Nudes on Credit (1961?), comments written by Johnny Web (Uncle Scoopy; Greg Wroblewski)

and

Brigitta (1967), comments written by Tuna

It's a Nick Phillips film festival!

Nudes on Credit (1961?)

There is little information about this film available on the internet, and almost no accurate information. The DVD box doesn't offer much more help. For example:

  1. Down in the credits, the DVD box lists the director as Don Rolos. A google search for ol' Don produces no hits at all. Nada. Zip. Zilch. The ol' goose egg. Elsewhere on the box, in the plot summary, the same DVD names future grindhouse director Nick Phillips as the director. IMDb says that Don Rolos and Nick Phillips are both aliases for a man named Nick Millard.
  2. Just about every internet source, including IMDb, lists the date as 2003. I reckon that is a misunderstanding based upon the DVD release date. Strip club comic Hermie Rose must have been long dead by 2003, as evidenced by this picture of him in 1949! His last correctly dated IMDb credit is a small (and uncredited) part in Sinatra's Pal Joey in 1957. His last credited part was in 1953.
  3. I date Nudes on Credit from the 1961-65 era, based on these three images (click to see larger ones):

  • The left image shows a guy reading the daily racing form. It mentions a race featuring "Chief of Chiefs", a horse which was very well known in 1961. Chief of Chiefs beat the legendary Kelso in the 1961 Washington Park Handicap, and also won the 1961 Carter Handicap and finished first in the Toboggan Handicap, but was disqualified.
  • The center image shows the beginning of a London to San Francisco flight on a DC-7 (a propeller plane). Jets were flying all major transatlantic and transcontinental routes by 1964. It has American Airlines markings, which means the scene wasn't really filmed in London at all (American Airlines first flew there in 1982), but that correctly dates the movie before 1966, when American retired its last DC-7. The dates cannot be explained by the use of older stock footage, since the scene actually includes the principal actors from the film.
  • The right image is a 1959 Cadillac. That was actually the most recent car I could spot in the streets.
  • There was one other item which might be useful for dating the film. A Powell Street Line cable car went by, and the fare was fifteen cents. Unfortunately, I couldn't use the internet to determine the exact period when the fare was exactly 15 cents. (It began in 1951, but I couldn't pinpoint an ending date).

Knowing the cast doesn't help much in pinning down the right date.

  • Joey Benson has three IMDb credits between 1966 and 1972. The directors of those films were David L Hewitt (career 1961-78) and Al Adamson (career 1965-78)
  • As I mentioned, the nightclub and burlesque comic Hermie Rose has an IMDb filmography as well, but it does not overlap Benson's chronologically. He was in four films between 1951 and 1957. Rose's IMDB filmography ended nine years before Benson's began. In fact, Rose's career does not overlap the careers of either of those directors listed above, nor Nick Phillips/Millard/Rolos.
  • The female star, Lisa Palmer, was not listed in the IMDb at all before this movie was released.
My best guess on the date is 1961, based on the racing form which is seen in that one image. In a film like this, you can be reasonably sure that they just picked up any newspaper which happened to be lying around. That is undoubtedly the Racing Form from the day they filmed, or maybe the day before. I think the 1961 date is a completely logical guess, but it's still in doubt, since one cast member never seems to have worked after 1957 and another never worked before 1966. We do know for sure that the film must have been made no earlier than 1959, since a 1959 car appears on camera. 

I was never able to figure out the original name of this film, but several internet sources suggest that the real helmsman was a future grindhouse director named Nick Phillips. I guess that could be, but this film seems to exist outside the time span of Nick's career, such as it was, which extended from 1967-1974.

Here is the official plot summary from the DVD box. It is accurate except for its dubious claims that the film includes action and comedy.

When two con men, Archie and Hermie, find an attaché case containing several mysterious documents and credit cards, they have no idea that the case belongs to a murdered spy and contains secret plans for Russian world conquest! While the KGB launches a search for the briefcase, Archie becomes smitten with a curvy blond named Magnolia, and Archie and Hermie follow her to America. Will Archie be able to save the free world and find true love? From cult Director Nick Phillips, NUDES ON CREDIT is a burlesque-style action comedy.

