Delicious Hispanic comedienne Lupe Velez's iconic Mexican SPITFIRE series was seven years in the future when she made this movie in 1932, THE HALF NAKED TRUTH. A star since the late 1920's, Lupe was one of the most gorgeous women in Hollywood and had a great career despite the limited casting opportunities that came her way (unlike her contemporary Dolores Del Rio, she would never play anything but a Latina). I'm a big admirer of Lupe's and really looked forward to this film especially with one of the great comedy directors of the era, Gregory La Cava, at the helm and cohorts as talented as Lee Tracy, Eugene Palette, and Franklin Pangborn. The movie is all about hyping a modest talent (Velez's cooch dancer) into major stardom thanks to brash, shameless publicist Lee Tracy. I found this rather ironic because it's seems this movie itself is a classic example of hype, it gets raves in many corners in my opinion simply because the great La Cava is in charge, however the results are quite disappointing. Several of the situations are great but never live up to their potential, notably the early carnival segment.
Lupe is one of the stars of a flea-bitten small time carnival show that plays small towns to indifferent audiences, Tracy and Palette have behind the scenes jobs at the carnival. When the carnival's publicist quits because of the late paychecks, Tracy sees it as his opportunity to step into the job and become a big shot. Acting as the carnival barker, he announces Lupe is traumatized by this visit to their locale as she has just learned a local man is her father, the results of a 20-year-old indiscretion involving her mother, then a carnival girl like she is today. Tracy proclaims Lupe will reveal the name of the man who fathered her at tonight's performance, which perks up the previously disinterested locals who come a packin' into the show later that night. Alas, it all falls apart (regrettably as it would have been fun to see it pulled off) and in the resulting big brawl, Tracy hauls tail out of town with Eugene and Lupe as they steal a car and head for New York and the big time where Tracy successfully passes off Velez as an eccentric princess with a pet lion and desire for a show business career, a stunt which quickly lands her a slot in a major Broadway revue.
Despite her top billing Lupe's part is regrettably secondary not only to Tracy but also Eugene Palette in perhaps the largest role this great character actor ever played in a talkie. Tracy's con man will remind many of his similar part in the next year's BOMBSHELL (a vastly superior film) opposite Jean Harlow, unfortunately his character is even less likable here and when he maliciously sabotages Velez's stardom when she takes up with producer Frank Morgan he just seems mean. Palette, on the other hand, is hilarious at every moment and there's a funny quite racy running gag of something mysteriously written about him by Tracy on the hotel's guest book, perhaps so that he can share a room with La Velez, probably that he's a eunuch but possibly that he's gay or somehow less than a man. Tracy also gets a racy gem of a parting line in his last scene with Frank Morgan but this script honestly needed another rewrite, there aren't that many laughs although many scenes seem prime for them. A low point is the occasionally unimpressive production design, the ritzy New York hotel the gang is staying at is rather sparsely furnished and worse there's a shot of an airplane flying that is blatantly a toy; couldn't they have found some stock footage of a real plane? THE HALF NAKED TRUTH is a fairly decent time filler and enjoyable even if you've undoubtedly seen it all before. And that fact that the luscious Ms. Velez wears the skimpiest outfits she ever wrote in a movie will surely be enough of a reason to check this out.
Lupe is one of the stars of a flea-bitten small time carnival show that plays small towns to indifferent audiences, Tracy and Palette have behind the scenes jobs at the carnival. When the carnival's publicist quits because of the late paychecks, Tracy sees it as his opportunity to step into the job and become a big shot. Acting as the carnival barker, he announces Lupe is traumatized by this visit to their locale as she has just learned a local man is her father, the results of a 20-year-old indiscretion involving her mother, then a carnival girl like she is today. Tracy proclaims Lupe will reveal the name of the man who fathered her at tonight's performance, which perks up the previously disinterested locals who come a packin' into the show later that night. Alas, it all falls apart (regrettably as it would have been fun to see it pulled off) and in the resulting big brawl, Tracy hauls tail out of town with Eugene and Lupe as they steal a car and head for New York and the big time where Tracy successfully passes off Velez as an eccentric princess with a pet lion and desire for a show business career, a stunt which quickly lands her a slot in a major Broadway revue.
Despite her top billing Lupe's part is regrettably secondary not only to Tracy but also Eugene Palette in perhaps the largest role this great character actor ever played in a talkie. Tracy's con man will remind many of his similar part in the next year's BOMBSHELL (a vastly superior film) opposite Jean Harlow, unfortunately his character is even less likable here and when he maliciously sabotages Velez's stardom when she takes up with producer Frank Morgan he just seems mean. Palette, on the other hand, is hilarious at every moment and there's a funny quite racy running gag of something mysteriously written about him by Tracy on the hotel's guest book, perhaps so that he can share a room with La Velez, probably that he's a eunuch but possibly that he's gay or somehow less than a man. Tracy also gets a racy gem of a parting line in his last scene with Frank Morgan but this script honestly needed another rewrite, there aren't that many laughs although many scenes seem prime for them. A low point is the occasionally unimpressive production design, the ritzy New York hotel the gang is staying at is rather sparsely furnished and worse there's a shot of an airplane flying that is blatantly a toy; couldn't they have found some stock footage of a real plane? THE HALF NAKED TRUTH is a fairly decent time filler and enjoyable even if you've undoubtedly seen it all before. And that fact that the luscious Ms. Velez wears the skimpiest outfits she ever wrote in a movie will surely be enough of a reason to check this out.