People often ask us about the first nude scene and I will be honest: it is a hard question to answer. The reason for that is that two films in 1915 were released with nude scenes. We have previously talked about Audrey Munson's amazing nudity in the film Inspiration, but the real winner might go to a little lady named Margaret Edwards, who went full-frontal in Hypocrites.
You might be surprised to hear that 1915 was a big year in the burgeoning film industry. It's about the time that film as we know it became film. The top directors in Hollywood at the time were D.W. Griffith, Cecil B. DeMille, Charlie Chaplin, and Lois Weber. You've likely never heard of the last person that I listed, which is a serious shame considering that she was the highest-paid director in Hollywood at one point, beating Griffith in box office profits and studio contracts. She's also the one who directed what might just be the first nude scene in Hollywood.
In 1915, Lois Weber released her film Hypocrites. This is the same year that Griffith released Birth of a Nation, a film that is still studied in film schools around the world. I would like to offer those film schools to study Hypocrites because it has lovely shots, parallel storylines, and a sweeping tracking shot over a crowd that was very impressive at the time. It also has nudity - full frontal nudity at that!
One of the storylines in the movie follows a monk who is about to give up on his congregation of hypocrites. He then sees a vision of Truth. Literally, Naked Truth. Truth comes to him in the form of a naked woman played by Margaret Edwards. She nudely shows him around, inspiring him to stay true to his mission of living truthfully. Because she is a vision - and she sure is a vision - she appears a little see-through. That said, we can still see a lot.
Margaret Edwards was cast because she had won a contest for Best Figure in the World. With a title that salacious, you simply have to show it off! 1915 audiences were scandalized - and titillated. Ironically, preachers told their congregations to boycott the movie for its nudity. That didn't work. People flocked to the theater. The old adage has always been true: sex sells.
Lois Weber's story is fascinating, and I promise to offer a blog post about it soon. Why don't we talk about this nude scene more? You can likely guess. You had probably heard of all of those directors up top except for her, despite her massive success. She struggled to roll over into the talkie world and a divorce, as well as another controversial film in 1921, both depleted her earnings. She had to close her studio and work as a director-for-hire instead of the auteur she was used to being.
As a result, she died without control of her narrative, and she was somewhat pushed out of film history until the 60s and 70s when a new breed of critics and film students rediscovered her. It's at that time that films like The Hypocrites were screened again, letting new generations enjoy these scenes:
Margaret Edwards in Hypocrites
00:01:19 Margaret is fully nude and fully transparent, ghost-style, as she appears in front of some gates and bares every inch. (16 secs)