The Nude Wave In Hollywood

As Playboy Apprised its readers in November's The Immoral Mr. Teas, the censorial climate on these shores has tempered considerably. Knowing a cue when they see one, a number of lightly capitalized cinematic entrepreneurs have recognized the box-office potential of low-budget "art" productions that focus their lenses on sex and skin. The S producers have no corner on the bare essentials, however. Hollywood stars and studios of major stature have come around to the realization that a soupçon of sex and a nude or near-nude vignette are not going to hurt receipts one whit. Stratospherically budgeted epics such as Spartacus have taken out extra investment insurance in the thinly veiled form feminine, and screen luminaries of the calibre and calibrations of a Jean Simmons, Janet Leigh or Debra Paget have happily lent their talents to the cause. The pleasures of the flesh are by no means the raison d'être for the big-budgeted opuses, but they are proving to be the epidermal cake-frosting which producers are adding more and more frequently. In most of the minimum-cost "art" flicks, the approach is baldly sex-oriented: plot lines are ephemeral, talent obscure, and photographic quality is on the Baby Brownie level, but there is meticulous attention paid to the wholesale uncoverage of delightfully endowed females. The viewing public, meanwhile, sits in pleasant contemplation, delighted by what the cast-off clothing reveals.