Tonight's Movie: The Half-Naked Truth (1932) - A Warner Archive DVD Review

Lee Tracy stars as a carnival barker who becomes a top New York publicity man in THE HALF-NAKED TRUTH (1932), available on DVD from the Warner Archive.

I have a soft spot for Tracy -- in limited doses -- and have been gradually working my way through watching his films. I rather enjoyed THE HALF-NAKED TRUTH; it's quite nutty, but in a good way. It has a good cast, some amusing moments, and doesn't take too long to wrap things up.

Carnival barker Jimmy Bates (Tracy) and hoochy-coochy dancer Teresita (Lupe Velez) have an...animated...romantic relationship; they fight a lot but don't seem able to live without one another.

After a run-in with the law, Bates, Teresita, and their friend Achilles (Eugene Pallette) high-tail it away from the carnival, ending up broke in New York. Bates passes Teresita off as "Princess Exotica of Turkey" which lands them a hotel room thanks to a clerk (the brilliant Franklin Pangborn) who doesn't want to offend a potential royal client.

Bates gets Teresita a show with a theatrical impresario (Frank Morgan). After an initially rough start, "the Princess" is a hit...but Jimmy may lose his girl to the producer.

I had fun watching this film, with its parade of fun faces and rowdy sense of humor. You know you're watching a pre-Code when the two lead characters have a fight and Jimmy starts pulling his pajamas out of the dresser in Teresita's hotel room, decamping to another room. It's all done without explanation while they're fighting, but I definitely did a mental double-take. The storyline also involves a nudist colony (!) at one point.

According to Jeremy Arnold, Tracy's character was loosely inspired by a real-life press agent. Teresita's "pet lion" was based on that press agent's real-life publicity prank.

While I'm at it, I have to mention I love Jeremy's description of Lee Tracy: "His bones seem to be connected by springs." Another good description comes from Cliff Aliperti at Immortal Ephemera: "Paragraphs run into single sentences out of Tracy's motormouth."

Tracy is lots of fun in this, whether he's attracting the attention of the press by ordering "30 pounds of raw meat" be delivered to Teresita's hotel room or bantering loudly with the woman he calls "the tamale," Teresita.

There are some fun cast sightings in the movie. Besides Pangborn's hilarious hotel clerk, I especially enjoyed seeing film composer Max Steiner onscreen for several minutes as the conductor at Teresita's big New York premiere.

Lovely Theresa Harris has a small role as Teresita's maid, Emily -- every time I see her I wish circumstances had allowed a bigger career -- and the famous "dress extra" Bess Flowers, who plays Bates' secretary, may have more lines of dialogue than I've ever heard her utter in a single film. Shirley Chambers is amusing as a "dumb blonde" who wants to be an actress.

THE HALF-NAKED TRUTH was directed by Gregory La Cava (MY MAN GODFREY) from a script by La Cava and Corey Ford. It was filmed by Bert Glennon.

The Warner Archive print is on the soft side, definitely looking like it was released in 1932, but it's quite watchable, without any distracting skips or jumps. There are no extras.

THE HALF-NAKED TRUTH is by no means a perfect film, but there are enough memorably zany pre-Code moments to make it a worthwhile 77 minutes.

Thanks to the Warner Archive for providing a review copy of this DVD. Warner Archive DVDs may be ordered from the Warner Archive Collection Amazon Store or from any online retailers where DVDs are sold.

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