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#1
Good Movies / Re: IS IT PORN? (reviews and d...
Last post by M.10rda - Today at 03:08:27 PMI will try to discuss what's interesting about UNASHAMED w/o spoiling the ending (as I do think the film deserves to be seen) though I will spoil several key plot points.
First of all, UNASHAMED is not poorly made. The naturist footage is pretty typical, though w/ some artistic compositions. The early scenes are competent, but the "screwball comedy" scene in the middle of the film is surprisingly sharp and looks like anything out of a major studio during the era. Then the final stretch of UNASHAMED is... very well-handled and rather lovely in its bleakness.
So, who made this movie? No one appears to know anything about the director - "Allen Stuart" - though the writers and technicians have an assortment of credits at "budget" studios of the 30s and 40s. (Reviewers and researchers suspect therefore that "Allen Stuart" is a pseudonym, but for whom?) The actor who plays the boss (and shows his chest and butt, though no ween) has other credits, but the three female leads - Rae Kidd, Lucille Shearer, and Emily Todd - are all beautiful, have got great bodies, and are good actresses - and yet have no other credits. I realize that appearing in a nudie flick might get a young woman blacklisted from doing "serious" films, but a beautiful woman willing to work nude would have at least appeared nude elsewhere and would have therefore (as hot as they are) developed some kind of fringe following from fappers. Nevertheless, no one seems to know anything about Lucille Shearer or Emily Todd - including whether they ever appeared elsewhere under other names (which is the kind of thing that guys who spend a lot of time looking at nude ladies online tend to find out about).
But, a little is known about "Rae Kidd". She has her own Wikipedia page:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rae_Kidd
...And you can track down additional details about her elsewhere. Apparently she claimed to be a descendant of Scottish pirate "Captain Kidd"", which no one has verified. She had an undergraduate college degree, was involved in live theatre, married twice, had several children, and died fairly young. She was an actual and avid naturist, as were (unsurprisingly) several of the extras and bit players in UNASHAMED... including the actor who played "Dad" the creepy ventriloquist. That actor would become (following production) Rae's second husband and father to some or all of her children. That really surprised me, as "Dad" is way below Rae's league....... but I guess they bonded through their shared "lifestyle".......
What is unknown about Rae Kidd, who shares her name w/ the character she plays in UNASHAMED, are the factual details of her ethnicity or racial background. Of course she claimed to be Scottish, and looks (clothed and unclothed) like two women I used to date - one 100% Irish, the other 100% Latina. She is tall and strong, with large lovely breasts, and let's say "strong" facial features, pale skin, and black hair. The reason I describe her in such detail is because other characters describe her in great detail in the early scenes of UNASHAMED. Her catty female co-workers describe her as having a great body but an ugly face and hair. (Several reviewers on letterbox call this out for what I think it is - jealous bull$#!t.) Those women also imply something that the weirdo nudist doctor then makes explicit in dialogue - the character "Rae" isn't "white".
She is, according to the doctor, the child of two "Caucasian" parents, but somewhere in her genetic ancestry there is some non-white blood. (Oh horrors! 
) "Rae" the character is therefore coded in the film as "The Octoroon", the 19th century tragic melodrama heroine who can never be fully integrated into Normal Society, as - though she looks white and all the white men want to bang her - everyone somehow knows she is somehow not white.
Whether Rae Kidd the actress was also biracial or mixed is unknown/unconfirmed. She could be part Latina or Indigenous. It doesn't matter to me, of course, and it doesn't matter onscreen to the character of her boss, who is quite happy to frolic nekkid w/ his stacked secretary. However, once the wealthy heiress enters the scene midfilm... the boss' head gets turned, and this spells tragedy for poor "Rae". Some scholars have read the film, therefore, as a critical and therefore somewhat progressive text on racial discrimination (hence the cruelly ironic title, which initially just seems to address the naturist lifestyle). The most prominent and comprehensive essay I've found on this was published in Film Quarterly. I recommend it, though it does spoil the ending:
https://www.jstor.org/stable/1213626?seq=9
But HERE is the bit that I continue to find HIGHLY enigmatic and elusive, even following the exhaustive and thoughtful FQ essay....... the author Robert M. Payne argues at length that Rae's boss ultimately rejects Rae in favor of the heiress "Barbara" because Barbara is (like the boss) white, and Rae is less white. But I swear to you, my automatic first reaction to seeing actress Lucille Shearer (who plays Barbara) when she appeared was to think: This is another non-white actress! I thought this in a positive yet surprised way, as the character is introduced as a famous heiress. Lucille Shearer automatically struck me - with her light yet freckled complexion, curly reddish-seeming hair, and vocal inflection - to be a person of mixed black and white parentage. In his FQ essay, Payne never addresses this, only mentioning in a single sentence that Barbara's friends call her "Pinky"... which Payne does briefly acknowledge is a traditional nickname for a mixed race person!!!
