Our Staff Picks column takes you back to a time when video stores reigned supreme and the "Staff Picks" section was the place to find out what films were worthy of one's time. Of course, our version of Staff Picks has a decidedly skintillating angle, as we suss out which films from a particular subgenre are the best to find great nudity. This week let's cover one a skinteresting genre: old Hollywood nudity!
Nudity in Old Hollywood was rare...but not nearly as rare as you think. We tend to think of old movies being filled with demure ladies and Ginger Rogers tap dancing, but there was a time when old movies were raunchy. In fact, old movies got SO raunchy that a censorship code was put into place that lasted three decades.
The Hayes Code had weird rules like no profanity, suggestive nudity, no realistic violence, no interracial relationships, and no depictions of bad guys looking good. It was so was ridiculous that you couldn't even featured a toilet (something that Alfred Hitchcock willingly defied in Psycho). The movies before the code were skintastic and they featured bawdy, badass, hilarious actresses at the helms. Sigh...those were the days (I am way too young to say that).
These films are some of the pre-code movies that not only featured innuendos and sapphic smooches - but they also featured nudity! Here are our Staff Picks:
Call Her Savage
Surely, you have heard of Clara Bow. If you haven't, then you should know that the term It Girl was invented because of Bow. Clara Bow was a silent film star who starred in a 1927 movie called It (no relation to the scary clown) and she won the heart of a nation. Sadly, Clara's thick New York accent made her no longer viable to play engenues once talkies came into fashion. That being said, she did have a great role in Call Her Savage when the girls get into a catfight and the original It Girl has a nipple slip.
China Seas
We simply cannot talk about old Hollywood stars without talking about the OG bombshell Jean Harlow. Much like Bow, the term "bombshell" being used to describe a smoking hot woman began with the platinum blonde haired actress Jean Harlow. Harlow was a hottie who inspired Marilyn Monroe to dye her hair blonde, too. That's how influential Jean was.
Jean Harlow also showed her breasts in two of her movies with China Seas being the clearest view of her yabos. I'm glad she was so sexy in so many of her films because Jean sadly dyed quite young in 1937 due to kidney failure. Thankfully, she let us sail on the seas of her giant cans before she left us.
Grand Hotel
It is difficult for me to choose a favorite Greta Garbo film. The enigmatic Swede with the iconically sexy voice was in a lot of pre-code films, defying boundaries and dancing naked more than once. While a body double was used for her dance in Mata Hari, Greta showed her breast during a ballet sequence in the lavish drama Grand Hotel.
Greta and Marlene Dietrich are often compared to one another. Both of them were gender-bending, openly bisexual, foreign screen sirens. Allegedly, the two of them did not get along either. I think Greta comes out on top for this role and another that we will talk about in a moment.
Between Two Worlds
More like Between Two Boobs! This film from 1921 features a famous artist who dipped her toes into nudity: Lil Dagover. The famous German expressionist director Fritz Lang directed this film about a couple that gets abducted by a small indigenous tribe. While in the process of securing their freedom, Lil frees her breasts. Sorry, but there is nothing "lil" about her areolas!
Legong: Dance of the Virgins
This is a fascinating and little-known film that was the last silent movie filmed in Hollywood and it was also the last to be shot using a technique called two-strip Technicolor. The film was shot in Indonesia and features Balinese babes like Saplak Njoman and Poetoe Aloes Goesti as sisters who simply do not wear tops.
The topless ladies were able to show a surprising lot in this 1935 film because it was based on Balinese folklore and sold as a dramatic travelogue. Really, it is an over-the-top silent drama about sisters scheming around one another and doing it all with their boobs out.
Tarzan and his Mate
This 1934 film is one of the last notable pre-code movies that takes us into the African jungles where Tarzan meets Jane, his mate. Maureen O'Sullivan plays her gorgeously while wearing next-to-nothing for most of the film. This film is most famous for its long, gorgeous underwater swim scenes that feature the actors naked.
Maureen O'Sullivan used a body double for these scenes, so this is not Maureen's long legs and buttocks that we are admiring. It is actually Olympian Josephine McKim! In an interview in 1994, O'Sullivan revealed that she had no issue with nudity - she was, after all, basically in her underwear for the entire film. She was actually quite claustrophobic and scared to swim underwater. At least she had no qualms being nude!
Queen Christina
And here is my other choice for a hot Greta Garbo role. Queen Christina told the story of the real Swedish Queen Christina who was a powerful woman who often dressed in men's clothing and made out with her chambermaids. Greta Garbo does all of that perfectly in this shocking 1933 film that is one of the first ever to show a lesbian kiss onscreen. While they do not go nude, this is a remarkable moment in cinema history ad one that would surprise people today to learn happened 90 years ago.
