The Naked Truth

Dir: Mario Zampi

1957

*****

The great Terry-Thomas and Peter Sellers were often sought after for the same roles and even though they were friends, they were also each other’s main competition in many respects. So when they did star along-side each other it was a treat for viewers, a treat that never gets old, even all these years later. This would be the first of several films the pair would make together and a film that would change their careers forever. If they weren’t enough, the film also features the brilliant Dennis Price, Bond girl Shirley Eaton and Carry On legend Joan Sims. Written by Michael Pertwee (Son of Roland, Brother of Jon and Uncle of Sean) and directed by Mario Zampi, who shot the brilliant Laughter in Paradise and Too Many Crooks, 1957’s The Naked Truth has all the right ingredients for a British comedy classic, and yet, it’s often overlooked. People tend to remember the Ealing Comedies more so and I understand why. The performances and the dialogue are second to none in The Naked Truth, the only problem is that it takes so long for the story to really get going. The story begins with the wonderfully suave Nigel Dennis (Dennis Price), a blackmailer who threatens to publish embarrassing secrets in his magazine The Naked Truth. After attempting to blackmail a famous scientist (who commits suicide), and an MP (who suffers a heart attack in parliament, and probably succumbs), his latest targets are Lord Henry Mayley (Terry-Thomas), television host Sonny MacGregor (Peter Sellers), writer Flora Ransom (Peggy Mount), and model Melissa Right (Shirley Eaton). Several of them decide independently that murder would be a better solution than paying. However, it is Mayley who by sheer bad luck nearly ends up the victim of both MacGregor and Ransom's schemes. The four eventually join forces and try again. That attempt also fails, but Dennis is then arrested for an earlier crime. When Dennis threatens to reveal all at his trial, Mayley comes up with a scheme to break him out of prison and send him to South America, with the help of hundreds of his other victims. They phone in numerous fake calls for help, distracting the London police, while Mayley, MacGregor, and MacGregor's reluctant assistant Porter (Kenneth Griffith), disguised as policemen, whisk Dennis away. Knocking Dennis unconscious periodically, they finally end up in the cabin of a blimp on the way to a rendezvous with an outbound ship. To their dismay, when he comes to, Dennis refuses to go along with their plan, as he in fact never wanted to reveal any of their secrets in court. He was, in fact, optimistic about the trial anyway, and reveals that the evidence was his copies of The Naked Truth which had been destroyed by the plotters earlier. Happy to have outsmarted his opponents again, but unaware of where he is, Dennis then steps out for some air and plummets to the ocean below. When MacGregor celebrates by shooting his pistol, it punctures the blimp, which shoots away into the distance. A comedy caper that ends in hilarious demise is always good in my book, although this is made far better thanks to the absurdity and the fact it features a blimp. It was a timely satire of tabloid journalists and celebrity culture that was becoming infamous around the time, my only real criticism is that the story, or should I say the characters, could have come together a little sooner. I also think the comedy could have been a bit darker, but the conclusion goes a long way in making up for this. The comedy timing is absolutely perfect and I can’t help but think modern comics should watch films such as this before attempting stand up, or any performance comedy for that matter. The film did well but the actors did better. Peter Sellers was on the global radar thanks to The Ladykiller but The Naked Truth was the one that made him and saw him leave for American shores. Terry-Thomas was ever so slightly more established than Sellers but his career took off also and he made, in my opinion, his best films within the next ten years, thanks largely to The Naked Truth. I think Dennis Price is the overlooked actor in the film, he is the straight man but in order to play it as wonderfully as he does, means being unnaturally generous for an actor. This was only three years his failed suicide attempt and at the time many director/producer friends took great sympathy on him and he enjoyed quite a fruitful career from then on.  It’s one of those great classics where the performers don’t compete with one another. They understood that working together for the bigger picture is always far more successful than when actors compete with on another. I can’t bare watching Will Ferrell and Sacha Baron-Cohen films for the fact that they compete with their fellow actors, often to the detriment of the comedy. It makes their single performances feel forced, which they are, and uncomfortably unfunny (I’m looking at you Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby). I’m not sure we’ll ever see the likes of Terry-Thomas or Peter Sellers again, I’m not saying that because I’ve turned into a cantankerous old man either (although I have), but they were such unique characters who were so multi-talented, and no one has, and I doubt anyone will, make me laugh the same way they do. Goodness knows why it was released in the U.S. as Your Past is Showing? Sounds a bit rude if you ask me.