Nude on the Moon is a 1961 film directed by Doris Wishman and Raymond Phelan (under the pseudonym "Anthony Brooks").
Dr. Jeff Huntley is a scientist who harbors ambitions of flying to the moon, because that's something that scientists can just do on their own. He is so buried in his work that he hasn't even noticed that his curvaceous secretary Cathy is in love with him. When his mentor Professor Nichols points this out, Jeff says that he has no time for romance.
He does however have time to fly to the moon, after a rich uncle dies and leaves Jeff $3 million. Jeff apparently can get a lot more out of a dollar than NASA with its billion-dollar budgets and huge Saturn V rockets, because in no time he and Prof. Nichols have built a spacecraft and flown to the moon.
Surprisingly, the Moon looks a lot like Earth—specifically, like Coral Castle
, a Florida tourist attraction. Even more surprisingly, the Moon is populated by mysterious beings who look just like humans except for the plastic antennae on their heads, and who stroll around the warm, sunny moon wearing nothing but swim trunks or bikini bottoms. Even more surprising than that, the Moon Queen, who communicates with her subjects telepathically, looks just like Cathy.
Second of eight nudism movies made by B-movie director Doris Wishman. While the other nudism films directed by Wishman and others in the era were set in nudist colonies, this film was set on the Moon as a marketing gimmick.
Tropes:
- Animated Credits Opening: The opening theme song plays over some low-grade animation of the Moon and space...basically a static picture except for twinkling stars. Then a star swoops in and produces the opening title "Nude on the Moon".
- Filming for Easy Dub: A hallmark of Doris Wishman's career, as she never filmed with synchronized sound. The moon people speak telepathically so they don't have to move their lips at all. In a scene near the end where Jeff and Prof. Nichols are speaking in the cockpit, they each old their radio transmitters to their mouths, despite the fact that they are sitting right next to each other in a pressurized cabin.
- Hemisphere Bias: Naturally it's the Americas visible from the Moon as the opening song plays.
- Hong Kong Dub: Doris Wishman was Filming for Easy Dub for a reason, because every time a person can be seen moving their lips the dubbing is obvious.
- Human Aliens: The moon people look like attractive Earthlings, except for the antennae they wear that are so cheap and fake-looking that it's genuinely hard to tell whether or not they're supposed to be antennae or decorative headgear.
- Identical Stranger: The Moon Queen is an identical copy of Jeff's secretary Cathy!
- Innocent Fanservice Girl: If you're a woman on the Moon you think nothing of strolling around wearing nothing but bikini bottoms. How would you have any knowledge of Earth's body taboos?
- Interplanetary Voyage: Two scientists go on a surprisingly quick and cheap trip to the Moon.
- Lunarians: They're all good looking, they wear nothing but bikini bottoms or swim trunks, and they communicate by telepathy.
- Oblivious to Love: Jeff has no clue that his pretty secretary Cathy is in love with him.
- Sexy Sweater Girl: Unlike her doppelgänger the Moon Queen, Cathy on Earth can't stroll around topless so she has to settle for the standard tight dress and bullet bra ensemble.
- Telepathy: The moon people communicate telepathically, which conveniently allows for Filming for Easy Dub.
- Unexpected Inheritance: Jeff inherits $3 million from an uncle, which allows him to build his rocket ship to the moon. (Less than 1/1000 of NASA's budget of the era, but maybe he saved money by not making a flag to plant.)
- Unreveal Angle: Obviously Wishman couldn't construct even a fake rocket on her micro-budget, so the film shows Jeff and Dr. Nichols gazing in admiration at an off-screen rocket, and then climbing up some girders with the rocket still off-screen.
- Weird Moon: A blue sky, trees, green grass, a moon that oddly resembles Florida. Apparently it also has an atmosphere of some sort, as the moon people must be breathing something, but it isn't oxygen as Jeff and Dr. Nichols are carrying their own oxygen and have to leave when it runs low.
- What Is This Thing You Call "Love"?: Jeff says he can never leave the Moon (despite the fact he has less than an hour of oxygen) because he can never leave the beautiful Moon Queen. The Moon Queen says (telepathically), "I too feel something strange and wonderful. Is this the love you speak about?"
