La verità... quasi nuda

There are few films (these days) that make you laugh out loud and laugh hilariously. This film is one of them. "Pay my blackmail or I publish in a month" is the magazine publisher's standard line. The characters who react to this blackmail are varied, amusing and unique.We need this film to be available on video.

There's not a false move in this charming British comedy featuring Peter Sellers in multiple disguises, and Terry-Thomas in top form.

The script concerns a muckraker who's blackmailing several citizens by threatening to expose their dirty secrets in a new tabloid (which he assembles in a tacky houseboat on the Thames). Some of his victims decide to fight back, with humorous results, ending with a wacky scheme that ends with multiple twists.

The casting is perfect, including Peggy Mount, Kenneth Griffith, and a very young Joan Sims. And Michael Pertwee's script is ingenious and full of good lines. THE NAKED TRUTH (a/k/a YOUR PAST IS SHOWING) is a great example of the kind of film comedies that British studios were capable of turning out (seemingly effortlessly) in the 40s and 50s.

I'm a big Sellers fan and couldn't believe I'd never heard of this film (made shortly after SMALLEST SHOW ON EARTH). Track this one down and enjoy a fun evening with some real characters.

This film solidified Peter Sellers' stardom as a comic actor of the first rank. He had appeared in other films prior to it, but THE LADYKILLERS was the only one prior to this that showed him to any advantage, as an inept "teddy boy" type.

Here he is "Wee Sonny MacGregor" a popular young entertainer on television, whose variety show has mostly elderly viewers who think of Sonny as the son or grandson they always dreamed about. Unfortunately for Sonny, one Nigel Dennis (Dennis Price) publishes "THE NAKED TRUTH", a tell all scandal sheet like "Confidential" or (despite their disclaimers) "The Enquirer". Mr Dennis has a nice, somewhat legal, offer. If you will help defray the expenses of his magazine, he will refrain from publishing details of what you don't want known. In his best, intelligent scoundrel style, Price reveals to dear "Wee Sonny" that he knows about the large amounts of rent money "Wee Sonny" has been making with some rotting tenements in London. The audience for "Wee Sonny" would not feel very comfortable with his image knowing about this.

Price has similar pieces of information regarding Peggy Blount, playing an "Agatha Christie" novelist - apparently one of her plots may not have been so original. Also Terry-Thomas, as Lord Mayley, is not as respectable as he lets on - he seems to have had several affairs his wife does not know of (although Georgina Cookson - Lady Mayley - has her occasional suspicions). Soon all three are considering the last resort for dealing with blackmail - doing in the blackmailer. Their problems are more than dealing with a brainy adversary. Blount tries to commit a murder (after all she's an expert in killing as a creative writer), only to come a cropper (all I'll say is Price ups his demands for payment as a result). Terry-Thomas seems to keep stumbling into the schemes of Blount and Sellers, to his own discomfort.

Best is Sellers though - he is certain he can commit the perfect murder because he is a "master of disguise". His assistant Kenneth Griffith keeps warning him that he has a tendency to overact, but "Wee Sonny" dismisses this. He tries to spy out Price playing an elderly dock expert, and only annoys the latter and makes Terry-Thomas suspicious. He flusters a gun shop owner by appearing as an Edwardian style country squire ordering enough ammunition for a regiment, not for a hunt. My favorite moment is when he tries to impress possible IRA members by speaking to them (as a fellow member) in perfect Welsh.

How they finally get rid of Price and his demands is as funny as one can expect, given the rest of the film. It is a comedy that will pay handsome dividends of laughter.

A genuinely funny British farce dealing with blackmail and murder and splendidly played by a great cast of British comic actors, (Terry-Thomas, Peter Sellers, Peggy Mount, Joan Sims and Dennis Price). Price is the blackmailer and Sellers, Terry-Thomas and Mount, together with model Shirley Eaton, (long before someone thought of painting her gold), are his victims who plan to murder him but, as with any good farce, things don't go quite according to plan. The underrated Mario Zampi directed from an original and highly ingenious script by Michael Pertwee. Perhaps you need a very British sense of humour to really appreciate this but if you are blessed with such a thing, it's a real treat.

Apparently released both as "The Naked Truth" and "Your Past Is Showing" (the name on the title card and title I remember in the U.S. run), this bustling little comedy about tabloid blackmailer is still jolly good fun going on 50 years later. Credit an amusing script and some fine casting that captures a gaggle of top-flight '50s British comedy talent in top form. Terry-Thomas and a young Peter Sellers (filmed here just before he gained fame with "The Mouse That Roared") are at the pinnacle of their Brit-comedy game and are ably abetted by the redoubtable Peggy Mount, luscious Shirley Eaton (a few years before her turn as the "golden girl" in "Goldfinger"), a caddish Dennis Price (as the oily blackmailer) and assorted classic British comedy stars, a number of whom seem to have had recurring bits in the "Carry On" series. The humor here is not as low and juicy as the "Carry On"s or as high and dry as the classic Ealing Studio Ealing comedies of the period - a pleasing mix. By contemporary standards, the film is a little slow - especially the set-up through the opening reels - but it all pays off very nicely with an avalanche of chuckles and a few great belly laughs. Keep a close eye on Sellers: although he plays a single character (a cheesy TV variety show emcee), he dons multiple disguises through the film, warming up for future roles in "Mouse" and "Dr. Strangelove" (where he played three parts in each) and those later "Pink Panther" comedies.