Film / Diary of a Nudist

"There are many good reasons for the nudist philosophy. We believe that sunshine and fresh air must definitely result in both physical and mental benefit. Sunshine and fresh air are natural phenomenon, and ours is a way of life which pursues these forces in the most natural and unencumbered manner possible. We strive for a healthy mind, and a healthy body. We veil that nudism eliminates tension, brings forth complete relaxation, which enables man to find his true values. This is our creed and our goal. A true way of life."

— The owner of the camp relaying an oath to the members

Diary of a Nudist is a 1961 sexploitation film written by nudist film pioneer Doris Wishman, starring Davee Decker (Stacy Taylor) and Norman Casserly (Arthur Sherwood). A chief executive newspaper editor called Arthur Sherwood accidentally enters a nudist colony while exploring, and he personally finds it to be deplorable. One of his reporters, Stacy Taylor, is assigned to infiltrate the camp. As she finds the nudism lifestyle to be pleasant and finds the members completely affable, she begins to doubt Arthur's assumptions that the camp is being instigated with truly negative intentions. Prompted by Stacy, he visits the camp himself to prove whether her claims are true as well, albeit still wearing something.

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Tropes for this film of cleanliness include:

• Actor Allusion: Maria Stinger, the pin-up model of the cast, isn't seen wearing clothes. This applies to other nudist films in which she has a feature.
• Anguished Declaration of Love: After Arthur goes into the camp for himself and writes a successful article, he constantly attempts to inform Stacy of his information and how he believes nudism is wholesome. She constantly denies him due to her inability to trust him, and deflects his statements and general presence. Once she begins to read the article he wrote right after being informed to read past the title, she goes through the page and finds out that he admires the idea of nudism. Stacy turns to Arthur, and he additionally tells him he loves her, and has loved her since their first encounter. Anguished surely.
• Becoming the Mask: Stacy initially infiltrates the nudist camp to make a report exposing the negatives of nudism under Arthur's orders, but begins to like nudism for real when she befriends the other members.
• Blonde, Brunette, Redhead: The female nudists' physical appearances fall under one of the three hair types, with the males only being brunettes.
• Buxom Beauty Standard: A strange nudist variant here. Despite this being a nudist film created in the 1960s, every model seems to have a clean, smooth body to display with the females having varying breast sizes, from big, big and bouncy, to small and sagging, with no in-between on the small scale, although the female cast isn't angsty about having such a small bust size compared to other nudists, like Eleanor (Maria Stinger), who plays the role of a pin-up girl outside of nudist films with a much larger, bouncing bust.
• Dining in the Buff: During a scene forty minutes into the film, three female nudists are seen drinking coffee in the open. Two of the same gender enter the scene and join them out of interest.
• Distracted by the Sexy: Discreetly shown, most likely to invoke the nature of nudism and that characters can be embarrassed by the body of the gender to whom they're wildly attracted.
  • When the first group of people are introduced to the lead actress, Frank is shown swallowing in fear and overwhelming attraction; cut to the second nudist we're introduced to, Annette, and we're shown her laughing haughtily in his direction, denying something assumed to be a compliment.
  • The second group isn't in its introduction sequence once this happens again, as Eleanor's husband, John (Harry Stinger), is the one being distracted instantaneously. When Stacy approaches the second group, Eleanor is having her lower body stared at by her husband, most likely due to appropriate opportunity.
  • During the second Pool Scene, there are a couple of moments involving this, both of them involving actress Maria Stinger. The first one is when Fran (Warrene Gray) enters the scene to jump into the pool within Eleanor's peripheral vision, her back turned to the camera and her front directly facing Eleanor. Eleanor looks over to the side and, in the shock of suddenly seeing someone's naked full frontal (who she has already seen naked) approaching her, lifts one of her legs up and slaps her hand on it. The second case, Eleanor attracts a male nudist from in the pool itself straight to her as she's sitting on the pool's corner with one leg hoisted as Hand-or-Object Underwear, like her leg was while being introduced to Stacy, of whom playfully splashes her with water from below in a likely attempt to get her to lose control of her leg.
• Fanservice with a Smile: An appropriate trope for this period of time.
• Got Volunteered: Arthur assigns Stacy to infiltrate the camp personally. She is reluctant to do so and proposes someone else who works for him takes her place instead. She decides to do it anyway and poses as a nudist at the camp.
• Hand-or-Object Underwear: The characters are holding an object in place over their pubic area, facing away from the camera, or strategically obscuring a part of their body from the camera with one of their vacant limbs (arm or leg). Justified due to censorship laws at the time.
• Hotter and Sexier: Compared to other nudist films of this era, this film has cleaner, more eccentric models with hotter, smoother, rounder, and fatter bodies and better presentation of those bodies. The colour of the film itself is also warmer than most others, and emphasises the skin colour of the characters. This appeal makes everyone involved a Ms. Fanservice, or Mr. Fanservice lacking in any Fan Disservice types of Public Exposure.
• Leg Focus:
