The Naked Kiss: Criterion Collection RC1 DVD

A beautiful woman is mysteriously beating the bejesus out of a drunk when he suddenly pulls at her hair and it comes off. The now totally bald woman continues smacking him around with her shoe until he falls to the ground. Soon, she stops hitting him and starts going through his wallet. He's got a giant wad of cash, but she only takes the $75 that's coming to her. She's sadistic but honest. So begins The Naked Kiss, written, produced, and directed by Samuel Fuller, a fundamentally American filmmaker with a reputation for full-blown melodrama. The setup is pure pulp: A former prostitute relocates to a buttoned-down suburb, determined to fit into mainstream society. But in the strange, hallucinatory territory of writer/director/producer Samuel Fuller, perverse secrets simmer beneath a seemingly wholesome facade. Fuller is now considered a master of popular entertainment using crude and macho politics with other films such as Shock Corrider. The Naked Kiss, Fuller's seventeenth film, takes place in a quaint time when grabbing a snort meant having a drink, when all women were dames, and all men were heels. Kelly starts outside society, enters it, finds it corrupt, and leaves. Despite her occasional penchant for violence, we end up endorsing all her actions. She's a woman of two worlds trying to find redemption in a world controlled by men. After the surprisingly violent opening, Fuller goes just a wee bit overboard to let us know this woman is not what she seems. Kelly lives in Granville where everyone is artificially decent and cares about its children. The first thing Kelly does is give a crying baby a bottle. Soon, she turns into Mother Teresa, quoting Goethe and teaching cripples to walk.
The Naked Kiss has an odd cast, full of actors who are utterly transparent. You know everything about them the first time you see them. Fuller is one of the few filmmakers who uses his art to instruct, and his films are all moral tracts.