Forbidden Daughters (1927)

Also called The Girls of Loma Loma, this early one-reel exploitation film from the silent era starts out with Alva (Clarice Conwell) lying on a couch in an open robe pining away for her long-lost husband Russell (Ralph O’Brien), a wealthy artist who took a trip to Africa and has yet to return. Right then she receives word that Russell seems to have been taken in by a lost civilization located deep in the jungle and has fallen in love with one of the native princesses. Resolving to go to Africa and get him back, Alva spends the next three months searching every trading post in Central Africa for clues to his whereabouts. When she reaches the last one she makes plans to meet with an East Indian trader named Rajah Sana who may be able to help her, but when she gets to him he’s surrounded by his harem in various states of nudity. Alva is overcome by the sight of all those boobs, butts, and bush and makes the faux pa of feeling up Rajah’s favorite wife, thereby getting herself thrown in a dungeon. Even though he seems to have developed a fancy for her, Rajah keeps Alva in prison, so she breaks out and then spends three days wandering in the jungle until she stumbles upon the lost village and finds her hubby who is watching the princess dance around in the buff. This compels Alva to strip down and present herself naked to Russell, asking him to choose between her and the princess. The director, Albert Arthur Allen, was a prominent nude photographer of the era, so while this much nudity in a film may not be common for the time, it’s not surprising that a moving picture with him at the helm would be so chock full of forbidden full frontal.