  • Generally speaking, the female models of the film have attractive, clean, long legs. There is a background scene where the legs possessed by these people also have as pristine legs on the interior as they do on the exterior: as one nudist is conversing with a male member, testing the water of the pool, she pushes the recipient of hers into the pool for a comedic scene, resulting in her laughter. In the background, a nudist is crossing her left leg over her right one and is holding a beach ball firmly in position with her right leg, obscuring her pubic area. After she uncrosses them and disposes of a fingernail she was picking off in her leftmost direction, she proceeds to remove the beach ball from its position to presumably throw it to another member. Because of her having to remove the only censor of hers, she has to switch the leg she crossed over before. By doing this, she athletically but also awkwardly heaves her right leg over her left one while removing the ball and has to bend her left knee to achieve crossing it over. This risky action didn't turn out to be foolproof, though, as before cutting to another nudist, she loses control of both her legs due to lacking leverage and balance, and also because both her legs go airborne as her right one falls onto the left.
  • There is another moment in which a female character's legs have intense physical strength to compensate for their beauty, and that's when Eleanor is being introduced to the lead actress. As she is conversing with Stacy during their introductions to each other, Maria Stinger is constantly holding up her left leg to keep her lower area out of the censors' radar, and not once does she manage to lose control or maintaining of its posture. In fact, she mostly has to hold her leg up with her left hand, and also make many movements to make sure she subconsciously holds the position while talking.
• Male Gaze / Female Gaze: Female/male backsides are shown frequently by proxy of them having to face away from the camera.
• Modesty Towel: Of a smaller, lower torso-exclusive variant, there are seven occurrences in which different towels are used for separate people. The lead actress always uses the same towel, either as a signature or because she physically didn't have the opportunity to exchange them. Only one character seems to use the towel for censorship while it's still unkempt and practically still in a ball, while other members use the towels orderly, like folding them, or keeping them in a straight shape before holding it in front of them.
• Naked on Arrival: As is the nature of the rare nudist film and photography. The lead actress is introduced to the members and the members are introduced to her while both parties are nude. The audience is different in that we instantly get introduced to the nudist camp members in their nude state.
• Naked People Are Funny: Although more In-Universe than for those outside of the medium. In the film, everyone is laughing at each other's antics in conversation or in action, and being spontaneous, hilarious, and playful with one another. We as the audience are more entertained by the nudist lifestyle everyone's living in than whatever the topic they're all conversing with each other is, since we can't even hear anyone's words until the script itself demands some. The nudists themselves are always more than likely not distracted by each other's bare figures and are more likely to be conversing with each other about more comfortable, appropriate topics.
• Never Trust a Title: Despite the title, there are no diaries, as Stacy is a reporter and instead documents her findings on a paper instead.
• Nice Girl: Stacy, and the female nudists, are all very amiable and rather open to attending a nudist camp. The fact that they are like this is what disproves Arthur's claim that the camp is a bad place, as Stacy bonds with them without any issue, and they return the favor.
• No Antagonist: Arthur forces Stacy to visit the nudist camp, despite her reluctance, to make a report, and willingly tries to expose the camp for negative reasons, but he's only really doing his job and isn't intentionally doing anything bad, though he's somewhat of a jerk. Therefore, there isn't a real antagonist and the plot is about Stacy posing as a nudist to report on a camp.
• Nudity Equals Honesty: Refer to the oath above.
• Pool Scene: Films based on camps for nudists feature a large quantity of scenes like this, and since the participants are swimming in the buff, they're technically always Skinny Dipping.
• Proud Beauty: The nudists are proud enough to get fully naked and show their bodies to each other in a nudist camp, the girls especially, and beautiful they are.
• Random Events Plot: What the film captures more frequently than the main story of Stacy infiltrating the camp is really just haughty, prolonged views of the nudists' bare bodies, mostly the female members, probably since the quality and production of their bodies is of a higher standard than those seen in that same era.
• Sexophone: The segments featuring the nudist camp members are accompanied by jazz music, but they use a trumpet rather than a saxophone.
• Sexy Secretary: Stacy Taylor.
• Sexy Surfacing Shot: One of the nudists, Marie, played by Doroles Carlos, is shown exiting from one of the pools of the camp in one scene from the side and in a second scene from behind.
• Shameless Fanservice Girl / Reluctant Fanservice Girl:
  • Eleanor, who's played by 1950s pin-up model Maria Stinger, is noticeably skimpy in this nudist film. For example, she makes a revealing maneuver to make herself more in comfort while clearly having her whole bare body facing the camera. She also kicks water in the pool despite her only censorship being her leg, the only stability of hers being on an edge, and lets go of her leg in a scene before that while it's not in an even slightly stable position like the previous example. Like she's teasing the viewer even outside of her modelling career.
  • Every other casted actress also shows off an extremely desirable body with barely any shame, fully exposed, even casually hiding themselves for the censors at the time, with whatever object, limb, or perspective convenience possible. Despite this precision, they lack confidence when aware that they are nude, barenaked, and are displaying their body in full with a censor within exclusively their own control (like a towel that can move at the slightest motion being secured by only themselves, or a limb being held in front or to the side in imbalance). Occasionally, they also display hints of hesitation and embarrassment from their nudity by: swallowing their own saliva, or making awkward movements of discomfort (such as imperfect, frantic movements) that nearly remove the Hand-or-Object Underwear censor they're using.
• Tan Lines: Before recording, it seems as though the characters had tanned themselves for clarity on their skin. The parts that appear tanned are mainly the characters' arms and legs.