Merolliv I really wanted to like this movie. I feel terribly cynical trashing it, and that's why I'm giving it a middling 5. Actually, I'm giving it a 5 because there were some superb performances.

FirstWitch A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

Brenda The plot isn't so bad, but the pace of storytelling is too slow which makes people bored. Certain moments are so obvious and unnecessary for the main plot. I would've fast-forwarded those moments if it was an online streaming. The ending looks like implying a sequel, not sure if this movie will get one

Kayden This is a dark and sometimes deeply uncomfortable drama

calvinnme Model Gay Andrews, who looks rather like Shelly Fabares, is a loner in NYC. She gets a come on from married ad executive Bob Walker, a Steve Cochran look-a-like, after a gig in New Jersey. He wants to continue their necking session at a hot sheet motel. She turns him down but on their way back to NYC they get pulled over by a cop who hauls them to a corrupt JP who is in cahoots with a local pimp Wayne Jackson played by big man Ronald Long ( Love of Life (1951), The Notorious Landlady (1962) and The List of Adrian Messenger (1963)) who both resembles and sounds like an Alfred Hitchcock with hair.When Walker leaves to get money so that he can pay his fine in cash, the JP detains Andrews as a hostage until his return. Long is on hand an hour later to rescue Andrews. He pays the $100 fine and the JP tells her she's free. Long offers to give her a ride, seemingly a good Samaritan. At a cafe Long slips a drug into Gay's drink and she wakes up at Longs house. A Classic tale of don't go home with strangers.Koulias is good as Long's right hand man. The entire story is an instructional on white slavery, but its poster decries the "Public Relations Racket", the girl is first offered $50,000 for one year of service with the guarantee that she can go free after the year is up, then threatened with getting forced hooked on heroin if she won't cooperate voluntarily.It's all done very on the cheap and is a bit clunky in spots, but the film still manages to entertain mostly by what is suggested during all the descriptive dialog (supplied mostly by Long) rather than what actually happens. So far so good in Something Weird's "Six Weird Noirs" DVD pack.

melvelvit-1 "Unbelievably-Fantiscally TRUE! The brutal facts behind the expose of the so-called PUBLIC RELATIONS racket!" Despite that titillating tagline, the only thing exploitative about THE NAKED ROAD is its title and what a missed opportunity it is, too, considering the storyline. A young model (Jeanne Rainer of YOU'VE RUINED ME, EDDIE! fame) who won't put out for the married ad man she's out with is held as collateral when they're pulled over for speeding and fined by a corrupt Justice Of The Peace. Another motorist is hauled in for the same reason and he pays both their fines but the erstwhile Good Samaritan later drugs the girl's coffee and kidnaps her, intending to make her work for his public relations firm as an escort girl. If she doesn't, he'll turn her into a drug addict... Although rife with possibilities, the movie's all talk and very little action until the end when an escort girl gets thrown out a window and the cops chuck tear gas at the bad guys' hideout. Unfortunately, the only one home is the kidnapped model. The lethargic cast acts like they're under water and the whole thing looks like it was filmed for about a buck ninety-eight in an endless succession of living rooms and bedrooms. The same room with different furniture is probably more like it. Still, I can't say I didn't like it and why I don't know.

mark.waltz There is such a thing as clever trash. There is also such a thing as so bad, it's good. Also, trash with class, a clever dirty joke, and making a silk purse out of a sow's ear. Here, the only thing clever is the art on the DVD box, the only thing good out of the bad is that it's over in 73 minutes, the class is first grade, there are no jokes, only dirt, and the field ran dry causing the cow to run away before somebody cut off his ear.The pitiful acting here only enhances how bad the script is. Everybody speaks at a snail's pace, as if they were first graders reading a Dick and Jane book. Even when the police are calling out for a murder suspect, the actor getting to shout in the megaphone makes no effort to get the words out without pauses in between each one. Had the actors actually spoke their words at a normal speed level, the film would have been probably 15 minutes shorter. There are even long periods of silence between dialog that makes you wonder if the actors could even read and weren't being fed their lines through some hidden microphone.It all starts some 60 miles outside of New York where a model rejects the seduction attempt of a married client. They are stopped for speeding and when he is told to go to New York to get the money to pay the fine, he is told to leave her behind. She is released when another speeder pays the $100, but a knock-out drug in her coffee leaves her as this sick pig's prisoner. He is behind a vice ring (which he refers to as "public relations"), and now his prisoner, she is threatened with being forced into becoming a drug addict in order to do his bidding. These characters are revolting, and even if that is what guides the world of film noir, it is told so repulsively here that it makes it very difficult to watch.British character actor Ronald Long (as the heavy set man who entices the ingenue into his web) may have an impressive list of credits, but the direction keeps him from coming off as professional. I'd mention the actors names who play the main characters, but they are so bad that they don't really deserve to get any credit. Only Eileen Letchworth as one of the "public relations consultants" is of any name value, and that is for her later appearances on the daytime soaps in the late 60's and 70's. There really is never any suspense, only disgust, so even if the structure made the storyline interesting, it is totally destroyed by the cheap looking photography, wretched acting and horrible dialog. The whole set-up of the sleazy justice of the peace reminded me of the set-up of one of the worst comedies of the past twenty years, the horrifying "Nothing But Trouble" which even its name cast seems to hope to forget agreeing to be in.

amosduncan_2000 I discovered "The Naked Road" as part of Something Weird's excellent "Weird Noir" collection. Like everything in the set, it more than lives up to it's name. Director William Martin, who made some other strange films around the same time, seems to have something, perhaps something feminist, on his mind. The film compares the casual exploitation by an of Ad Man of a beautiful young model (the lovely Jeanne Rainer) with out and out White Slavery. In fact, the ad man, who ultimately shrinks from his pangs of guilt, is no doubt intended to be the biggest sleazbo of them all. Even considering that Martin had little time or budget, his approach to filmmaking is downright odd. He shoots every scene in a three or four shot with all characters in view, and just when the monotony becomes unbearable; he cuts to a close up at an utterly irrelevant moment. The actors seem to have been instructed to speak slowly and leave gaping holes between the lines. And none seem to be incompetents, tubby Ronald Long went on to a highly successful career, but his performance here is hilariously, well, odd. Martin may have been no worse or better than Ed Wood, but he had his own approach to making a terrible film. The abrupt climax is probably all for the best, but I could have stood another 15 minutes or so of these strange goings on. And again, Jeanne Rainer, you could have been a contender.