Nudes on Tiger Reef

Nudes on Tiger Reef (1965)

** (out of 4)

Sande (Sande N. Johnsen) is a director who decides to stay at a nudist camp. It doesn't take long for the filmmaker to determine that it would be great to make an actual movie about the camp.

Do we really need a plot when it comes to these nudie cuties? This Barry Mahon feature is pretty typical of the type of nudist film that he was doing. He at least tried to give something of a plot with all the nudity but there's no question that the main goal was to deliver good looking women and that he does.

NUDES ON TIGER REEF, which is a great title, benefits from having plenty of good looking women showing off their boobs and their butt. The film manages to hold your attention throughout due to some of the campy dialogue as well as some silly situations throughout. The highlight of the picture comes at the end when we get a scuba diving sequence that actually has some very good underwater cinematography for the time.

Obviously, these nudie cuties aren't going to be for everyone but Mahon pretty much delivers what you'd expect.

I like the title, but it's all downhill from there for this mindless feature from pornographer Barry Mahon. Even a cast of Gotham beauties can't pump life into this baby.

Fellow porn director Sande Johnson toplines as a NYC legit theater director on vacation in Florida who coincidentally encounters his Gotham leading lady at an offshore nudist camp. They make a skin flick together as a result of this kismet.

Result is strictly dullsville lacking a story or any other sort of content. Fake narration glorifies nudism and keeps up th pretense that these are real nudists, but it's obvious they're imported beauties, like Gigi Darlene and Darlene Bennett, among the most well-known porn actresses of the day. The boring Muzak/light jazz score is guaranteed to put one to sleep.

At the 35-minute mark, with a couple more reels to fill, scene shifts to a boating trip to the title reef for topless scuba diving and okay underwater photography in the tradition of John Lamb (see his classic: THE MERMAIDS OF TIBURON). This segment is very poorly edited with five minutes of extraneous footage of putting on skin diving gear -pure padding. Time to head to the concession stand.

The narrator evidently fell asleep during the final reel, as the voice-over lays out unaccountably.