Nude on the Moon (1961)

Nude on the Moon was made at a time when nudity of any kind couldn't be found in any but the sleaziest venues in American culture. There was Playboy and a rack of crummy stag magazines but apparently the average lonely guy either became a secret porn dog or frequented the few remaining burlesque houses to watch strippers. Out of this repressed situation was maintained a small but constant sub-industry of soft-core nudie moviemakers, of which Doris Wishman was a prolific member. At one point during a pointless driving scene, the astronauts see a theater marquee for a nudist film and make approving remarks. This self-promotional moment would seem to be the only one in the film with the director's stamp on it. Nude on the Moon is a primitive nudist film, but instead of showing us sexless volleyball for an hour while a narrator drones on about hygiene and the natural beauty of nudity, here there is a rudimentary plot.

But don't confuse it with a movie. There is little or no direction to speak of and the acting is strictly of the 'stand still and say the words' kind. Voices are post-dubbed, sometimes fitting the lips of the actors. The spaceship is seen in five or six mismatched cutaways. In one angle of a fuzzy Pla-doh Earth the continents are backwards. Our space jockeys climb a painter's scaffold to enter their unseen rocket. An airplane door and an ordinary airplane cockpit are the only sets. They talk to each other over radio headsets even though they are sitting side-by-side. The pace is very slow and the proceedings padded: the film begins with a gloppy love ballad sung over a static painting of the moon. Savant guesses that almost every useable foot of film Wishman exposed is here in the final cut.

So, surprise, surprise, the topless-only nudity is the only thing Nude on the Moon has going for it. It's the whole show, folks. The healthy-looking 'actors' are basically attractive but nothing special to look at, especially given the low standard of photography which is in 35mm but has the static, Kodachrome look of an old travelogue. The camera is locked down and the sunlit, no-fill lighting grossly uneven. The main actress could be described as having a nice build but her thighs are chubby and her flawed complexion is undisguised by the poor makeup. Am I making this sound attractive? Several of the women are pretty enough to be models and a couple would seem to be professional, but professional what? Models? strippers? Adventurous housewives? The mind boggles.

The men wear little gold and silver shorts and make amused faces but don't seem to want to have much to do with the women. There's nothing resembling sexual activity, not even a hint of any gay tension. These people are basically moving statuary or mannequins. Was this required to get the films past local censors? The result might be entertaining and it's historically relevant, but since the whole affair resembles a family home movie on LSD one gets the weird feeling that the next poised nudist walking carefully onscreen (whatever you do, don't wiggle!) will turn out to be a great aunt, or something. Grandma! What are you doing in this old movie?