The Naked Truth (1957 film)

The Naked Truth
A movie poster
Directed by	Mario Zampi
Produced by	Mario Zampi
Written by	Michael Pertwee
Starring	Peter Sellers Peggy Mount Shirley Eaton Dennis Price
Music by	Stanley Black
Cinematography	Stanley Pavey
Editing by	Bill Lewthwaite
Distributed by	Embassy Home Entertainment
Release date(s)	December 3, 1957
Running time	94 min.
Country	United Kingdom
Language	English

The Naked Truth (US title: Your Past Is Showing) is a 1957 British film comedy starring Peter Sellers, Terry-Thomas and Dennis Price. Peggy Mount, Shirley Eaton and Joan Sims also appear. It was produced and directed by Mario Zampi and written by Michael Pertwee.

Plot

Nigel Dennis (Dennis Price) is a blackmailer who threatens to publish embarrassing secrets in his magazine The Naked Truth. After attempting to blackmail a famous scientist (who commits suicide), and an MP (who suffers a heart attack in parliament, and probably succumbs), his latest targets are Lord Henry Mayley (Terry-Thomas), television host Sonny MacGregor (Peter Sellers), writer Flora Ransom (Peggy Mount), and model Melissa Right (Shirley Eaton).

Several of them decide independently that murder would be a better solution than paying. However, it is Mayley who by sheer bad luck nearly ends up the victim of both MacGregor's and Ransom's schemes. The four eventually join forces and try again. That attempt also fails, but Dennis is then arrested for an earlier crime.

When Dennis threatens to reveal all at his trial, Mayley comes up with a scheme to break him out of prison and send him to South America, with the help of hundreds of Dennis's other victims. They phone in numerous fake calls for help, distracting the London police, while Mayley, MacGregor, and MacGregor's reluctant assistant Porter (Kenneth Griffith), disguised as policemen, wisk Dennis away.

Knocking Dennis unconscious periodically, they finally end up in the fully enclosed cabin of a blimp on the way to a rendezvous with an outbound ship. To their dismay, when he comes to, Dennis refuses to go along with their plan, as he in fact never wanted to reveal any of their secrets in front of court. He was, in fact, winning the trial anyway. He reveals the evidence were his copies of "The Naked Truth", who were destroyed by the plotters earlier, unintentionally freeing Dennis of all charges. Unaware of where he is, and happy to have outsmarted his opponents again, he then steps out for some air and plummets to the ocean below. However, when MacGregor celebrates by shooting his pistol, it punctures the blimp, which comically shoots away into the distance.

Cast

• Terry-Thomas as Lord Henry Mayley
• Peter Sellers as Sonny MacGregor
• Peggy Mount as Flora Ransom
• Shirley Eaton as Melissa Right
• Dennis Price as Nigel Dennis
• Georgina Cookson as Lady Lucy Mayley, Henry's wife
• Joan Sims as Ethel Ransom, Flora's daughter and reluctant accomplice
• Miles Malleson as Reverend Cedric Bastable, Flora's fiancé
• Kenneth Griffith as Porter
• Moultrie Kelsall as Mactavish
• Bill Edwards as Bill Murphy, Melissa's rich Texan boyfriend
• Wally Patch as Fred - paunchy old man
• Henry Hewitt as Gunsmith
• John Stuart as Police Inspector
• David Lodge as Constable Johnson
• Joan Hurley as Authoress
• Peter Noble as Television Announcer
• Victor Rietti as Doctor
• Ronald Adam as Chemist (uncredited)
• George Benson as Photographer (uncredited)
• Michael Brennan as 2nd Irishman (uncredited)
• Mario Fabrizi as Man in Autograph Crowd (uncredited)
• Wilfrid Lawson as Walter, Television Show Contestant (uncredited)
• Edie Martin as Elderly Lady in Autograph Crowd (uncredited)
• Gibb McLaughlin as Old Man in Television Show Audience (uncredited)
• Marjorie Rhodes as Lady on Phone (uncredited)
• Michael Ripper as J.E. Freeman - Greengrocer (uncredited)
• Austin Trevor as Minister with Heart Attack (uncredited)
• Jerold Wells as 1st Irishman (uncredited)

External links

• The Naked Truth at the Internet Movie Database
• The Naked Truth at AllRovi