Garden of Eden

Garden of Eden (1954)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

Susan (Jamie O'Hara) wants to get away from her awful father-in-law (R.G. Armstrong) so she packs up her young daughter (Karen Sue Trent) and heads off. Their car breaks down in Tampa and they are rescued by Johnny (Mickey Knox) who takes them back to his home. His "home" turns out to be a nudist colony where the conservative Susan learns a few things.

GARDEN OF EDEN wasn't the first nudist movie ever made but it is believed to be the first one that was actually shot in color. In fact, this really isn't your typical nudist film as there are professional actors here and the main point of the film is actually it's plot. Yes, there's actually a plot here. You'll also be interested in knowing that many of the cast members would go onto appear on television shows like Alfred Hitchcock Presents and Leave It to Beaver as well as movies like THE GODFATHER PART III, PREDATOR and THE BUDDY HOLLY STORY among others.

This film actually turned out to be pretty good as there's a nice little story at the center of it. The lead female character's husband was killed in the war and she's having to deal with the rather annoying father-in-law. She then leaves town, ends up at this joint and has a lot to think about the future of her life. I thought all of this was handled quite well and it certainly helped that we were given some real actors and they turned in nice performances. This was especially true of O'Hara and Armstrong who was making his film debut.

As far as the exploitation nature, yes, the film was originally sold because of its nudity and it faced various legal issues in nearly each state that it tried to play. The nudist scenes are what you'd expect as we see people walking around, swimming and of course there's the volleyball sequence. The people are all of the attractive nature and there's no doubt that the nudity and the setting mix well with the story and in the end it really helps the picture.

There are some obviously flaws with the movie including some of the pacing as well as some of the moral preaching but for the most part I can comfortably say that GARDEN OF EDEN is the best nudist movie that I've seen.