This Naked Age (1932) User Reviews

Early nudist exploitation travelogue

[AlsExGal · 5/10 · 19 December 2022]

A narrator (Leo Donnelly) guides the viewer through the strange world of the nudist, visiting "health camps" in upstate New York, two in France, and finally one in Germany, "the nudist capital of the world". There's a lot of exercising and nature hikes. The nudity is kept fairly mild. While there's an endless parade of bare behinds, women's breasts are rarely shown, and none of the "naughtiest bits" are visible, with some smudging of the images to hide them.

Like most nudist films (a popular exploitation genre of the 50's and 60's), much is made of the health benefits of nudist living, and how chaste everyone is, and any overt sexuality is noticeably absent. The film's bizarre highlight is when a dozen or so German nudists on a hike in the woods decide to get down on all fours and crawl after each other for a bit. This is pretty silly, but amusing in its naive, winking luridness.

Extremely dated nudist documentary

[Leofwine_draca · 4/10 · 6 May 2017]

THIS NUDE WORLD is a 1930s-era nudist documentary of interest for novelty value alone. Inevitably given the era and the constraints of the budget this is a very dated production which combines voice over narration alongside stock footage to explore nudism through the ages. The grainy black and white photography is of a travelogue variety with the occasional clip of nudists exercising and the like. Inevitably given the era this is quite tame by modern standards although it raises a chuckle or two along the way.

Nice message but boring

[blumdeluxe · 4/10 · 16 May 2017]

"This Naked World" tries to grant its viewers a sneak peak into the by then largely exotic and unknown world of nudism. It follows three different nudist projects around the world and tries to find out what are the cornerstones of this concept in what kind of people participate in it.

The general tone towards the movement is very positive. Watching the film, you get the impression that the key message of this documentary is to show people that the ones freeing their bodies are not some kind of perverted but folks like you and me that just enjoy to get rid of their clothes every now and then. While this is of course a very tolerant, and thus good message, it is amazing how uninteresting this is presented. Somehow it feels like most of the messages were given several times. Furthermore it is a bit strange to have a documentary about nudism that is rarely brave enough to really show naked bodies. On the other end of the scale, the advertisement posters for the movie not only lie when they call it the most educational documentary ever produced, but also give quite a strange picture of erotic nudism that somehow is quite the contrary of what this film has to say.

All in all, I like the message but the film is unbearably boring. A good deal of that can be because I watch it in a different time. But all in all a little more liveliness would have benefited the movie.

A time capsule

[dbborroughs · 7/10 · 11 July 2010]

A look at nudism in the US, France and Germany.

This is an amusing time capsule film that really doesn't have much real nudity unless you consider the bare backside nudity. Its scrupulously cut to remove any hint of the male genitalia, however there are more than a few breasts. This is pretty much an academic look at nudism at the time the film was made.

Most of the film is a travelogue with bits shot in New York City, the upstate New York nudist camp, Paris, a "nudist" camp outside it, another French one and finally a trip into Germany. The narration is matter of fact and straight forward. Erotic its not (The sole exception is a single shot of a beautiful oriental woman walking down a staircase). Its actually a pretty good documentary on the subject that is hampered by the limitations of when it was shot, so it lots of shots from behind or people sitting or doing exercises. For me the sole real flaw was that because they couldn't show anything the visuals become repetitive.

Still its worth a look for those with an interest in old documentaries or Mondo Cane style films but not necessarily nudism. I'm not sure how long the film is suppose to be but Alpha Video just released a version of this that runs about 55 minutes. I don't know how complete it is because the film just stops.