The Nine Ages of Nakedness

Went with a friend, to see this film in the cinema, as a 15 year old boy, looking for titillation. We passed for 18, but in 1969 they weren't as strict as they are now.

It is enough to say that we, two hot blooded, heterosexual boys walked out on a film with naked women, after 45 mins.

Awful, awful, awful. There is no other way to describe this film.

This film should be taught in film school as how NOT to make a film.

I don't think that Charles Grey was in it for the money. From growing up and swapping with other kids copies of Blighty Parade/ Parade, Health and Efficiency, Spick and Span and other Pin up magazines of beautiful women with their best bits airbrushed out, this was a chance to see them moving about. The acting was not good, the music was dire and it was as funny as a boil on the bum but the girls were gorgeous. There were two cinemas in Blackpool that used to show naughty films, The Ritz that showed non stop cartoons during the day and French films at night, the cartoons were better. And The Tivoli that showed nudist films such as Naked as Nature Intended which was Michael Winners first film I think. Anyone who saw these films at the time will have cursed beach balls and of course the censor and thank Hugh Heffner for banning the airbrush. A couple of years later you could buy some of these films from a shop in London, they lasted 20 minutes a reel, you could also buy abbreviated old Hollywood style films and vinyl LPs of film soundtracks. All those beautiful girls will be old grannies by now or sadly passed away like June Palmer and Margaret Nolan. Many years later I did get to know a few of the later models such as the lovely Alison Brown and others through Aunty Jane (Pat) Wynn and had a few marvelous afternoons with those lovely ladies.

I'm not surprised that THE NINE AGES OF NAKEDNESS has garnered no reviews on this site so far because it really is a rubbishy little film. It's far worse than the dated but mildly diverting nudie flicks that George Harrison Marks was making at the beginning of the decade like NAKED AS NATURE INTENDED; essentially it's a series of vignettes about the sexual relations between men and women through the ages, with little more than that.

The problem with this film? Everything! The production values are poor, the costumes and sets look cheap, and there's no discernible script. I had no idea if I was supposed to be watching a comedy because I didn't laugh once. Noticeably bad are the male performers, whose outrageous mugging really is awful - one of the worst is Marks himself, appearing throughout the production in ill-conceived cameos. What inspired Charles Gray to provide the occasional narration for this is anyone's guess, but all I can say is that it must have had lots of 0s on the end.

While it's fair to say that THE NINE AGES OF NAKEDNESS does contain a number of young actresses who willingly strip for the screen, this titillation does in no way, shape, or form amount to what could possibly be described as entertainment - which is why this film is rightly forgotten even by fans of the era's sexploitation.