- Sam Fuller's The Naked Kiss features what is hands-down one of the most unexpected plot twists I've ever encountered in a film. That there was going to be some kind of twist was predictable - after all, it's a neo-noir about a former prostitute trying to turn her life around - but I never would have predicted the exact nature of the film's big surprise. I'm not even sure how to write about the plot without giving everything away, so let's just focus on the film's first two-thirds, okay?
- The former prostitute is a woman named Kelly (Constance Towers), who enters the film brutally beating her drunken pimp (Monte Mansfield) with a purse. We later learn that he shaved her head as punishment for encouraging her fellow girls to find a better line of work, so this behavior is understandable. Taking her own advice, Kelly picks up and moves to the peaceful town of Grantville, where the local law enforcement representative, Sgt. Griff (Anthony Eisley), sleeps with her before trying to steer her to a madame named Candy (Virginia Grey) who operates one town over. Rightly disgusted with Griff, Kelly swears off her old career and lands work as a nurse in a children's ward.
- It is through her work with disabled children that Kelly meets J. L. Grant (Michael Dante), a local philanthropist and Griff's old pal from the war. Grant is taken with Kelly and seems even more enthused to marry her after she reveals her past. Griff takes a little more convincing, but even he must finally concede that Kelly really does seem perfect for Grant. Things are going so well, in fact, that Kelly and the children record a musical number about the bluebird of happiness. It plays well enough when performed by cherubic youngsters dressed up like pirates, but loses all of its charm later in the film when accompanying a monstrous crime.
- Plot details aside, can I just mention what a strange town Grantville is? Everybody has one-word names like Griff, Grant, Candy, Mac (Patsy Kelly), Buff (Marie Devereux), and Dusty (Karen Conrad). I swear that a few of those titles were cribbed from Pickup on South Street, but the local cinema only appears to be showing Shock Corridor. In any case, it's a town packed with plenty of decent women in trouble, although the sole decent man is a mannequin in a dead soldier's uniform. In any case, Grantville certainly benefitted from Kelly's tendency to beat the hell out of anyone who treated women badly. (Too bad she never got to take a swing at Griff.) Fuller's direction and a strong performance by Towers keep the proceedings on just this side of exploitive.
