The Naked Truth [Your Past Is Showing] **** (1957, Terry-Thomas, Peter Sellers, Peggy Mount, Shirley Eaton, Dennis Price, Joan Sims) – Classic Movie Review 1,864

The eager-to-please 1957 British black and white comedy The Naked Truth stars Peter Sellers, who is clearly relishing playing a nasty TV personality.

Producer-director Mario Zampi’s eager-to-please 1957 British black and white black comedy film The Naked Truth [Your Past Is Showing] is a minor but definite vintage pleasure. A broad, mostly successful black farce, it is based on a solid original story and a fairly witty screenplay, both by the prolific and talented comedy writer Michael Pertwee.

A bit rough and ready, The Naked Truth is not a perfect comedy, but it certainly can boast energetic and cheerful acting from a great cast, lots of laughs and a fragrant whiff of the Fifties too. There is a particularly funny turn from the then emerging star in his first lead role Peter Sellers, who is clearly relishing playing a nasty TV personality named Sonny MacGregor, and eagerly grabs his opportunity to adopt various delightful disguises.

Among the other delights of the movie, Terry-Thomas plays a philandering peer called Lord Henry Mayley, who cheats on his wife Lady Lucy (Georgina Cookson), Peggy Mount is a bluff novelist named Flora Ransom and Shirley Eaton plays a sweet young model, Melissa Right. The trio come together with Sellers’s MacGregor in a plot to get rid for ever of Nigel Dennis (played by Dennis Price), the blackmailing publisher of a scandal magazine called The Naked Truth, who has threatened to expose them by publishing embarrassing secrets.

It is indeed a very British comedy, typical of its mid-Fifties period, but still extremely welcome and funny today. The satire was so effective that the editor of Confidential magazine sued Rank, Zampi and Pertwee for defamation. Zampi’s films had particular appeal in Europe, but this one got to America too. The Naked Truth was shown as Your Past Is Showing in the US.

Also in the cast are Joan Sims (as Ethel Ransom), Miles Malleson (inevitably as a vicar, the Rev Cedric Bastable), Kenneth Griffith, Moultrie Kelsall, Wilfrid Lawson, Wally Patch, John Stuart, George Benson, Bill Edwards, Henry Hewitt, David Lodge, Joan Hurley, Marianne Stone, Peter Noble, Victor Rietti and Jerold Wells.

The film was shot in 11 weeks starting May 1957 at Walton Studios, London. It was released on 3 December 1957.

There was trouble, as usual, on set. Sellers grew impatient with the many takes Zampi made. He told Zampi: ‘The way you are making this film is ridiculous. I know much more about the camera than you do. I’ll give you one more take and then I’m off.’

It proved worth it. Zampi reportedly made a £25,000 personal profit on the film and went on to make a second film for Rank, Too Many Crooks (1959), also with Terry-Thomas.

The Naked Truth [Your Past Is Showing] is directed by Mario Zampi, runs 92 minutes, is made by Anglofilm, is released by Rank, is written by Michael Pertwee, is shot in black and white by Stan Pavey, is produced by Mario Zampi and is scored by Stanley Black.

The cast are Terry-Thomas as Lord Henry Mayley, Peter Sellers as Sonny MacGregor, Peggy Mount as Flora Ransom, Shirley Eaton as Melissa Right, Dennis Price as Nigel Dennis, Georgina Cookson as Lady Lucy Mayley, Joan Sims as Ethel Ransom, Miles Malleson as the Reverend Cedric Bastable, Kenneth Griffith as Porter, Moultrie Kelsall as Mactavish, Bill Edwards as Bill Murphy, Wally Patch as Fred, Henry Hewitt as gunsmith, John Stuart as police Inspector, David Lodge as Constable Johnson, Joan Hurley as authoress, Peter Noble as TV announcer, Victor Rietti as doctor, Wilfrid Lawson as TV contestant, Ronald Adam as chemist, George Benson as Photographer, Marianne Stone, Mario Fabrizi as Man in Autograph Crowd, Katie Johnson as Old lady in audience,Wilfrid Lawson as Walter – Contestant in TV show, Michael Ripper as greengrocer J E Freeman, Marjorie Rhodes as Lady on Phone, Austin Trevor as Minister with Heart Attack, and Jerold Wells as 1st Irishman.

© Derek Winnert 2014 Classic Movie Review 1864

Check out more reviews on http://derekwinnert.com/