The Half Naked Truth

Directed by Gregory La Cava, The Half Naked Truth follows an ambitious carnival barker (Lee Tracy’s Jimmy Bates) as he attempts to transform a sideshow dancer (Lupe Velez’s Teresita) into a Broadway sensation. Filmmaker La Cava, armed with his and Corey Ford’s screenplay, kicks the proceedings off with a decidedly less-than-enthralling opening stretch, as the movie, which runs a palpably overlong 77 minutes, boasts an initial emphasis on the tiresome, interminable carnival-based exploits of the various characters – with the arms-length atmosphere compounded by a distressing lack of compelling or sympathetic lead characters. (Tracy’s grating, excessively fast-talking turn remains a key element behind the picture’s ultimate failure.) And while things improve marginally once the action shifts to New York City, The Half Naked Truth‘s pervasively sluggish vibe, coupled with a narrative that couldn’t possibly be less interesting, ensures that it runs out of steam long before arriving at its predictably anti-climactic final few minutes – thus confirming its place as a disastrous misfire that contains few, if any, attributes worth embracing.

* out of ****