The Naked Kiss
With Constance Towers, Anthony Eisley, Michael Dante.
US, 1964, 35mm, black & white, 90 min.
Print source: Harvard Film Archive
The Naked Kiss is both a mesmerizing indictment of the sexism, hypocrisy and unquenchable violence of Cold War America and a boldly abstract, if not Pop, art film that counts among Fuller's most visually and emotionally startling works. The fable of a reformed prostitute who bravely uncovers a small town's darkest secrets, The Naked Kiss hurls furious brickbats against injustice and cinematic complacency. With brilliant irony, Constance Towers' former hooker remains the film's sole voice of moral rectitude and honesty, an exemplar of Fuller's radical yet all-too-often misunderstood feminism. The film's famously explosive pre-cut sequence, which opens with Towers attacking the camera with a high-heeled shoe, signals the radical destabilization of image and narrative that Fuller performed so effortlessly and inventively.
Part of film series
Screenings from this program
Pickup on South Street
The Crimson Kimono
The Naked Kiss
Underworld U.S.A.
The Baron of Arizona
Merrill's Marauders
House of Bamboo
Fixed Bayonets!
Forty Guns
Dead Pigeon on Beethoven Street
A Fuller Life
Run of the Arrow
Street of No Return
The Steel Helmet
The Big Red One
Shock Corridor
Tigrero: A Film That Was Never Made
