Vintage Pulp

June 14 2025

NUDIST WOULD HAPPEN

If you get nervous just pretend the people around you are clothed.

Ah, yes—1960s nudist camps, where everyone was in excellent shape and the male to female ratio was 1:1, or so say the movies of that period. Gentlemen Prefer Nature Girls, which premiered today in 1963, is about professional couple Lou Alexion and Joan Bamford, who happen to be nudists in their spare time. When their healthy, happy lifestyle is discovered by their boss, Alexion is fired. This leads to a much needed nude vacation at a resort, where Alexion discovers that a potential client he’s been trying to woo is a nudist too. He plots with the client to put everything right by sealing a deal, getting his job back, and teaching his uptight boss that nudism is fine and dandy. In a movie seventy or so minutes long you can’t fit in acres of bare skin and a complex plot.

These nudist films are total fantasia. The nudists here in Spain, with their leathery tans and low hanging nutsacks (the male to female ratio is like 10:1) don’t look anything like the dewy twenty-somethings in the old films. While there are numerous stunning bodies on the non-nudist beaches here, and they even get naked at times, the dedicated nudists who go to marked nudist beaches are generally older and aren’t healthy looking at all. While it’s true that a nude beach open to the public isn’t the same as a members only—heh—nudist resort, we still have a hard time believing they ever looked like they do in Gentlemen Prefer Nature Girls. But that’s okay—it’s just entertainment. And on that front, it’s weightless, guileless, and harmless. We’ll take that anytime.

Gentlemen Prefer Nature Girls, Lou Alexion, Joan Bamford, William Mayer, Dolores K. Norris, Sandra Sinclair, Sandy Sinclair, Mary Jo Walls, poster art, cinema, nudity, nudism, movie review

Vintage Pulp

July 1 2022

AU NATUREL PROGRESSION

Burlesque sensation Blaze Starr takes the obvious next step in nudity related activities.

Blaze Starr was one of the most famous burlesque dancers of the mid-century era thanks to both her on- and off-stage activities. She began headlining in clubs during the early 1950s, soon earned the sobriquet “The Hottest Blaze in Burlesque,” and later became not just famous, but infamous, due to having embarked on a tempestuous affair with Louisiana’s impulsive governor Earl Long, who she was still seeing when he died of a heart attack in 1960. Above is a promo poster for Blaze Starr Goes Nudist, which premiered today in 1962, well after Starr had become a household name.

In the film, Blaze, who plays a mainstream actress rather than a stripper, decides she needs a break from her demanding career and busy public life. She decides to spend weekends at the Sunny Palms Lodge in Homestead, Florida in order to enjoy a little nude rest and recreation under the phony name Belle Fleming. Her sinister looking agent/fiancée is apoplectic about this, but he’d be really annoyed if he knew Starr and the camp administrator were making googly eyes at each other. Aside from flirting, Starr indulges in the usual nudist colony activities—sunbathing, archery, dozing in a hammock, tiptoeing around the communal pool, taking romantic walks in the mosquito infested woods, and listening to some schlub play an accordion.

Forget anything resembling acting ability here—everyone is atrocious, and Starr is worst of all. The blame may not be entirely hers, though. The movie was obviously made fast and cheap, and it was directed by Doris Wishman, who helmed such epics as Nude on the Moon and Bad Girls Go to Hell, and is considered by some to be one of the worst practitioners of her craft ever. But we all know the movie is simply meant to be eye candy. On that score it works. Considering the unflattering range of bodies possessed by normal humans, it’s clear that most of the female nudists involved in this production are models, and probably some of the males too. Starr looks pretty good herself, even with her wonky boobs and ridiculous helmet of flaming red hair.

The movie is meant not only to display Starr, but to espouse and promote the nudist lifestyle—and really, considering that there’s a little plug for Sunny Palms at the outset, it could actually be considered a long form advertisement for the colony. We bet the membership—so to speak—really expanded—so to speak. We can’t say Blaze Starr Goes Nudist is a good movie, but it’s totally harmless and infectiously fun. There can never be too much of those things in the world. You can see more of Starr at the bottom of this post, and you can see a fascinating piece of Starr memorabilia here (sent to us by a reader way back before our Reader Pulp uploader bit the dust).

Florida, Blaze Starr Goes Nudist, Nude on the Moon, Bad Girls Go to Hell, Doris Wishman, Blaze Starr, Gene Berk, Ralph Young, Joan Bamford, Earl Long, burlesque, nudism, naturist, nudity, movie review

ABOUT

EMAIL

LEGAL

SEARCH PULP INTERNATIONAL

PULP INTL.
HISTORY REWIND

The headlines that mattered yesteryear.

January 18

1967—Boston Strangler Convicted

Albert DeSalvo, the serial killer who became known as the Boston Strangler, is convicted of murder and other crimes and sentenced to life in prison. He serves initially in Bridgewater State Hospital, but he escapes and is recaptured. Afterward he is transferred to federal prison where six years later he is killed by an inmate or inmates unknown.

January 17

1950—The Great Brinks Robbery Occurs

In the U.S., eleven thieves steal more than $2 million from an armored car company’s offices in Boston, Massachusetts. The skillful execution of the crime, with only a bare minimum of clues left at the scene, results in the robbery being billed as “the crime of the century.” Despite this, all the members of the gang are later arrested.

January 17

1977—Gary Gilmore Is Executed

Convicted murderer Gary Gilmore is executed by a firing squad in Utah, ending a ten-year moratorium on Capital punishment in the United States. Gilmore’s story is later turned into a 1979 novel entitled The Executioner’s Song by Norman Mailer, and the book wins the Pulitzer Prize for literature.

January 16

1942—Carole Lombard Dies in Plane Crash

American actress Carole Lombard, who was the highest paid star in Hollywood during the late 1930s, dies in the crash of TWA Flight 3, on which she was flying from Las Vegas to Los Angeles after headlining a war bond rally in support of America’s military efforts. She was thirty-three years old.

January 15

1919—Luxemburg and Liebknecht Are Killed

Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht, two of the most prominent socialists in Germany, are tortured and murdered by the Freikorps. Freikorps was a term applied to various paramilitary organizations that sprang up around Germany as soldiers returned in defeat from World War I. Members of these groups would later become prominent members of the SS.

DON GIOVANNI

Giovanni Benvenuti was one of Italy's most prolific paperback cover artists. His unique style is on display in multiple collections within our website.

WALKING AFTER MIDNIGHT