Alas, as nothing is known about "Lucille Shearer", there is no way to confirm that she is not entirely white... though, again, a beautiful and talented non-white actress in 1938 would be something that people would know about!!! Why does it even matter? Two things:
1.) My deep read on UNASHAMED is that it isn't a film about race or racial discrimination... but that it is an even smarter film that uses race to illustrate the even greater, more unbridgeable divide in human existence: the divide of Class and Capital. The boss doesn't dump "Rae" and get w/ "Barbara" because one is white and one isn't - he dumps "Rae" and gets w/ "Barbara" because he's Management selling out the Proletariat and getting w/ the Bourgeoisie.
2.) The idea that UNASHAMED might be one of the earliest feature-length sex (or sexploitation) films and it stars a non-white lead actress is kind of a big deal. The idea that UNASHAMED is one of the earliest feature-length sex (or sexploitation) films and it stars TWO (2) non-white lead actresses is AN ENORMOUS DEAL.
Like, historically and from a critical perspective. Maybe someday we'll know more... I don't know how, but....... 
Finally... again, we don't actually know if Rae Kidd was only part-white, or just looked sufficiently exotic to fit the dialogue. We do know that she was a True Believer of the Naturist lifestyle... and (like "Rae") we know her life ended earlier than it should have. I don't think it's known how the Rae perished IRL... but I hope it wasn't the same unhappy ending as "Rae".
First of all, UNASHAMED is not poorly made. The naturist footage is pretty typical, though w/ some artistic compositions. The early scenes are competent, but the "screwball comedy" scene in the middle of the film is surprisingly sharp and looks like anything out of a major studio during the era. Then the final stretch of UNASHAMED is... very well-handled and rather lovely in its bleakness.
So, who made this movie? No one appears to know anything about the director - "Allen Stuart" - though the writers and technicians have an assortment of credits at "budget" studios of the 30s and 40s. (Reviewers and researchers suspect therefore that "Allen Stuart" is a pseudonym, but for whom?) The actor who plays the boss (and shows his chest and butt, though no ween) has other credits, but the three female leads - Rae Kidd, Lucille Shearer, and Emily Todd - are all beautiful, have got great bodies, and are good actresses - and yet have no other credits. I realize that appearing in a nudie flick might get a young woman blacklisted from doing "serious" films, but a beautiful woman willing to work nude would have at least appeared nude elsewhere and would have therefore (as hot as they are) developed some kind of fringe following from fappers. Nevertheless, no one seems to know anything about Lucille Shearer or Emily Todd - including whether they ever appeared elsewhere under other names (which is the kind of thing that guys who spend a lot of time looking at nude ladies online tend to find out about).
But, a little is known about "Rae Kidd". She has her own Wikipedia page:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rae_Kidd
...And you can track down additional details about her elsewhere. Apparently she claimed to be a descendant of Scottish pirate "Captain Kidd"", which no one has verified. She had an undergraduate college degree, was involved in live theatre, married twice, had several children, and died fairly young. She was an actual and avid naturist, as were (unsurprisingly) several of the extras and bit players in UNASHAMED... including the actor who played "Dad" the creepy ventriloquist. That actor would become (following production) Rae's second husband and father to some or all of her children. That really surprised me, as "Dad" is way below Rae's league....... but I guess they bonded through their shared "lifestyle".......
What is unknown about Rae Kidd, who shares her name w/ the character she plays in UNASHAMED, are the factual details of her ethnicity or racial background. Of course she claimed to be Scottish, and looks (clothed and unclothed) like two women I used to date - one 100% Irish, the other 100% Latina. She is tall and strong, with large lovely breasts, and let's say "strong" facial features, pale skin, and black hair. The reason I describe her in such detail is because other characters describe her in great detail in the early scenes of UNASHAMED. Her catty female co-workers describe her as having a great body but an ugly face and hair. (Several reviewers on letterbox call this out for what I think it is - jealous bull$#!t.) Those women also imply something that the weirdo nudist doctor then makes explicit in dialogue - the character "Rae" isn't "white".
