Volupté

"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.

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.

In this lurid early 60's melodrama, Gina Lollobrigida plays a high-class call girl who meets Anthony Franciosca, the son of millionaire construction magnate Ernest Borgnine, a self-made Greek immigrant whose forceful personality and wealth dominates everyone around him. Franciosca has just gotten out of the service and is "finding himself". Franciosca is at first ignorant of Lollobrigida's calling in life, but soon gets wise and also learns that his father and seemingly half the male population in town has used her services.

This is a fairly big budget, lushly made film, set in what looked like possibly San Francisco (?) with a side trip to Acapulco. I'm kind of a sucker for films from this era, their look and style, so it was enjoyable enough though certainly nothing great. Borgnine gives the best performance, though even his character showed a lot of inconsistency - at times, he was quite likable then you wanted to beat him over the head. Gina is voluptuous and sexy, but Franciosca, playing the weakest character, could not overcome the deficiencies of the writing. The biggest problem with the film is the inherent double standard of the time, making the sexually free woman the victim who must pay for her "sins". I'm certainly happy that things have changed in that regard.

Sick at home, I chose to watch this despite having no idea what this movie was about. Never heard of it before either.

First off, Bourgnine really got into the role of a domineering Greek immigrant architect. He spends quite a bit of time yelling at everyone. His scenes with Franciosa are very good and provided me with a reason to watch the whole thing. Lollobrigida is good but the scenes between her and Franciosa are gooey.

The plot is interesting as Lollobrigida's character is revealed to be a high-class hooker leading to Franciosa's character's very confused response and his confkict with his father who happens to be one of her clients. It could have been interesting but the movie opts for cheap moralizing at the end. I have seen the same ending in "bad girl tries to make good" movies from the 1930s.

The title is also a cheap attempt to get the male audience to think they might glimpse Lolabrigida nude at some point. Never comes close although there's a wild dissolve / montage that has an erupting champagne bottle superimposed over Lollobrigida face as she's clearly on her back. Hmmm.

You can skip it if it ever shows up again.

The only thing I have against this film is that the character played by tony Franciosa is rather helpless for someone who has just spent several years in the army. I would have thought that he would have come out a better man, instead of this mousy character, but there you are.

I thought the scene at the top of the skyscraper being built, where Tony Franciosa walks along a girder as though it were a tightrope, to get some money from his father was an incredible piece of acting by Franciosa, Borgnine, and the actors playing the spidermen. To me that was the outstanding scene in the whole film.

The rest of the film is a watchable melodrama, although I don't think it will ever be regarded as one of the best films ever made.