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Film / The Naked Truth

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The Naked Truth is a 1957 British black comedy film, directed by Mario Zampi and starring Terry-Thomas, Peter Sellers, Peggy Mount, Shirley Eaton, Dennis Price, Georgina Cookson, and Joan Sims. It is about about a tabloid editor/writer/blackmailer named Nigel Dennis (played by Price) whose four most recent victims gang up together to defeat him.

(For the '90s sitcom, see here.)


The film provides examples of:

  • Cloud Cuckoo Lander: The Detective story writer who has a terrible time getting her hands on some Mickey Finns...
  • Fauxreigner: Sonny is really English but pretends to be a Scot. At one point he pretends to be Irish, both as an inspiration for a new persona and so he can go into a pub to buy explosives from the IRA. He overdoes it so much that the patrons figure out he's really English and punch him in the face.
  • Grey-and-Grey Morality: Dennis is surprisingly polite and friendly for a blackmailer but sufficiently slimy and heartless for the audience to root for his victims. For their part, the victims are a varied bunch. While the rest are being blackmailed for sexual impropriety of a relatively innocent and humorous nature, Sonny is hiding something legitimately bad and is an all around unpleasant person.
  • It's for a Book: Played with. The writer wants to kill Dennis with a Mickey Finn and gets the idea to ask her friend, another celebrated mystery author, where she goes to find out about methods of murder for her books. Her friend directs her to what looks like/she thinks is a Bad Guy Bar and she starts asking around- and is immediately arrested by undercover police officers. However, she does easily get out of the situation with this excuse.
  • I Was Quite a Looker: The writer, who is a Grande Dame type confesses to her daughter about being blackmailed, and alludes to an incident in her past when she was young and pretty of abandoning her husband and going wild in China.
  • Market-Based Title: It was released in the U.S. as Your Past Is Showing.
  • Master of Disguise: Sonny MacGregor is this, Played for Laughs.
  • Murder Is the Best Solution: They tried, they tried!
  • Nice Character, Mean Actor: Sonny fits this to a T in-universe. He hosts a somewhat mawkish variety show and maintains benevolence and good cheer when on stage or interacting with fans. However, in reality he's a selfish jerk who earns money on the side as a landlord of slum housing. Also typical of the trope, he eventually breaks character and reveals his true personality to the audience, when one of his guests mentions being from said slum housing.
  • Old Shame: The in-universe reason our four protagonists (and three hundred others!) are feeling a little frantic.
  • Slipping a Mickey: Four people unknowingly drink the spiked sherry together. One of whom had drunk from the very same already drugged bottles the previous day, with potent effect.
  • Tap on the Head : Becomes a Running Gag.
    "Sorry old boy, it's for your own good." *thunk*
  • The Cast Show Off: As Sonny, Peter Sellers gets a lot of opportunity to put on different disguises and personae.

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