For reasons now lost to the ages, the screenwriter chose to begin the story in London, despite the fact that all the London scenes with our heroes obviously took place in America, and one of the London alleys had a mysterious identical twin in San Francisco. (There were some stock footage shots of London). Nobody in the film could speak with an English accent, so every single "Londoner" acted wordlessly. The hotel clerk, for example, looked at a credit card, then turned around to grab a key to hand to our heroes. Same deal with a hooker and a waiter. The only attempt at an English accent occurred in the flight announcements at the London Airport, but this sounded exactly like Dan Aykroyd doing Leonard Pinth-Garnell.

I have to say I was completely convinced that it was London, however. The special effects did it. The telephone to the left won me over. The only thing Spielberg would have done better is to make the little hand-written piece of paper say "not San Francisco" instead of "London".

 

NUDITY REPORT

for Nudes on Credit

none

DVD info from Amazon for Nudes on Credit

  • amazingly enough, there is a widescreen anamorphic transfer, and it looks damned good for a no-budget film which is now forty years old.

  • there are four trailers from some other equally goofy films, like the legendary Rat Phink and Boo-Boo

Actually, speaking of accents, nobody in the cast could speak with a Russian accent or a Kentucky accent either, but that didn't stop them from trying, so the entire project has the feel of one of those cheap, corny Saturday Morning live-action TV shows from the mid 70s, like The Ghost Busters or Far-Out Space Nuts, shows which were trying to break the cartoon monopoly on kid's programming by bringing back the feel of 50s kiddie shows. Those two shows starred Larry Storch and Bob Denver, both of whom would have fit seamlessly into the cast of Nudes on Credit, as would the Bowery Boys, Shemp Howard,  and Slapsie Maxie Rosenbloom.

Brigitta (1967)

This film, at least, was really directed by Nick Phillips.

Brigitta (1967) is a Nick Phillips B&W grindhouse masterpiece. It stars Elke Cole in the title role, but she kept her clothes on. She is newly arrived in Munich, fresh from the country, and is lonely. She meets mister perfect, has the best sex of her life with him, and then discovers that he is more interested in a floozie who performs at a strip club. Later, she catches him with a hooker, so she decides that she will recruit her best friend, a lazy hair dresser, and that the two of them will become prostitutes. Between tricks, they like watching porno films, especially one with two lesbians. Her friend eventually catches a social disease, and passes it on to Brigitta's old boyfriend as a revenge.

There is no information about this classic at all, and none of the three women who got naked and showed anything were even credited. Rather than record dialogue, they simply had a narrator. This is a great example of the 60's grindhouse offerings, and the transfer is surprisingly good. Both lesbians and the unknown show everything.

The meaning of the IMDb score: 7.5 usually indicates a level of excellence equivalent to about three and a half stars from the critics. 6.0 usually indicates lukewarm watchability, comparable to approximately two and a half stars from the critics. The fives are generally not worthwhile unless they are really your kind of material, equivalent to about a two star rating from the critics, or a C- from our system. Films rated below five are generally awful even if you like that kind of film - this score is roughly equivalent to one and a half stars from the critics or a D on our scale. (Possibly even less, depending on just how far below five the rating is.

My own guideline: A means the movie is so good it will appeal to you even if you hate the genre. B means the movie is not good enough to win you over if you hate the genre, but is good enough to do so if you have an open mind about this type of film. C means it will only appeal to genre addicts, and has no crossover appeal. (C+ means it has no crossover appeal, but will be considered excellent by genre fans, while C- indicates that it we found it to be a poor movie although genre addicts find it watchable). D means you'll hate it even if you like the genre. E means that you'll hate it even if you love the genre. F means that the film is not only unappealing across-the-board, but technically inept as well. Any film rated C- or better is recommended for fans of that type of film. Any film rated B- or better is recommended for just about anyone. We don't score films below C- that often, because we like movies and we think that most of them have at least a solid niche audience. Now that you know that, you should have serious reservations about any movie below C-.

Based on this description:

  • Brigitta is a a solid C, since it delivered the basic required ingredients for 60s grindhouse fare: properly lit naked bodies in focus.
  • Nudes on Credit is an E, since it tried to be a real movie, and failed. (And it doesn't deliver any nudity either). On the other hand, it might be amusing to you if you are the one guy who would derive nostalgic pleasure by watching a few minutes of a truly lame 1960ish attempt at a grade-B action comedy.

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