The Naked Kiss is a truly unique film that isn't easily classified as either "good" or "bad." Indeed, this movie is a mind-boggling collection of apparent contradictions. It's a lurid shocker with a tabloid sensibility that smacks the viewer right in the face (almost literally during the amazing opening sequence in which a bald-headed Constance Towers beats a pimp with her spike-heeled shoe); yet this moralistic film addresses serious issues and displays compassion and respect for some of society's outcasts. Although the film is an exploitative melodrama about a sexy prostitute who tries to "pass" in respectable society, Fuller's sympathy is clearly with this iron-willed, intelligent, self-reliant person; indeed, his film could be considered a strong feminist indictment of the way men abuse and exploit women. This hardboiled B picture attacks society's hypocrisy, although it seems to be rather sentimental at times; and while this low-budget flick has uneven acting, cheap sets, and gratuitous footage from the director's own home movies, it also features beautifully glossy cinematography by Stanely Cortez (whose other credits include both The Magnificent Ambersons and They Saved Hitler's Brain). Fuller confounds notions of quality so much that it's difficult to tell whether certain scenes (e.g., the singing crippled children) are intended to be sincerely sentimental or intentionally overdone. It does seem, however, that he was deliberately subverting at least some of the clichés that surface in this film. So the best way to appreciate The Naked Kiss is probably to keep in mind how much this independent film went against the grain of Hollywood movies of its time period.
