Film Review: Nude on the Moon (1961)

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SYNOPSIS:

A rich rocket scientist organizes an expedition to the moon, which they discover is inhabited by nude women.

REVIEW:

After being stunned by a movie about a vampiric motorcycle, tortured by a musical from Mexico, and forced to sit through a tepid movie about a snake empowered woman, I wasn’t sure what more I would have to endure. Of course, with a title like 1961’s Nude on the Moon, I hoped the next movie on the list would at least live up to the title.

Nude on the Moon is a story of two scientists who are trying to get the okay to take their experimental rocket ship to the moon. They finally go ahead with their mission regardless of what the government says and successfully land their craft on the lunar surface. While there, they discover an area that looks suspiciously like Florida and living in this lush warm locale is an alien nudist colony.

This particular movie is one of many that came out in the ‘60s that was mainly a reason to show nude women. While tame by today’s standards, I’m sure these nudist films were pretty scandalous back in the day. Since the main focus is seeing people in the buff, there isn’t much of a story to be found here. What little plot there is to be found is only to serve the purpose of getting our main characters in the right place so we can see topless woman frolicking around. There’s not much in the way of character development, plot growth, or even drama to draw you in. If you just want to see attractive women’s bare breasts, well, this movie does provide that at least. Granted, there is almost a story about how the main scientist is so focused on his work that he doesn’t have the time for romance until he falls for the alien queen. However, it’s so poorly developed that it feels like something tacked on just so Nude on the Moon has the illusion of being a real movie.

Instead of anything resembling an actual story, once the two scientists land on the moon, nothing happens beyond the guys observing and taking pictures the naked women at play while the nude guys of this colony do manual labor in the background. Making things even sillier, the nudists wear headbands with antennae on them to show that their aliens. The movie also ignores all the basic facts about the moon, (lack of atmosphere, low gravity). Everything about the scenario is so laughably silly that it’s hard not to laugh at it.

Since this is a cheaply made film with just one purpose in mind (nekkid folks), no one here was hired for their acting ability. This means that there isn’t a single decent actor to be found. To be fair, the acting isn’t as horrible as a lot of other B grade films I’ve had to review in the past, but it’s still pretty bad. Most of the cast with the exception of 3 people don’t speak a single word so that at least helps make this a tad bit less miserable. I dread to imagine what it would be like if they tried to require other members of this cast to try to deliver dialogue and act. I’m thinking the words “epic disaster” about covers it.

There really isn’t much to write about because nothing really happens for the most part. Since a good portion of the movie is dedicated to just watching nude people do their thing (no sex, though), there’s no sense of urgency or stakes involved. It’s kind of boring since there’s nothing to care about. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy seeing topless women (sure, you can call me a pig) and I had no problem with that part of Nude on the Moon. However, by today’s standards, just seeing people in the buff lounge around isn’t shocking or all that interesting since you can see that kind of thing in films that have actual plots. Heck, you can find films that contain far more graphic content online. There honestly isn’t anything here to make Nude on the Moon worth your time, so I don’t recommend it.

The sad thing is that it was one of the least terrible movies I had to review this time around. Of course, the bar was set pretty freaking low at this point.