Blaze Starr Goes Nudist

Blaze Starr Goes Nudist (1962)

* 1/2 (out of 4)

Doris Wishman made a string of nudist pictures to start her career but on this one she managed to bring in a controversial name. Blaze Starr was a burlesque star who gained headlines after having an affair with Louisiana Governor Earl Kemp Long. Their affair would eventually be turned into a movie with Paul Newman.

This film here has a pretty simple story as Blaze wants to get away from various issues so she skips in to see a movie, which shows a nearby nudist camp. Blaze decides to become a member herself and for a while she keeps it from her fiancé/agent but soon he wants to know what she's doing all the time.

BLAZE STARR GOES NUDIST is a pretty boring picture for a number of reasons but, to be fair, most of these nudist pictures were quite boring. These types of movies were made so that male members could see wall-to-wall nudity and if that's the only thing you're after then there's a lot of it on display here. Thankfully most of the people photographed are good looking so looking them over for 75-minutes isn't a problem.

Of course, the main attraction here is Starr who does eventually take her own clothes off. This was obviously the selling point of the picture so fans certainly won't be disappointed. I would also add that she's really not that bad of a performer. Her performance here certainly isn't Oscar worthy but it's a lot better than you typically see in this type of picture.

With that said, I'd recommend just jumping around to her nude scenes if that's what you're interested in because the rest of the movie is downright lame and boring.

...nudist camp movies. This genre has been due a come back for longer than I have been alive.

Here we have an OK template for film makers to start from.

First take a marginally famous media celebrity who the media is no longer interested in. Acting ability is irrelevant. Preferably female as the target audience is most likely going to be teenage boys who have never seen naked ladies before. (Sounds like a rather small audience in this cyber-age)

Then start shooting!

You'll figure out a story as you go but until you do we want the following shots:

-starlet walking places: to the car, to the kitchen, to the bathroom, down the street, back from the car, back from the kitchen, back from the bath room, back down the street, up and down stairs, etc.

-starlet brushing hair, standing around by herself, smiling at nothing, and especially shots where her eyes widen and narrow for no apparent reason.

-starlet sitting in a stationary car which you gently rock.

-same car driving up and down streets, (could be anyone driving)

These shots are very important because this is where you'll lay down your voice-over track later once you've figured out what you still need to hold your story together, once you've figured out a story.

Location sound is not an issue, you don't need to record any. You can edit around that but be clever, film the other actors responses then edit so everybody is listening and nodding and all the dialogue is off-screen, or shoot from behind the speaking actors so you can't see their mouths move, or from long shots. You could just have the actors alternately chew gum in the long shots and add dialogue later, no one will care.

Have lots of phone acting, you only need the one actor for that, they hold the phone in front of their mouth while they chew gum and you can add both sides of the conversation later.

Now the story. This isn't really important, it is just to get the starlet out of her real world and into that of the nudist camp. Character names aren't important either, just use the actors real names, they will be happy for the exposure.

Now we come to THE exposure. Get a bunch of young ladies who are trying really hard to get a break into movies, waitresses, and strippers are good. "Dancers" if that's what they want to call themselves, we know what I mean. They must have perky breasts who aren't shy, saggy butts are okay too. It doesn't matter if they are shaved or bushy because you are going to compose all your shots so we can't tell: all the actors will sit cross legged or will be seen from behind, throw in a couple of guys for the ladies, it's okay if they wear shorts, after all this is a nudist camp movie, not the discovery channel.

Now action!

The cast play chess, checkers, archery (with suction cup arrows very P.C.), volleyball, row boats, sit around posing, sit around some more, play accordion, siamese dance, pick fruit, and grass, swim, and walk around. Lots. Shoot as much of this stuff as you can as many takes as you can, you're going to use them all! Some of the shots several times.

Get some cut aways of the non-nudist actors just looking, frame with just the sky behind them, you can use these any where.

Play dodgy Musak over it all you should be able to pick up some really cheap copyright-free stuff, it will help captivate the viewer.

Throw in a twist: Like after the starlet's dirty little "I'm a nudist!" secret is exposed the only one who cares is the original love interset, ditch him, insert last minute new love interest here, roll credits, everybody else in the film is converted to nudity and they all live happily ever after.

Should fit nicely under 75 minutes.

Note: don't reveal too much too early or nobody will stick through to the end to see your clever twist.

I think there are enough untalented film makers out there today who could really give this a go. Or remake-happy Hollywood should (is there an echo in here?). Doris Wishman would sell the rights relatively cheap, probably offer her director services as a free bonus. Or... wait a few more years , it will become public domain and we can all rip it off.

Maybe a cross genre to make it more 2000's.... nudist camp meets slasher film...hmmm hang on I'd better copyright that idea.

Doris Wishman (the film maker), in this film, managed to do the impossible, something that I thought couldn't be done. She made nudity *boring*! The movie is little more than scenes of naked people in the outdoors, doing mundane things like lounging around the swimming pool, strolling by the pond, playing chess... Zzzzzzzzzz. And since this was 1960, there's no full frontal nudity anywhere. The only part that really got me interested was "Leslie" demonstrating her swimming prowess in the pool. The rest of the film has the flimsiest of plots, something about Belle Starr wanting to get away from it all by escaping to the nudist camp every weekend, as her weasel-like fiancé/manager gets more and more irate. In the end, it all works out -- the final scene, the final meeting with the studio boss, was amusing (though I saw that one coming).

This film is from director Wishman's less interesting early period of nudist camp movies before she totally wigged out later in the 60s. The unintentionally experimental compositions and editing that Wishman later indulged in are rarely in evidence here. One typical Wishman device that is on display here is the repeated technique of focusing on the person being spoken to during dialogue scenes which makes dubbing a lot easier. Blaze is all physical presence, with little personality and way too much make-up. Look for a cameo appearance by Doris as one of Blaze's agents.

I never fully realized the pressures of being an actress. The story obviously hit so close to home that Blaze Starr just plays herself. Anyone who feels exhausted and disenchanted with their job or life in general will relate to Blaze's circumstances. The attention paid to the details is astounding. Never has a film stretched the musical montage sequence and make it work so well with the theme. This movie is nearly perfect. The only flaw was that it was too short.