After the death of Robert Towne earlier this week, I've been thinking heavily about screenwriters. Without screenwriters, we wouldn't have movies! They are like architects designing movie blueprints and that includes nude scenes. Those dirty dogs writing the film are usually the ones who come up with the nude scenes that are later shot for our pleasure.
So what other screenwriters have written great nude scenes? Here are some that I've come up with after much hard research.
Paul Schrader
Schrader is one of the best screenwriters of all time. The writer of Taxi Driver is still churning out fantastic screenplays like First Reformed and Master Gardener. He has written SO many films that it would be impossible for him to not have written nudity. He is the mind behind Cat People and American Gigolo and those have skintastic scenes. But there's one other film I want to talk about. He wrote a film filled to the brim with boobage and that film is Hardcore.
Hardcore was a 1979 flick in which George C. Scott plays a conservative dad whose daughter runs away to LA to become a pornstar. His daughter is played by Ilah Davis, but we see all the other sex workers nude instead of her. Season Hubley plays a beautiful hooker with a heart of gold who helps George find his daughter.
There is also a super HOT threesome scene where two women are having their way with a very lucky man. Schrader wasn't lying when he called his screenplay "Hardcore".
Ruth Prawer Jhabvala
Ruth is an unsung hero of screenwriting. It used to be common practice to have other writers punch up or even change entire scripts which sometimes meant that the writer who did the most work to punch up the script didn't get credit. Ruth had that happen to her on the film Merchant Ivory. That's okay because she wrote some epic films such as Howards End and A Room with a View. She also wrote some terrific nude scenes such as the nude modeling scene in the 1996 film Surviving Picasso!
Director James Ivory directed several of her scripts including Surviving Picasso and Heat and Dust. He also directed her 1981 script for Quartet which featured the stunning Isabelle Adjani as a young woman in Paris. She does as the Parisians do and takes off her clothes!
Charlie Kaufman
Kaufman might be the most celebrated screenwriter of our time. His mind works like none other with wildly creative films that have become surprising classics. Kaufman's films are favorites such as Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and Being John Malkovich. This seductive scene he wrote in Adaptation in which Judy Greer unbuttons her blouse is something to write home about.
Nancy Meyers
If you want a good movie, you turn to Nancy Meyers. She writes solid classic films like Father of the Bride, Jumpin' Jack Flash, and the very sexy Goldie Hawn flick Private Benjamin. But what about nude scenes? She's got you covered. Her 1984 script for Irreconcilable Differences featured a very young Sharon Stone with her perky pair out.
But that's not all. Leave it to Nancy to have Oscar-winning actress Diane Keaton go nude again later in her career. I love it when an actress decides to buck the norms and go nude later in life. Diane put her trust in Meyers and went for it!
Billy Wilder
Let's go back in time a little. Billy Wilder is an iconic screenwriter. Not only has the man given the world TWO sexy Marilyn Monroe films. He wrote Some Like it Hot and The Seven Year Itch which means that he is the mind who thought of Marilyn's skirt lifting and blowing over a subway vent. That means he created one of the most recognized film images of all time!
He has written most of your favorite classic Hollywood films, but all know that classic Hollywood films were not big on nudity. When censorship laws were lifted he embraced them. His early films like Sunset Boulevard and The Apartment don't have any nudity. But his later films? Oh, they are glorious.
His underrated 1978 film Fedora featured Marthe Keller nude. The film received negative reviews at the time, but viewers have since come around and given it a minor cult following. He also wrote 1972's Avanti! and Casino Royale which both featured scantily clad - and nude - babes.
