Garden of Eden

Garden of Eden (1954)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

Susan (Jamie O'Hara) wants to get away from her awful father-in-law (R.G. Armstrong) so she packs up her young daughter (Karen Sue Trent) and heads off. Their car breaks down in Tampa and they are rescued by Johnny (Mickey Knox) who takes them back to his home. His "home" turns out to be a nudist colony where the conservative Susan learns a few things.

GARDEN OF EDEN wasn't the first nudist movie ever made but it is believed to be the first one that was actually shot in color. In fact, this really isn't your typical nudist film as there are professional actors here and the main point of the film is actually it's plot. Yes, there's actually a plot here. You'll also be interested in knowing that many of the cast members would go onto appear on television shows like Alfred Hitchcock Presents and Leave It to Beaver as well as movies like THE GODFATHER PART III, PREDATOR and THE BUDDY HOLLY STORY among others.

This film actually turned out to be pretty good as there's a nice little story at the center of it. The lead female character's husband was killed in the war and she's having to deal with the rather annoying father-in-law. She then leaves town, ends up at this joint and has a lot to think about the future of her life. I thought all of this was handled quite well and it certainly helped that we were given some real actors and they turned in nice performances. This was especially true of O'Hara and Armstrong who was making his film debut.

As far as the exploitation nature, yes, the film was originally sold because of its nudity and it faced various legal issues in nearly each state that it tried to play. The nudist scenes are what you'd expect as we see people walking around, swimming and of course there's the volleyball sequence. The people are all of the attractive nature and there's no doubt that the nudity and the setting mix well with the story and in the end it really helps the picture.

There are some obviously flaws with the movie including some of the pacing as well as some of the moral preaching but for the most part I can comfortably say that GARDEN OF EDEN is the best nudist movie that I've seen.

I'm sure for its time it was very innovative, but no one took this subject matter seriously in the '50's. Take for instance the scene where Jamie O'Hara remarks how "delightful" it feels to watch her little daughter playing nude with other children, but balks when she sees other adults.

Nowadays the situation is reversed. With the proliferation of Girls Gone Wild, Hedonism and HBO & Playboy documentaries, mainstream audiences now see nudism as an adult hobby, and parents who involve their children are facing criminal investigations.

I expected more of the writer to make use of R.G. Armstrong. He's a very nice man. Met him at Dupar's four years ago. But such a talented actor who really should have been given more to do as the uptight old father figure.

I remember this film hitting the theatres when I was a kid but of course I couldn't go to see it much to my disappointment. Having recently got a copy on DVD I found it a refreshing change from other "nudies" of the period, for one thing most of the people in it could act, including the little girl who later went on to be a regular in a TV series. Also it was great to see they didn't utilise the method commonly used in other films of the genre of people walking around with a beach ball or magazine held in front of there lower regions which frankly always made the scenes laughable, with the exception of a brief frontal shot of the little girl no one was filmed full frontal which took away the comic aspect and gave a more serious impression. One thing I wonder though is in today's so called liberated society would they still be allowed to show a man pick up a little naked girl and run his hand up and down her back while talking to her? I doubt it.

What a stunning, sharp, modern, provocative, brilliantly acted, excellently shot, suspenseful, dark, excruciatingly honest and extremely beautiful to watch timeless masterpiece!

A great movie that gradually piles up the suspense and the psychological relationships between the characters and elevates the whole story way beyond the boundaries of a simple set of events.

There's drama, action, suspense, sex, and full nudity. All in a perfect movie surprise. He will make you laugh, cry and see sometimes you have never know about the world.

Too much hate towards this film, I loved it. The message is beautiful and worth every minute of the movie. I can't help but think that the negative reviews are mostly from those people who say that females have to stay home and cook while running their movies. This is a movie that helps little girls know that all women are powerful and strong and being a minority won't determine how far you go unless you let them. A MUST VIEW!

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It was so good to be true I wish if I lived in that story