Did Naked As Nature Intended ever have an uncut VHS release anywhere? I found these screenshots about the net, taken I imagine from a VHS source, that suggest it did, these shots were definitely not in the 1990s Salvation/Redemption VHS release.
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Did Naked As Nature Intended ever have an uncut VHS release anywhere? I found these screenshots about the net, taken I imagine from a VHS source, that suggest it did, these shots were definitely not in the 1990s Salvation/Redemption VHS release.
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Sorry gav i cant answer your question but anyone interested in 8mm Marks films could do worse than look on a certain well known auction site. P.S. I'm not plugging my own sales or anything in case anyone wondered! Just trying to help any fellow film enthusiasts, thats all.
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I’m told that Harrison Marks’ 1963 8mm glamour film Flesh and Fastasie (sic), which was at one point given the jokey re-title “Nightmare at Elm Manor”, has now been re-titled again, this time as “Nude in Dracula’s Castle”, and headlines a DVD release of the same name.
According to the review at Sexgoremutants.co.uk, the rest of the DVDs contents, which consists of around 5 hours of American made 8mm striptease films, are pretty under whelming and get the thumps down, but if nothing else, the DVD cover art depicting June Palmer and Stuart Samuels in the film is pretty impressive.
For a time you could actually watch Flesh and Fastasie under its “Elm Manor” title on Youtube, but its now been taken down due, no doubt, to the nudity.
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Please ignore the above link. It should be
NAKED - AS NATURE INTENDED
Head Honcho
Actually, I had the Heritage tape, and here are my notes:
The Heritage Video release runs 58m 3s (at 25 fps)
The Jezebel Video release runs 59m 17s (at 25 fps).
Both transfers are full-screen.
The Heritage edition is cut in the following places.
1- The title reading "Compton - Cameo Films Presents" has been removed (6s).
2- The opening shot has been truncated by 1m 2s. This shot runs for 22s before the title appears in Heritage's transfer; it runs for 1m 24s before the title appears in Jezebel's edition.
3- 17m 50s. A 6s shot of a coach is missing at the start of a reel. The soundtrack has been reedited here, with the sound of the women laughing continuing from the previous shot, replacing the narration. The missing shot can be found between 19m and 19m 6s in Jezebel's transfer.
4- The end title has been replaced with information about Heritage Video.
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Um that doesn't seem to work either. Anyway the information is on their site if you type in 'Naked - As Nature Intended'. If you just type in 'Naked As Nature Intended' you only get info about the film's orginal release.
It is also available to view at the BFI Mediatheque. I'm not sure in which version though.
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Looks like the BBFC have the wrong info then.Originally Posted by MarcMorris
Head Honcho
No versions I've seen include the complete Pamela Green shower scene. I actually supervised the old transfer for the Jezebel tape, which was taken direct from the negatives held at the BFI Archive.
But back then, the actual negatives were cut to appease the BBFC, as I also discovered with Witchfinder general.
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I found these screenshots along with several others that had Something Weird’s “SWV” watermark on them, so possibly Something Weird put out an uncut version on VHS?Did Naked As Nature Intended ever have an uncut VHS release anywhere? I found these screenshots about the net, taken I imagine from a VHS source, that suggest it did, these shots were definitely not in the 1990s Salvation/Redemption VHS release.
Might not be an easy tape to find these days, unless the unauthorized Jeff/Televisa DVD has been bootlegged from the Something Weird tape, but I haven’t seen the bootlegged DVD release so I can’t say for sure.
Head Honcho
I've managed to locate the American Something Weird video release. It's the American Crown International release print, on screen title is "As Nature Intended (with the subtitle: Featuring the Five Nature Girls).
Will report back once I've compared it to the old Jezebel VHS release.
The source? Bootleg outfit Televista have issued a dubious DVD of the Something Weird watermarked VHS.
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Is the something weird video the same as the bootleg site shocking video aka revenge is my destiny as they have it? Not sure which version though. They claim it is 61 minutes.
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Have you had the time to compare the Something Weird version to the Jezebel tape yet Marc?
Head Honcho
I wish I had some free time - I will do so when that time arises.
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I was contacted by a former girlfriend of his recently, who has some great stories about him. I’ve just posted an article about this on my blog, but thought I might as well post it here as well.
