Running Time: 103 minutes
MPAA Rating: NR
Format: Standard 4:3
Audio: Dolby Digital Mono
Languages: English
Subtitles: None
Region: 1
MSRP: $24.99

Own It!
Nude on the Moon (1960)

Let’s tip our hats to Doris Wishman, an authentic feminist pioneer. She was probably the only, and certainly the most prolific, female director to *ahem* bust into the field of the ‘60s Nudie Flick. While she remains most famous for the films she made with pneumatic android Chesty Morgan (Deadly Weapons and Double Agent ’73, also available on DVD), this film’s title alone assures its place in the Exploitation Movie Hall of Fame.

Moreover, Ms. Wishman was a genuine auteur. She seems to have created her own cinematic language, spurning the one created by Chaplin, Keaton and Griffith, which every other director seems to employ. Not our Doris, though. Did John Ford regularly shoot conversations from behind the head of the person talking, so that we looked upon the face of the listening party? Did Hitchcock’s camera wander away mid-scene to examine the objects atop a nearby dresser? Did Howard Hawks constantly cut away from events to showcase tight close-ups of the character’s shoes?

As for the film’s, er, plot, well, there’re these guys…and they build a rocket to the moon…and, uh, there’s nudes up there…well, OK, they’re really just topless, but still…

That’s about it, really. In other words, Gone With The Wind, eat your heart out. (Did I mention the funniest ‘spacesuits’ in cinema history? Or the toy rocket ship, which more than once completely changes shape? Or the song "Moon Doll," which they sing like a billion times? Or the bizarre fascination the Earthmen exhibits towards dry ice fog when there’re all these topless women around? Or the larding of cold crème in a guy’s hair to suggest he’s old? Or…)

Like many weird little films on disc, this one is a little scratched at first but is soon presenting an absolutely lovely image. The color photography is gorgeous. The sound quality is also pretty high, absent of hissing or static.

Being a Something Weird DVD, this one is typically packed with amusing odds and ends. First is the trailer for our feature presentation. The ones for nudie flicks tended to be quite long and this one is no exception, lasting over six minutes.

Following this is a hilariously sexist five-minute short. This features an attractive blond stripping out of her spacesuit (repeat to yourself that it’s just a show) in order to distract perhaps the cheapest – and most phallic -- moon monsters ever. And what female viewer won’t be enchanted when hearing a narrator intone: "Maybe space driving is easier for dizzy dames…there’s less traffic for them to snarl up"?

Finally we end with a nifty collection of ad art for various Doris Wishman pictures. I must admit at some frustration with this feature (and similar ones on other Something Weird discs), because you can’t slow down or pause on any of the individual pieces as they whip by. This, for me at least, somewhat reduces the utility of such a gallery.

Ken Begg, 4/30/2001