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Released by: Something Weird Video
Released on: January 9th, 2007.
Director: Doris Wishman
Cast: Marietta, William Mayer, Lester Brown, Blaze Starr, Ralph Young, Gene Berk
Year: 1961/1962
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Nude On The Moon/Blaze Starr Goes Nudist – Movie Reviews:
The late, great Doris Wishman was one of the few female director's to really make a name for herself in exploitation circles and she was savvy enough to dabble in pretty much every sub-genre that the field had to offer, from horror to 'documentary' to hardcore pornography and back again. In the sixties, however, before nudity became as commonplace in cinema as it has been since the seventies, Wishman was the queen of the nudist film. Something Weird Video had previously released two of Wishman's earlier directorial efforts in the nudist film genre, Nude On The Moon (which was also released in a boxed set) and Blaze Starr Goes Nudist separately and have now compiled the two features for your enjoyment in one handy-dandy Doris Wishman double feature DVD. Are there any differences between the discs in this set compared to their single disc counterparts? Nope, not at all, but if you don't already have the films you now more or less get two for the price of one.
Nude On The Moon:
The first film in the set (directed by Wishman under the pseudonym of Anthony Brooks) follows two scientists, the hunky young Jeff Huntley (Lester Brown) and an older man known only as The Professor (William Mayer). These two scientists are big into trying to develop a rocket ship that will take them to the moon so that they can bring back samples and what not, but they don't want to wait for their government funding to come through – they're chomping at the bit and ready to go now! While Jeff toils with how to get the money for his project faster, his secretary, Kathy (Marietta), pines away for him – Jeff's too busy thinking about science to notice that she's obviously madly in love with him.
Soon, good fortune smiles on our scientist friends and Jeff's uncle dies, leaving him exactly three million dollars (after taxes). He apparently was a big player in the fur business and left his estate to his nephew. Score! The two guys develop their space ship in record time and before you know it they're driving around Miami listening to music and not saying anything to each other in preparation for their launch. They hit the launch pad and climb into their space ship (which is obviously a plane's cockpit) and use radio headsets to talk to each other while sitting about a foot apart. Shortly after a successful lift off they land on the moon and start wandering around in their space suits, surprised to find that the surface of the moon looks a whole lot like Florida.
The two men start wandering around and picking up rocks that have been spray painted gold, figuring if they bring a few of those babies back with them they'll have all the funding they need, but are soon puzzled to find a colony of topless moon people wandering around not far from their ship. You can tell they're moon people because they are wearing antennas and hot pants. Before long, Jeff has fallen for the foxy Moon Goddess who leads this strange people. After wandering around and watching the naked moon people do things like swim and dance The Professor decides it's time to go home – they only had thirteen hours worth of oxygen with them. Jeff, however, has fallen for the Moon Goddess (who bears a striking resemblance to Kathy) and doesn't want to leave...
Blaze Starr Goes Nudist:
It's tough being Blaze Starr, life beats you up all the time and puts you through the Hollywood machine without so much as a thought as to how you feel about it. With so much stress in her life, can you blame ol' Blaze when she decides to escape her life of dancing and from her dirtball agent/boyfriend? Not in the least! Any of us would do the same thing in her shoes.
When Blaze stumbles into a screening of a nudist camp movie, she decides that this is the life for her and off she goes to run around a Florida resort without her top on. Soon enough she falls for the guy who runs the place, Ralph, but there might be more to Ralph than meets the eye...
Both of these films are completely awful, but that being said, it's hard not to appreciate them. Wishman's penchant for shooting completely inappropriate things during important scenes is here in full swing and the looped dialogue is also present. There's plenty of obvious padding and bad camera work and neither movie operates under any form of logic whatsoever. It's precisely this carefree attitude (you could call it sloppy filmmaking, and yeah, that's not a stretch...) that makes these two films so much fun. Wishman would soon move on to rougher territory before shooting horror films and XXX films but here she's making quaint little low budget films for a niche market and likely having a good time doing it. There's a sense of wonder here, a sense that maybe she was doing something different (had anyone combined the sci-fi film with the nudist camp film before?) and it comes across in both films. Don't come for the acting or the cinematography, don't come for the sets or the effects – instead, enjoy these little oddities for what they are, relics of a more innocent era of exploitation filmmaking.
Nude On The Moon/Blaze Starr Goes Nudist – DVD Review:
Both films are presented in their original 1.33.1 fullframe aspect ratio in color and for the most part, they look pretty good (at least by sixties exploitation movie standards). There's a fair bit of grain in some scenes and some really mild print damage present on each disc but nothing so serious as to ruin the experience for anyone. Color reproduction is pretty good across the board and the flesh tones look lifelike and natural. Neither movie is reference quality, but they certainly don't look bad here at all.
Each of the films is presented in its original English language track in Dolby Digital Mono. No alternate language dubs are provided (they don't exist) nor are there any closed captions or subtitles available. Aside from a bit of background hiss in a couple pf spots, the movies sound fine. Dialogue is clean and clear and the background music comes through quite well. These aren't particularly complex sound mixes and the mono format suits the pictures just fine.
The extras are specific to each of the two discs in this set. They're also identical to the single disc releases that these two films received a few years ago. Here's what you'll find and where you'll find it:
The Nude On The Moon disc features a Cosmic Strip Tease burlesque short where a cute little lady shakes her thing and loses her clothes on a soundstage made up to look like the surface of the moon. A trailer for the feature and a still gallery of Wishman related press books and stills are also included. Some nifty menus and chapter stops for the feature round out the disc.
Blaze Starr Goes Nudist features a burlesque loop in which Ms. Starr does a fancy little strip tease show. This one is of interest not only because of Blaze's presence but also because it was shot by the one and only Irving Klaw. Aside from that, the film's theatrical trailer is here as is another still gallery. Menus and chapter stops for the feature round out the supplements.
Nude On The Moon/Blaze Starr Goes Nudist – The Final Word:
If you've already got the single disc releases of Nude On The Moon and Blaze Starr Goes Nudist then there's no reason at all to purchase this two-disc set as it simply repackages those discs. However, if you're a Wishman fan and haven't already added these two early efforts to your collection, this is a fun and cheap way to do it and you can consider this release recommended (though at the time of this writing it is probably safe to assume that these films will get reissued in an upcoming AGFA Doris Wishman Blu-ray collection).