Volupté

When you haven't seen a Gina Lollobrigida film in ten years her beauty really hits you in the face. She's also decked in glamorous, slinky gowns that show off her beautiful figure. Borgnine drives a gorgeous 1960 Chrysler New Yorker convertible in the film.

Those are the only good things I can say about this movie. It us absolutely pointless. It is also boring and annoying. Franciosa overacts, Borgnine just yells and Lollo acts like she's doing everyone a favor by just appearing in the film. Well, actually, she is.

You aren't given the time to care about the characters or get any insights into their motivations. Its just a lot of yelling.

Nick Stratton (Anthony Franciosa) has a 30 day furlough from the Army before deciding on re-enlisting. He returns home to San Francisco and falls for Giulietta Cameron (Gina Lollobrigida). His father Pete Stratton (Ernest Borgnine) is a self-made Greek immigrant construction tycoon. He is torn between his controlling father and his obsession with Giulietta who turns out to be a high class call girl.

I don't particularly like any of these characters and I don't have the joy of hating any of them either. Nick is annoying. Italian star Gina Lollobrigida is wasted on this melodramatic role. Ernest Borgnine is probably the most compelling actor in the cast. He and his son on the high beam is the most intense scene. The son is just too pathetic and I don't like the father either in this melodramatic mess.

"Go Naked in the World" is a very bad film....a glossy, good looking bad film. The more you watch it, the more you realize it's a bad film....with too many characters who seem like caricatures and absolutely no subtlety. It's a shame, as there are many interesting story elements but the sum total is just bad...really bad. Better writers EASILY could have made this into a very good film...but apparently these were not better writers!

When the story begins, Nick Stratten (Tony Franciosa) has returned to his hometown after serving a hitch in the army. While you might think he'd go straight home to see his parents, Nick doesn't as his relationship with his father is extremely problematic! Pete Stratten (Ernest Borgnine) is a loud, blustering and controlling father....and Nick claims that he wants to be free of his father's control. However, although this seems admirable that Nick wants to make his own way in life, he's a jerk-face...who goes to his father for money but then, at the same time, resents his old man and makes it obvious. As for the father, he's no prince....as he's never been faithful to his wife and has spent time schtupping a high-class prostitute, Guilietta (Gina Lollobrigida). Later, Nick finds out that his new girlfriend, the one he's head-over-heels over, is the girl Pete's been seeing for years. And, apparently, so have many, many of Pete's friends! This is obviously NOT a super-healthy family!!

So why did I dislike the film so much? I blame much of it on the writers (as I mentioned above) and the director. After all, Pete is supposed to be a large personality....but there is zero subtlety about the guy and he spends most of the movie screaming his lines. I know Ernest Borgnine was a fabulous actor, so I don't completely blame him, but his character is so unreal. As for Nick and the rest of them, it's so sad that the LEAST over-the-top and most real character was the prostitute!!

The film COULD have been a great film about a father and son who are estranged. There ARE interesting things in the movie. But instead, it's just badly written, unconvincing and dumb....and filled with a bazillion and one plot holes. Ut also suffers from one huge problem....you simply don't like most of the characters! It's a pretty looking bad film, but a bad film nonetheless.

It is hard to believe that this melodrama film was released three (3) years after the much more realistic and successful (1958) Cat On A hot Tin Roof. Over the top is an understatement. Gina Lollobrigida plays a hooker who falls in love with Anthony Franciosa who is an army veteran just returning to his hometown where his wealthy industrialist father Pete Stratton played by. Ernest Borgnine has laid out a lifelong plan for his war veteran son. Nick Stratton.

Nick obviously wants to find his own way in the world and his plan includes living life happily ever after with his hooker girlfriend,. Guilietta Cameron (Gina Lollobrigida). There's is a whirlwind romance filled with days living life to the fullest and evenings snuggled up in bed. Nick's fathers' attempts to break up his sons fruitless relationship with the hooker Guilietta cause turmoil not only between father and son but Pete Stratton's own relationship with his own wife and his only daughter also become strained.

The acting comes across more as a live stage performance with the cast giving their very best, but like many Broadway productions this MGM film production just didn't have much meat on the bone, as well as being dry and rather tasteless.

I give the film a bland 5 out of 10 IMDB rating.

I find it extremely hard to believe that no one who's seen Go Naked in the World has made the connection that it's a non-operatic version of La Traviata. It's based on Tom T. Charmales's 1959 novel, but it's a shameless copy of the famed story about a young man who falls in love with a prostitute.

Anthony Franciosa plays the young man, his strong, stern disapproving father is Ernest Borgnine. They come from a strict Greek background, and Ernie is just as tough, demanding, controlling, and larger-than-life than you'd expect any self-made man who wants the best for his kids. Yes, he's loud and challenging and impossible, but he also had to battle more in his life than his ingrate children have had to. He's earned the right to be gruff, and beneath it all, you can tell he's coming from a place of love.

Tony is too angry and youthful to appreciate his father's love, so rather than take a job at his extremely successful construction company, he slums it in an apartment and takes up with a beautiful prostitute, Gina Lollobrigida. He has no idea she's "the biggest call girl in town," but the audience knows it from the first scene. If you know La Traviata or Camille, you know how upset he'll get when he finds out. If you don't, you'll be extremely entertained by this heavy drama. There's an added twist to this movie that isn't present in the other stories, one that I happen to love and won't tell you about. You'll just have to rent it to find out why this particular version is so heavy.

If you rent this naughty, post-Code "romance", you'll see three very meaty performances. All three leads are given a lot to do, and they're all very convincing. Ernie certainly made good use of his Oscar, Tony broke free of his Italian-Burt-Lancaster-persona, and Gina was challenged most of all. She's given an enormous range in her scenes, so if you're a fan of the beautiful Italian actress, you're not going to want to miss this one.