She is, according to the doctor, the child of two "Caucasian" parents, but somewhere in her genetic ancestry there is some non-white blood. (Oh horrors! ) "Rae" the character is therefore coded in the film as "The Octoroon", the 19th century tragic melodrama heroine who can never be fully integrated into Normal Society, as - though she looks white and all the white men want to bang her - everyone somehow knows she is somehow not white. Whether Rae Kidd the actress was also biracial or mixed is unknown/unconfirmed. She could be part Latina or Indigenous. It doesn't matter to me, of course, and it doesn't matter onscreen to the character of her boss, who is quite happy to frolic nekkid w/ his stacked secretary. However, once the wealthy heiress enters the scene midfilm... the boss' head gets turned, and this spells tragedy for poor "Rae". Some scholars have read the film, therefore, as a critical and therefore somewhat progressive text on racial discrimination (hence the cruelly ironic title, which initially just seems to address the naturist lifestyle). The most prominent and comprehensive essay I've found on this was published in Film Quarterly. I recommend it, though it does spoil the ending:
https://www.jstor.org/stable/1213626?seq=9
But HERE is the bit that I continue to find HIGHLY enigmatic and elusive, even following the exhaustive and thoughtful FQ essay....... the author Robert M. Payne argues at length that Rae's boss ultimately rejects Rae in favor of the heiress "Barbara" because Barbara is (like the boss) white, and Rae is less white. But I swear to you, my automatic first reaction to seeing actress Lucille Shearer (who plays Barbara) when she appeared was to think: This is another non-white actress! I thought this in a positive yet surprised way, as the character is introduced as a famous heiress. Lucille Shearer automatically struck me - with her light yet freckled complexion, curly reddish-seeming hair, and vocal inflection - to be a person of mixed black and white parentage. In his FQ essay, Payne never addresses this, only mentioning in a single sentence that Barbara's friends call her "Pinky"... which Payne does briefly acknowledge is a traditional nickname for a mixed race person!!!
Alas, as nothing is known about "Lucille Shearer", there is no way to confirm that she is not entirely white... though, again, a beautiful and talented non-white actress in 1938 would be something that people would know about!!! Why does it even matter? Two things:
1.) My deep read on UNASHAMED is that it isn't a film about race or racial discrimination... but that it is an even smarter film that uses race to illustrate the even greater, more unbridgeable divide in human existence: the divide of Class and Capital. The boss doesn't dump "Rae" and get w/ "Barbara" because one is white and one isn't - he dumps "Rae" and gets w/ "Barbara" because he's Management selling out the Proletariat and getting w/ the Bourgeoisie.
2.) The idea that UNASHAMED might be one of the earliest feature-length sex (or sexploitation) films and it stars a non-white lead actress is kind of a big deal. The idea that UNASHAMED is one of the earliest feature-length sex (or sexploitation) films and it stars TWO (2) non-white lead actresses is AN ENORMOUS DEAL.
Like, historically and from a critical perspective. Maybe someday we'll know more... I don't know how, but....... Finally... again, we don't actually know if Rae Kidd was only part-white, or just looked sufficiently exotic to fit the dialogue. We do know that she was a True Believer of the Naturist lifestyle... and (like "Rae") we know her life ended earlier than it should have. I don't think it's known how the Rae perished IRL... but I hope it wasn't the same unhappy ending as "Rae".
#2
Good Movies / Re: IS IT PORN? (reviews and d...
Last post by M.10rda - Today at 02:13:34 PMReviving this thread for a film that looks at a glance like porn but absolutely isn't porn. I'll give it a quick "review" and then post additionally on why this film is so darn interesting. I mean, besides all the nekkidness.
THE UNASHAMED aka UNASHAMED: A ROMANCE (1938):
An uptight Clark Gable-lookin' salaryman consults a typically squirrelly/eccentric 1930s "criminologist"-type doctor, who confidently advises one likely cure for his patient's ennui: a vacation at a nudist colony! I dunno everything about the hypocratic oath, but seeing as the doctor is also a charter member of said nudist colony and dispenses nudist medical advice to the salaryman's smitten secretary... well, it doesn't entirely seem kosher to me. But I digress! "Rae" the secretary (played by actress "Rae Kidd", which is the sort of metareference that often weirds me out) surprises her boss by greeting him at the colony - totally starkers, natch - and much happy nude frolicking commences....... for the film's first half, anyway.
Okay, UNASHAMED starts off like a foreboding REEFER MADNESS-style cautionary docudrama, but then transitions into full-fledged nudie-cutie/"nature doc" exploitation, w/ a solid stretch of silent nekkid lifestyle footage (hiking, swimming... archery!). So its just a very early excuse to see ladies' boobs + buttocks, right? Oh no. UNASHAMED is quite a bit more...
The first (and more bizarre/hilarious) thing I will mention is the arrival of a creepy ventriloquist ("Dad") and his dummy/"son" ("Woody"), who is forced (de rigeuer) to strip down like all the other campers, thus spends most of the movie as a talking head on an unfinished wooden box. Nevertheless "Dad" and "Woody" are quite a hit w/ the other campers, leading them in a rousing musical number that must be seen to be disbelieved. Around the same time, Rae and her boss/new boyfriend (holy HR!) pick up a newspaper and read a headline about a scandalous heiress... and then there's a zoom-cut to the heiress in her penthouse apartment having screwball repartee with her Gal Friday. Okay, thinks I, UNASHAMED is filling out the time w/ found footage from some unrelated feature. But no!!! The heiress and her lady-in-waiting pack their bags and travel to the nudist colony! And then...
