The Naked Truth
UK film poster
Directed byMario Zampi
Written byMichael Pertwee
Produced byMario Zampi
Starring
CinematographyStanley Pavey
Edited byBill Lewthwaite
Music byStanley Black
Distributed byJ. Arthur Rank Film Distributors
Release date
  • 3 December 1957 (1957-12-03)
Running time
92 minutes
CountryUnited Kingdom
LanguageEnglish

The Naked Truth is a 1957 British black comedy film starring Terry-Thomas, Peter Sellers and Dennis Price. Peggy Mount, Shirley Eaton and Joan Sims also appear.[1] It was produced and directed by Mario Zampi from a screenplay by Michael Pertwee. It was released in the United States as Your Past Is Showing.[2]

Plot

Nigel Dennis is 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, television host Sonny MacGregor, writer Flora Ransom, and model Melissa Right. 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, 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.

Cast

Critical reception

According to Allmovie, the film is: "A prescient satire of tabloid journalists and celebrity culture, The Naked Truth, is a well-acted British comedy that doesn't quite succeed in melding its black and broad comedy".[2] The Radio Times reviewer wrote: "This black comedy supplied Peter Sellers with some of his funniest, and finest, pre-Hollywood material. It's based - as the best British humour often is - on class and sex...Mario Zampi directs the gags in Michael Pertwee's satisfying script with superb timing."[3] Leonard Maltin observed: "Sellers (cast as a television star) is a special treat in this amusing satire."[4]

References

  1. ↑ "The Naked Truth (1957)". www.bfi.org.uk. Archived from the original on 14 April 2020.
  2. 1 2 "The Naked Truth (1957) - Mario Zampi - Review - AllMovie". AllMovie.
  3. ↑ "The Naked Truth – review - cast and crew, movie star rating and where to watch film on TV and online". Radio Times.
  4. ↑ "Your Past Is Showing (1958) - Overview - TCM.com". Turner Classic Movies.
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