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'Nudie: Flashes of skin and wit

By Donna Chernin

Is the world ready for "The First Nudie Musical?" Are we prepared for chorus lines of nubile nymphets dancing naked?

The movie tells the story of a young desperate producer (Stephen Nathan) and his wisecracking secretary-girlfriend (Cindy Williams) who are banking their last dollars on such a hunch. Apparently, the bloom is off the rose with their regular hardcore porno fare such as cheerleaders in "Chains" and a stewardess in "Cage."

Faced with the prospect of turning his family's film company, Schechter Studios, into a shopping market at the hands of sleazy stockholders, youthful Schechter tries to make the "biggest grosser since the word gross."

"The First Nudie Musical" is a sketchy musical parody of porno flicks and 1930s movie song-anddance extravaganzas, sometimes funny, sometimes bland but always risque. The film chronicles the team's troubles from their auditions through rehearsal to opening night.

Schechter has to work against incredible odds, such as shooting his lewd masterpiece in two-weeks time, with the stipulation that one of the stockholder's newphews, a naive

neophyte, must be employed as director.

More amazing, however, than any unrealistic conditions under which Schechter and his sweetheart must work is how this ribaldry ever escaped an X rating. The film abounds in raw language, off-color jokes and · nudity.

Admittedly, when the first exuberant chorus bursts on the screen clad only in flowered hats, dangling beads and high-heel shoes, it's so startling that it commands attention. While the movie has outrageousness and shock value working in its favor, it has to go beyond that to sustain itself for 90-odd minutes. Some of the comedy routines hit, some miss.

Most hilarious is the terrified director (Bruce Kimmel) who comes dressed to rehearsal wearing jodhpurs and an ascot reading "Bluffer's Guide" and spouting cinematic jargon such as his emphasis upon a fluid, Minnellian camera. Since he has been instructed by Schechter to be gutsy and to use filthy language in order to impress the jaded cast members, he throws in every dirty word he knows. That sketch is a stitch.

Most of the other moments merely make you smile, if not just groan at some of the puny puns and strained

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jokes. For example, when the producer asks the auditioning ingenue if she is willing to perform in the nudé, she innocently remarks, "Sure, as long as I don't have to take my clothes off."

The movie stars no known talents except for Cindy Williams of TV's "Laverne and Shirley." (She and her boyfriend-producer are the only two who never romp around naked.)..

· Featured are some of the stock characters one would expect in a musical parody, such as the temperamental starlet who lusts after the producer, the macho male lead who tries to put the make on every female and the Cuban bombshell with a leather-jacketed boyfriend straight out of "West Side Story.".

The various musical numbers include a lesbian duo, a perversion routine and several others that can't be mentioned here.

After a while "The First Nudie Musical" runs out of tricks and begins to sag. Fortunately, it winds up early with, natch, the show being a huge hit to premiere night audiences and Schechter and his sweetheart contemplating a Shakespearean sequel entitled "The Taming of the Blue."

One "First Nudie Musical" is quite enough, thank you. Taken on its own, it's silly, naughty, irreverent but not thoroughly unlikable. Just be forewarned that it merits a new rating "O" for obscene.