she is saving herself for marriage.
So, “What Do You Say to a Naked Lady?” is a rather interesting documentary because of how it handled sexuality, especially during the ’70s not long after the end of the hippie movement in America and how sexually free everyone was to discuss sex at that time.
While, the success of the documentary would eventually lead to “Candid Candid Camera” (no documentary, straight up candid camera featuring all nude-related scenes) video releases in the ’80s, for those who are interested in a documentary about sex and also some hilarious candid camera scenes of peoples’ reaction towards nudity will find this film entertaining.