“Life with George Harrison Marks”- A Chat with Louise Sinclair
I was delighted to recently correspond with Louise S. Sinclair, who back in the 1970s worked as a glamour model and dated George Harrison Marks during the Spring of 1979. Louise is happy to reminisce about “those wonderful pre politically correct days of freedom” and her computer-like memory was able to fill in many of the blank spots I had about Marks’ life during that period. Her stories about him are equal parts comedy and tragedy, and provide a frank, but valuable, insight into Marks’ psyche, post Come Play With Me, at the very fag end of the 1970s. Many thanks to Louise for taking this trip down memory lane!!
“I was involved with George during 1979 when he resided in Red Lion Square and had a company called Helena Grant Associations. I became his lover aged 19 and when he telephoned my mother would jokingly say "granddad is on the phone" At that point George had spilt from (his third wife) Toni. I believe it had happened over a year previously. Toni seemed to be involved with a man called Arthur who aggravated George because his identity bracelet had diamonds and George's was plain gold.
George introduced me to his various friends including Milton and Jack as his mistress. I recall little about (Milton Reid), he seemed a fairly disinterested in people character and usually just nodded in my direction. I recall him looking very over weight and George being heavy, the two of them made quite a sight. George liked wearing a striped top which as I told him made him look like a deckchair on legs. I wasn't diplomatic as I was only 18 when I met George.
George was a very heavy smoker and drinker. He also loved dishes such as saukraut and polish sausages. His moods were volatile and I had a quarrel with him when somewhat hungover he demanded that I helped him clean his flat as Toni was expected. I was nursing a heavy cold and when George demanded that I got up and helped him empty ashtrays and remove empty vodka bottles I exploded with rage dressed and left. Toni arrived and seeing the condition he was in promptly confiscated his adored Burmese cats as she thought he was too drunk to care for them. I wrote George a sharp letter calling him a walking vodka bottle. He quickly contacted me to apologize for his thoughtless behaviour. George was quite stingy with money and rarely bought me a gift. He loved wearing bling jewellery and liked to relax in one of his many kaftans. George was a prolific reader and introduced me to Jackie Collins via Lovers and Gamblers. I was instantly hooked and sat reading quietly for hours while George drank smoked and snoozed. He often mentioned his daughter Josie and took us off to a hairdressers where we both had our hair cut and styled.
During this time George was involved in stronger glamour photography. He used to grumble that there was no art left in 60's style glamour - it was strictly open leg material. I was a glamour model but he never wanted me to involve myself in his hard core material. However it led to some amusing encounters. George once told me we had to get up as he was expecting a dishy male model for an audition. I leapt out of bed and hastily applied make up expecting a tall dark handsome hunk. I was very disillusioned to be greeted by a pale skinny young guy with blond hair and a washed out appearance. Perhaps his assets were concealed by his underwear.
I met Rex Peters who was a highly unpleasant little man and Ed Alexander whom seemed okay. George told me not to work with Rex as he was known for getting "forceful" with women. I didn't do any film or television work myself. I almost got slung out of a Health And Efficiency shoot because I was wearing too much make up and horror of horrors suspenders and nail polish. George almost cried with laughter over that episode.
Another time I visited Toni's flat in St Johns Wood to complete a movie. There were several of us and it was exhausting. That film Toni and her boyfriend did was so appalling it was scrapped according to George. It wouldn't surprise me as the shooting was haphazard to say the least. The films Toni and her boyfriend were making were very soft - no open leg or erections. I think they were trying for a Mayfair image. Everything was suggested but nothing happened apart from several very weary models. Toni also had a model there she was helping to get jobs in exchange for a 10% commission. Shooting continued throughout the day and when evening finally arrived I returned to George to find that he had thoughtfully prepared a meal and bath for me.
George had a great love of Vaudeville which I was too young to appreciate and he often compared my figure to that of Pamela Green. However by this time he was no Casanova as drinking had affected his virility. His amusing personality was his biggest asset to a young woman interested in having fun and aware that the relationship would go nowhere.
Saturdays were often spent wandering along Camden Passage where George knew quite a few of the dealers. Lunch was liquid and complemented by plenty of Marlboro cigarettes. When he moved to Stamford Hill he had an elderly couple in residence downstairs. I believe the wife’s name was Dolly. The journey from East London to Stamford hill was very awkward and gradually our relationship petered out when I became involved with another man.
George was eccentric, amusing but ultimately somewhat afraid of deep intimacy with women. He was very distressed about the death of Mary Millington. I was with him when he received the news. His view was that the Inland Revenue had hounded her to suicide. David Sullivan was a man he felt contempt for. George told me that Sullivan enjoyed a daily breakfast of steak followed by a box of chocolates. He also claimed that Sullivan had collected the earnings from Come Play With Me as a major backer of the film. It seemed that he resented the success Sullivan was enjoying and certainly didn't want to play second fiddle to a man he viewed as an upstart.
