It started with a 1954 court case involving the nudist camp movie Garden of Eden. In Excelsior Pictures vs. New York Board of Regents the New York State Court of Appeals ruled that nudity was not obscene, as such. That made movies (such as nudist camp movies) depicting nudity legal. Sort of. You still had to tread carefully and go to extravagant lengths to avoid even the slightest hint of sex.
It soon became apparent that nudist camp movies were a dead end. One can only take so much nude volleyball. It was Russ Meyer who came up with the solution in 1959 when, with The Immoral Mr Teas, he invented the nudie-cutie. He realised that there were three key ingredients. Firstly, there had to be a plot gimmick to justify lots of non-sexualised female nudity. It didn’t matter if the plot device was silly. In fact that was a plus. But it had to be silly in a cute endearing way. Meyer came up with the idea of a guy who goes to the dentist and his optic nerve gets damaged. As a result he now has X-Ray Vision, but he can only see through women’s clothes.
Secondly, there have to be lots of gags. They can be mildly risqué but must not be crude. The tone has to suggest lightweight innocent fun. Meyer could come up with the right gags.
Thirdly, the girls had to be beautiful, and they had to be beautifully shot. In 1959 (and up until around 1967) you could only get way with T&A so the idea was to have plenty of it.
The Immoral Mr Teas has all those ingredient combined to perfection. Most subsequent nudie-cuties fell down to some degree in at least one of these areas.
Mr Peters’ Pets has a suitably silly cute plot device. A pet shop owner, Mr Peters, gets hold of a formula that allows him to take on the appearance of an animal for a short period. He can then provide cute animals as adorable companions for pretty girls, and the girls won’t be shy about undressing in front of kittens or puppies, not knowing that they’re undressing in front of the lecherous pet shop proprietor. As I say, it’s silly, but it has a certain charm and it works.
This movie falls down a bit in the second area. The gags are rather feeble, and since the film was shot without synchronised sound we get a never-ending voiceover narration which just isn’t funny enough.
In the third vital area Mr Peter’s Pets scores very highly. These girls are stunners. And there’s an immense quantity of T&A on display.
And it has another major asset. The movie is a series of vignettes as Mr Peters assumes different animal identities. The first vignette is straightforward, just a pretty blonde taking a bath while being watched Mr Peters in the guise of a kitten. But the later vignettes have a bizarre surreal quantity. A girl enjoys a day at the beach but she has with her a beach umbrella, a fishing rod and a fish bowl. She seems to be fishing for a goldfish to put in her fish bowl. And then she wants to play with the fish bowl.
The segment with the three babes having an artistic day out takes on a slightly manic quality as well.
This is an important nudie-cutie ingredient I neglected to mention earlier - a crazy oddball vibe which Mr Peters’ Pets certainly has.
The Something Weird/Kino Cult Blu-Ray provides a pretty solid transfer for Mr Peters’ Pets, plus an audio commentary and two other nudie-cuties.
Peter Perry Jr directed some of the very best of the nudie-cuties. Kiss Me Quick! (1964) is an engaging mixture of monster movie, science fiction and nudie-cutie and it features go-go dancing. The Joys of Jezebel (1970) is a nudie movie set in Hell with some wild 60s visuals. My Tale Is Hot (1964) is another nudie-cutie with devilish overtones. He also directed The Notorious Daughter of Fanny Hill (1966) for David F. Friedman and that one stars the amazing Stacey Walker. She’s more than enough reason to see that film.
But perhaps the most interesting of the movies directed by Peter Perry Jr is Revenge of the Virgins (1959), a crazy nudie western with a screenplay be Ed Wood Jr.
Peter Perry Jr really does have claims to being the grandmaster of the nudie-cutie genre. I found Mr Peters’ Pets to be oddly endearing. If, like me, you have a soft spot for this much-disparaged genre then Mr Peters’ Pets is recommended.
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