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Film / Hold Me While I'm Naked

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"The mysticism of the stained glass window and the profanity of that brassiere do not go well together."

Hold Me While I'm Naked is a 1965 short film (15 minutes) directed by George Kuchar.

It is an intentionally campy, over-the-top parody of filmmaking and erotica. Kuchar appears as a film director who is making some sort of exploitation film that involves his actress getting naked in practically every scene. The actress grows tired of this, and proceeds to leave the production. While the actress and her actor co-star run away to have a lot of sex, the pathetic film director tries to find another actress to appear in his film.

Hold Me While I'm Naked is one of the best known works of George Kuchar, an underground, No Budget filmmaker who produced some 200 short films over a nearly 60-year career. Compare I, an Actress, another campy Kuchar short film.


Tropes:

  • Breaking the Fourth Wall: Right at the end of the movie, Kuchar's mother serves him a distinctly unappetizing dinner. He then looks up from his plate and straight into the camera, and says "There’s a lot of things in life worth living for. Ain’t there?"
  • Call-Back: At the end of the film, we see the obviously fake bird that Kuchar took home from the woods. It falls off the windowsill.
  • Camp: Histrionic dialogue, a terrible cheesy soundtrack, overacting, chintzy props. Kuchar was a pioneer of camp as expressed in gay cinema. John Waters cited Kuchar as an influence.
  • Creepy Doll: Kuchar is shown painting lipstick on a doll.
  • Exploitation Film: The Film Within a Film is this, given Kuchar's intention to have his actress naked in every scene.
  • Facecam: A shot that runs for a good 45 seconds, in a movie that is only 15 minutes long, featuring a tight closeup of Kuchar's face, as dramatic music plays while he—uh, walks through the woods.
  • Lohengrin and Mendelssohn: A ridiculous (and somewhat out-of-tune) use of "Here Comes the Bride" as Kuchar's actor and actress, on the other side of a stained-glass window, film a sex scene.
  • Nameless Narrative: No names for any of the characters.
  • Repeat Cut: More over-the-top camp, as there are three, count 'em, three repeat cuts of the actress Kuchar is trying to call entering her apartment as the phone rings.
  • Same Language Dub: All the actress's dialogue is actually overdubbed by Kuchar himself, in a very unconvincing imitation of a woman's voice.
  • Shower of Angst: Kuchar takes a long, frustrated shower after failing to find an actress. The angst is undercut by the fact that he's wearing a dress, and further undercut when his mother screeches that he's been in the shower an hour and it's time to get out. Kuchar's shower is intercut with the...
  • Shower of Love: The actress that Kuchar attempts to contact on the phone misses the call because she is engaged in vigorous sex with her boyfriend in the shower (and for some reason, she's also wearing a dress). How vigorous? We see the TV antennas on top of the apartment building shake.

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