George was going through a fairly quiet period at that point and seemed to enjoy most of his spare time lounging around the flat, playing with his cats and drinking vodka. In retrospect I would suspect he was quite depressed as he couldn't see a clear direction and he got bored doing the blue films.”
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A quick heads up for this Peeping Tom documentary on Radio 4 next week:
Tom, Michael and George
Tuesday 02 November
11:30am - 12:00pm
BBC Radio 4
To mark the 50th anniversary of the notoriously controversial British thriller Peeping Tom, Toby Jones examines the effect of this disturbing tale of glamour-photographer-turned-serial-killer on the careers of two people - director Michael Powell and real-life glamour photographer George Harrison Marks. With contributions from the director's son Columba Powell, actress Shirley Anne Field and director Michael Winner, himself no stranger to controversy.
Some of Marks 8mm films starring Pamela Green are going to receive a screening by the Yarmouth Branch of the Women’s Institute as well!!!
("We'll show the two 'tamest' first and leave it up to the ladies if they want to watch more"
http://news.bbc.co.uk/local/hampshir...00/9134461.stm
teuchter on the doorstep
yes the radio 4 thing was good, if only for the GHM bits as what i DONT know about the PT saga could be written on a acid tab ahem...iplayer folks!!!
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Cheers for that hamish, i bloody forgot about it!! Iplayer though, yes indeed.
ee' worra a tramp, you know!
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I managed to get hold of the US version of Naked As Nature Intended, and it is a very different version of the film than the one released on video in the UK. In fact it turns out the film was completely re-worked for its American release by Crown International. Not only was the narration re-voiced for the American market, but the US version also draws on ‘stronger’ takes than appear in the UK version, and as i suspected includes all of the footage cut from the film’s British release version by the censor John Trevelyan in 1961.
Officially the only BBFC cuts made to the film, re-printed in and quoted here from John Hamilton’s book about Tony Tenser, were:
“Reel 5
Remove all shots of girls on beach when they are seen front view, naked or virtually naked, full length.
Remove shot of Pamela posing on the edge of the water, with a filmy scarf in her hair.
Reel 6
Remove all shots of girls, both before and during the game with a ball, when they are seen naked front view, full length”.
Of course this doesn’t really tell the whole story, since back then allot of censorship took place at a script or post-production stage, and its been well documented that even before the ‘official’ censorship began, Trevelyan nixed a couple of scenes from NANI. Trevelyan seems to have been especially fixated by the idea that the film was “really” about lesbianism, and on the basis of the material cut from the UK version but reinstated for the American release, he seems to have been more concerned with removing that perceived aspect to the film rather than the nudity itself. Its very hard not to turn Trevelyan into a figure of fun in all of this and portray him as some kind of doddery old fool, shifting through nudist films for any lesbian subtexts and accidental full frontal shots. In fairness we are talking here about a film in which two of the main female characters work as petrol pump attendants, don’t appear to have boyfriends and go on nudist holidays together, so maybe Trevelyan was onto something. Also according to one of my more colourful sources of info for that era there was a bit of chatter within the industry about someone connected to the film (in a none directorial capacity). Now whether “those rumours” about this person were true or not, if this gossip did reach Trevelyan’s ears it would explain why he was so on the look out for any lesbian leanings to the film.
Anyway these are the differences I’ve been able to spot by comparing the British and American versions.
-The US opening credits are different to those in British version, no doubt this was mainly done to accommodate a re-title (the American version is merely known as ‘As Nature Intended’, somewhat ironic that a version with more nudity should remove the ‘n’ word from its title). The American version of the credits also drops the narration credit for Guy Kingsley Poynter, and presents GHM’s ‘directed by’ credit in standard bold lettering (the British version uses a reproduction of his signature.) The American version also shortens Pam’s long, pre-title walk to the camera.
-In the UK version the opening scene showing Petrina working as a secretary is missing close-ups of her legs and shots of her boss trying to cop an eyeful of them. This presumably was originally meant to visualize the line in the British version “that reminds me of that definition, even a girl who can’t add up can certainly distract” but of course the shot got cut from the UK version and the line re-voiced for the American version.
