Films That Time Forgot

What Do You Say To A Naked Lady? (1970)

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Reviewed by Nathan Rabin
August 13th, 2003

Candid Camera creator Allen Funt was a pioneer in the booming field of humiliation-based television comedy, but the medium's rigid boundaries made certain bits impossible. For example, the prudish busybodies who ran network television probably wouldn't have permitted Funt to ask a nymphomaniacal Candid Camera fan about the sexual pleasure she derived from being beaten. Thankfully, film offered Funt a more permissive venue for creeping people out with prurient queries and public-nudity-themed comedy. The title of Funt's cinematic debut asks a question that captured the tumultuous zeitgeist of the times: What Do You Say To A Naked Lady? The answers may not shock. When subjected to an actual naked lady, some men look surprised, while others look surprised and anxious. Still other look surprised, anxious, and titillated. One outrageous fellow even goes so far as to offer the disrobed woman his jacket. But there's more on Funt's dirty mind than gauging reactions to public nudity. He's also interested in people's reactions upon watching the reactions of those subjected to public nudity. To accomplish this postmodern goal, Funt trains a secret camera on a focus group subjected to footage of What Do You Say To A Naked Lady? One geriatric participant is predictably outraged. "What was the necessity of a woman going out, hanging and shaking all over?" she sputters. The self-referential mayhem doesn't end there: In another bit, Funt films himself asking a pert young actress how she'd feel about appearing nude in a movie like What Do You Say To A Naked Lady? An equal-opportunity provocateur, Funt then has unsuspecting women share a room with a naked male art model, which prompts responses varying between mild discomfort and extreme discomfort. Then, inexplicably, comes the fuzzily rape-themed portion of the film, which involves little more than some simulated forced intercourse and some leering, but which nevertheless prompts a Steve Karmen-penned song that helpfully informs viewers, "Rape, it's not as pleasant as it seems." Interracial sex, feigned orgasms, the frequency of what Funt calls "balling," nude lecturing, and virginity are explored next, all with the unerring good taste that made Funt the Ashton Kutcher of his generation.