the leading man is my tpye
... View MoreAbsolutely brilliant
... View MoreIt is not only a funny movie, but it allows a great amount of joy for anyone who watches it.
... View MoreA clunky actioner with a handful of cool moments.
... View MoreWay back in 1957, you were simply not allowed to release a movie in the U.S.A. with a title like The Naked Truth, so this film made its U.S. tour re-titled as Your Past Is Showing! Despite its first-class cast of deft farceurs like first-billed Terry-Thomas, plus Peter Sellers, Shirley Eaton (any movie with Shirley Eaton is automatically a must-see item as far as I'm concerned), Peggy Mount, Dennis Price, Wilfrid Lawson and Dora Bryan, I feel that a stronger director than Mario Zampi would have punched home the comedy with far more impact than Mr. Zampi was able to achieve. Some of the jokes are allowed to run on far too long, but fortunately enough succeed to make a viewing worthwhile – despite the fact that it all comes to a very, very lame conclusion.
... View MoreGreat cast in this story of a publisher, Dennis Price, who threatens to publish a tabloid magazine spelling out the peccadilloes of many prominent celebrities, including Peter Sellers, Terry-Thomas, Peggy Mount, and Shirley Eaton. Their reputations and happiness are at stake. Price gives them two weeks to come up with a blackmail sum that none can manage.It has its funny moments but the script isn't what it might be. The story is mostly disjointed because the victims don't know one another, so we wind up with four separate threads of victims trying to prevent Price from implementing his scheme.And the humor is all spelled out. Nothing is left to the imagination. If the mystery writer, Peggy Mount, tries to drown the blackmailer, she knocks the wrong man out and tries to drown him in a pond. The attempted drowning is all drawn out and devolves into slapstick. The sprightly musical score tries desperately to underline the comic features of each scene.Among the funnier scenes is Peter Sellers (in one of several disguises) hiding under the bunk he assumes belong to the blackmailer. Instead, a young couple of newlyweds show up and kick off their shoes and kiss voluptuously. Sellers, scooched back against the wall, looks at the two pairs of feet, glances up at the bed, and stares in exasperation at the camera, breaking the fourth wall. (Dissolve.) The show really belongs to Dennis Price, who plays the role of suave villain with aplomb. Even unconscious he seems to wear a superior smirk. He has the cleverest lines too, at times harking back to his splendid performance in "Kind Hearts And Coronets." "I do hope this isn't an appeal to my better nature because I haven't one." It's Sellers who quotes the happy villain of Richard III -- "Why, I can smile, and murder while I smile" -- but it's Price who embodies him.I wish the script had been more taut and the direction less explicit. As it is, it's not a failure, but it's a loose-limbed and lowbrow success.
... View MoreThe Naked Truth is a funny and wicked satire of the tabloid-press industry and celebrity culture. The story follows four celebrities Sonny MacGregor {Peter Sellers}, Lord Mayley {Terry-Thomas}, Melissa Right {Shirley Eaton} and Flora Ransom {Peggy Mount}. Each of them being blackmailed by unscrupulous magazine reporter Nigel Dennis {Dennis Price}. Who if his demands aren't met will publish damning stories that will kill of the respective careers off the celebrities.Cue a unified target of the four, one thing in common, to kill the oblivious Dennis. This is wonderfully set up for a number of excellent, and well constructed attempts at assassinating the bounder and cad reporter. But naturally, not all is going to go to plan, with the assassins being their own worst enemy at times. As can be expected with this cast list {Joan Sims also appears} it's acted with no little comic gravitas and the direction from Mario Zampi is smooth and at ease with the material. A tidy enough British comedy, that's even black at times, even if it fails to truly reach the great heights that its cast list suggests it should. 6/10
... View MoreThis 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.
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