-The “shower scene” is cut out entirely from the UK version but remains in the US release. Originally meant to appear in the film in-between the scene of Bridget and Angela leaving the petrol station and the scene of Pam and Petrina picking up Jackie at her parent’s house, it basically consists of Pam emerging from a shower (demonstrating the same quick use of a towel to cover herself that also comes in handy during the later beach scenes) and chatting with Petrina over tea about their upcoming holiday. Trevelyan’s justification for cutting the scene was that it features nudity outside of its ‘proper’ nudist camp context, and since the two girls are shown living together; “there could be a connotation that they’re lesbians” Trevelyan is said to have told GHM. Something that clearly went over the head of the American narrator who seems more amused by the tea drinking (“very British… those British”) and uses the scene as a platform for sexist wisecracks about women being unable to read maps.
-In the US version the scene with Bridget and Angela undressing in a field shows both women topless, albeit briefly. In the UK version the shot of Angela cuts away just as her top is about to come off, while the shot of Bridget taking her top off pans down just as her top is coming off (the US version uses a stronger version of this shot which sees Bridget go topless before the camera pans down.)
- The “payoff” at the end of the scene in the boat, in which Jackie Salt falls overboard, gets rescued then is dried off by Pam and Petrina, is different in the two versions. In the UK version the two women dry her off while, absurdly, she still has her clothes on. On the other hand the US version uses a take in which Jackie is topless and Pam and Petrina are rubbing her breasts. Something that no doubt gave further ammo to Trevelyan’s theory about the characters being lesbians. Even Marks’ production manager had doubts whether this scene would pass the British censor, reportedly telling Marks during filming “They won't wear it, George, women rubbing each other down!”. Presumably they filmed clothed and unclothed versions of the scene in the (correct) belief that the censor would refuse to pass the unclothed take.
- The scene on the beach prior to Pam meeting Bridget and Angela, originally includes a shot of Petrina with her top off, which is in the US version but is cut out of the UK one. Presumably this shot was removed by Trevelyan because it once again shows nudity outside of a nudist camp.
- Given the amount of cuts made to the film before the characters even reach the nudist camp, its quite surprising then to find that the scenes on the nudist beach and in the camp itself seem to have been mostly passed uncut. Confusingly all of the material the BBFC’s records suggests was cut (“shots of girls on beach when they are seen front view, naked or virtually naked, shot of Pamela posing on the edge of the water, with a filmy scarf in her hair.. Etc, etc”) is still in the UK version, suggesting that those cuts were either never made or appealed at some point? The only censor cuts made to the film during the nudist camp sequences, effects the shots of Pam riding nude on a swing, which are briefly seen in the UK version, but go on allot longer in the US version and from angles that show more than Trevelyan was clearly prepared to pass in 1961.
While NANI is never likely to be regarded as the most exciting film ever made, the added bits and bobs of nudity do give the film more of a pulse. Plus the sustained nudity throughout makes the film play more like a typical American nudie of the era, as opposed to the British version which keeps its audience in suspense with around 40 minutes of travelogue before showing nudity of any kind. What really distinguishes the American version from the British one however is the narration. Whereas the UK narration comes across like something out of a Pathe news reel with a couple of GHM’s old music hall one liners thrown in, the American narration is far more obvious in its sexploitation motives. In particular there is lots of leery ‘carrot on the stick’ type comments to the audience, during the nothing special opening scenes showing the girls working 9 to 5 jobs, emphasizing that the girls will end up taking their clothes off at a nudist camp.. eventually. The unnamed American narrator actually seems to become quickly bored by having to talk over all the British travelogue footage and “introduces” his British friend Cedric to chat through several sequences, at which point the narration actually reverts back to the original Guy Kingsley Poynter narration. Even so our American narrator cant help but occasionally chipping to take the piss, remarking “Oh, thats a good one” after one of the film’s bad puns and “I’ll treasure that information” after some Kingsley Poynter titbit about Cornwall which is of bugger all interest to Americans.
Given the American narration track was put together by Crown International rather than Marks himself, this version can hardly be considered true to Marks’ original vision, and I suppose a ‘Director’s Cut’ version of the film would include the UK narration track and all of the censored material put back in. Still at least the American version has preserved the material cut from the film, and its existence suggests that they might be versions of other 1960s British horror and sexploitation films existing overseas that managed to sneak back in footage cut from the UK releases. We can but hope.
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A five minute George Harrison Marks film called Uncle's Tea Party is showing at the BFI a couple of times in July. There is also a Ken Russell Monitor called Preservation Man showing as part of the same selection of shorts.
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I believe its also going on a DVD the BFI are releasing.
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