Bell, Bare and Beautiful

Bell, Bare and Beautiful (1963)

* 1/2 (out of 4)

Rick Bradshaw (William Kerwin) is becoming haunted by a woman he keeps dreaming about. He knows nothing about her but he tries to track her down through a nudist colony and before long he finds her. It turns out that Gina (Virginia Bell) is her name and Rick will stop at nothing to get her.

Herschell Gordon Lewis started his career making these type of nudie cuties and it's easy to see why he will always be best remembered for his gore picture. You know, the nudie cutie is one of the hardest genres to watch for a number of reasons but the biggest today is the fact that they simply don't have too much going for them outside of the nudity. In 1963 it wasn't as easy to see a naked lady so movies like this were made so that men could get a cheap thrill.

The nudity is here but there's really not much of a story or any other sort of entertainment. It's really too bad that there weren't a bit more entertainment thrown into these things. This could have come from some sort of plot or perhaps just a few laughs scattered throughout. The main reason to watch this is because of Bell and her 48-24-36 measurements. Yes, her breasts are that large and they are the main reason people will want to check this film out.

A very typical example of the stripper/nudist camp films of the early 60s (see Doris Wishman's earlier "Belle Starr Goes Nudist"), this Virginia Bell vehicle is creaky in the extreme, and of interest only to completists like yours truly.

I've seen practically the entire Herschell Gordon Lewis oeuvre, and even met him at a screening in Manhattan nearly 30 years ago, but have never understood his cult following. (I still watch minor films looking for a gem, not searching for the nonsensical "so bad it's good" chimera.) This early effort, reportedly filmed around the same time of his famous "Blood Feast" is as poorly made as most of his other efforts.

The storyline of William Kerwin searching for his dream girl and finding her after many tiresome reels in the form of Bell couldn't be hoarier. The bad guy is played by producer David Friedman which I guess is of interest to his fans. Nudist camp footage is stock in the extreme, and Bell's striptease is dull filmmaking. After watching it, I quickly stuck a SWV compilation of loops into my DVD player, and was pleased at the more interesting angles capturing Bell's unique form.

For its DVD-R, SWV displayed "black & white" on the box liner, though the in-house reviewer didn't explain what gives. I had seen a full-color trailer for the film and was wondering what would emerge. The 2006 edition presents a much-shortened cut of the film in blurry b&w, missing perhaps 20 minutes, and follows it immediately with a couple of color reels of the same scenes, but even less complete. Comparing the video with the full synopsis in the AFI Catalog 1961-1970 it seems that several subplots are missing.