Just as UNASHAMED seems to be settling into cheeky surrealism and/or ribald farce, it resumes the more foreboding tone of its early scenes. A love triangle rather predictably develops, and then - things get dark... like, dark dark, like Whoah... like much darker than any other non pre-Hays Code film from the 30s I can think of.
UNSHAMED is quite something to behold if you know nothing about it, and even more of a curiosity when you know just a little about it (and alas, "a little" is all that there is to be known about this mysterious object). Rae Kidd and the actresses who play the heiress and her friend are all nice to look at, and the stuff with "Woody" the dummy is as weird as anything ever uncovered and riffed by MST3K. But UNASHAMED is also, most shockingly, a film with Themes and an Agenda. Not to oversell it, nor to damn it with faint praise... but UNSHAMED is very, very....... interesting.
3.5/5 Go into it blind if you're intrigued, or, read on for more context.......
THE UNASHAMED aka UNASHAMED: A ROMANCE (1938):
An uptight Clark Gable-lookin' salaryman consults a typically squirrelly/eccentric 1930s "criminologist"-type doctor, who confidently advises one likely cure for his patient's ennui: a vacation at a nudist colony! I dunno everything about the hypocratic oath, but seeing as the doctor is also a charter member of said nudist colony and dispenses nudist medical advice to the salaryman's smitten secretary... well, it doesn't entirely seem kosher to me. But I digress! "Rae" the secretary (played by actress "Rae Kidd", which is the sort of metareference that often weirds me out) surprises her boss by greeting him at the colony - totally starkers, natch - and much happy nude frolicking commences....... for the film's first half, anyway.
Okay, UNASHAMED starts off like a foreboding REEFER MADNESS-style cautionary docudrama, but then transitions into full-fledged nudie-cutie/"nature doc" exploitation, w/ a solid stretch of silent nekkid lifestyle footage (hiking, swimming... archery!). So its just a very early excuse to see ladies' boobs + buttocks, right? Oh no. UNASHAMED is quite a bit more...
The first (and more bizarre/hilarious) thing I will mention is the arrival of a creepy ventriloquist ("Dad") and his dummy/"son" ("Woody"), who is forced (de rigeuer) to strip down like all the other campers, thus spends most of the movie as a talking head on an unfinished wooden box.
Nevertheless "Dad" and "Woody" are quite a hit w/ the other campers, leading them in a rousing musical number that must be seen to be disbelieved. Around the same time, Rae and her boss/new boyfriend (holy HR!) pick up a newspaper and read a headline about a scandalous heiress... and then there's a zoom-cut to the heiress in her penthouse apartment having screwball repartee with her Gal Friday. Okay, thinks I, UNASHAMED is filling out the time w/ found footage from some unrelated feature. But no!!! The heiress and her lady-in-waiting pack their bags and travel to the nudist colony! And then... Just as UNASHAMED seems to be settling into cheeky surrealism and/or ribald farce, it resumes the more foreboding tone of its early scenes. A love triangle rather predictably develops, and then - things get dark... like, dark dark, like Whoah... like much darker than any other non pre-Hays Code film from the 30s I can think of.
UNSHAMED is quite something to behold if you know nothing about it, and even more of a curiosity when you know just a little about it (and alas, "a little" is all that there is to be known about this mysterious object). Rae Kidd and the actresses who play the heiress and her friend are all nice to look at, and the stuff with "Woody" the dummy is as weird as anything ever uncovered and riffed by MST3K. But UNASHAMED is also, most shockingly, a film with Themes and an Agenda. Not to oversell it, nor to damn it with faint praise... but UNSHAMED is very, very....... interesting.
3.5/5 Go into it blind if you're intrigued, or, read on for more context.......
#5
Off Topic Discussion / Re: Picture of the day, part I...
Last post by Trevor - Today at 01:13:06 PMQuote from: Dr. Whom on Today at 02:16:31 AMQuote from: Rev. Powell on January 19, 2026, 03:17:17 PM
Godzilla seems to taking advantage of the situation
😳😃😀😄😅🤣😂🦖
#6
Good Movies / Re: Recent Viewings, Part 2
Last post by Rev. Powell - Today at 12:11:41 PMSIRAT (2025): Accompanied by his young son and companions he meets on the way, a father goes searching for his lost daughter, whom he believes is attending a mysterious rave in the remote desert of Morocco---but the road trip turns into a struggle to survive. Well-made, but strangely pointless. 3/5.
#7
Games / Re: Answer the question with a...
Last post by Rev. Powell - Today at 11:12:27 AM
Who's the biggest fool?
#10
Entertainment / Re: What have you been listeni...
Last post by Rev. Powell - Today at 11:00:18 AM
Wow, you would swear this was recorded in the late 50s/early 60s. About as authentic as this retro-Motown stuff goes.