Movies: No butts until 1969

[longtime lurker]

Usually the bare behind shots are fleeting, but they are surprisingly plentiful in many American films up to 1934 at least. After that year, you only saw them in 1.) porno films restricted to men-only clubs (*smokers*), 2.) military health documentaries and 3.) limited released nudist documentaries (which showed plenty of bare behinds and women's breasts, but avoided penis shots until THE RAW ONES in 1965). Before then, Douglas Fairbanks pretty much flaunted his in THE HALF BREED (1916). Several vintage newsreels of World War 1 showed men bathing together and getting physical exams. Likewise, there was swimming au natural in ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT (1930), but you have to freeze your DVD frames to catch anything of substance. BEN HUR (1925) had a naked slave visible in the gallows scene for a rather extended clip. Usually nudity was OK if it was depicted all innocent or some kind of torture was involved to take away any "eroticism".

 

European cinema was always more lenient. L'INFERNO (DANTE'S INFERNO) from 1911 was the first widely released feature with full frontal nudity of all kinds that was not a "blue" movie. It was an Italian production that apparently got only limited censorship in the United States. Both behinds and penis shots (again fleeting) were included in G. W. Pabst's KAMERASCHAFT (1931, communal shower scene) and Jean Vigo's ZERO DE CONDUITE (1933, all boys school had a scene with one guy's sleeping gown pushed up so you can clearly see he was uncircumcised).

 

It does seem... and somebody can correct me here... that I AM CURIOUS, YELLOW (1967) really was the game changer. US Customs halted its release in the United States, but it eventually got the full "on" Hollywood premiere in early '69 once all of the censorship battles were over. Playboy and other periodicals showed screencaps well ahead of time so the shock wasn't that great.

 

1968 may very well have been *the year* both bare bosoms and genitalia started popping up in mainstream movies... at least tentatively. Of course, you had Andy Warhol and Paul Morrisey's FLESH with Joe Dallesandro "semi-erect", although films like that were restricted to limited inner city engagements. Robert Forester teased with some peekaboo nudity in REFLECTIONS OF A GOLDEN EYE earlier (on a horse no less), but his full frontal scene came in MEDIUM COOL that was filmed that year and released in '69. Likewise, Alan Bates had also tested the waters earlier with his bare behind in KING OF HEARTS before filming his full on wrestling scene with Oliver Reed in WOMEN IN LOVE (also filmed '68 for '69 release). Jon Voight in MIDNIGHT COWBOY stuck to his rear-end only. There was a little bit of Malcolm McDowell displayed in IF...

 

I guess somebody can do an inventory here from '68 through '76, the year Robert de Niro and Gerard Depardieu left nothing to the imagination in Bertolucci's 1900. Curiously there appeared to be a backlash in the later seventies and eighties though. That is why the bare bottoms in GALLIPOLI and the all nude swim scene in A ROOM WITH A VIEW got so much silly, unnecessary attention. There was practically no "skin" on "public" screens by that time since VHS porn allowed you the comfort to watch it all in your private home.

[longtime lurker]

OK... I correct myself. Douglas Fairbanks didn't go ALL the way in 1916. Just fairly close. Ha ha!