Les corps du désir

A late straggler in the long-running "why naturism is good for you" cycle, this one is no better and no worse than its numerous predecessors. We see the same coy and careful posing by sun lovers trying to be actors, plus the usual flimsy story padded out to beyond boredom. The plot involves an American guy seeking his inheritance in Europe and meeting a new girl-friend who, inevitably, turns out to be a nudist. For comic relief we hear a running commentary spoken by a toy dog with a French accent. The film was in fact shot in France, then completed and distributed in the US during 1963 by genre specialists Beaux Arts Films Inc, though in spite of their name one would hardly call them a patron of "fine arts."

Nevertheless, this film has two remarkable features worth discussing. Firstly, the British Board of Film Censors would normally grant nudist travelogues an "A" certificate (suitable for children if accompanied by an adult), ever since their 1955 fiasco when an attempt to ban Garden of Eden was overruled by 180 local councils. For whatever reason the Board decided to withhold a certificate from Her Bikini Never Got Wet, so British releasing company Gala Films had to get the Greater London Council to issue a local certificate "A" in 1966 for London showings only. I caught up with the film in Nottingham on Saturday, 10 September 1966 where it was enjoying a respectable two week run at local foreign movie house, the Moulin Rouge. As in London, the Nottingham watch committee decided to pass it with a special local certificate although they were probably baffled why they were having to sit through such innocuous nonsense. The BBFC decision was quite puzzling…. unless someone on the panel regarded naked girls and talking dogs a bit of a dodgy mixture.

The second and more surprising aspect was the main title crediting the music to Hollywood composer Peter Rugolo. Why on earth, you might ask, was a reputable film composer scoring a cheap nudie flick? And just when he was about to start work on hit TV-show The Fugitive? To answer this question one need only examine the previous masterpieces from Beaux Arts. Sure enough, their 1959 offering The Naked Venus credits the score to Arne Hasse with a music sub-credit "mambo sequence by Peter Rugolo." There is no question that Beaux Arts were plundering Rugolo's stock music, since the composer himself seemed blissfully unaware that he was writing for nudists. Rugolo registered 364 titles at ASCAP and then moved to BMI where he logged a further 508 titles. Needless to say, The Naked Venus does not figure in either repertoire….and neither does Her Bikini Never Got Wet.