Grantville, USA: Where Prostitution, Pederasty, and Unisex Cologne Collide

Reflections on 

The Naked Kiss (1964)

a film by Samuel Fuller

                                                                                                                                                                                There once was a bald prostitute named Kelly, who woke up one day and decided that she wasn't going to take it anymore. Her lying, conniving pimp had held out on her too many times before. 

           Added to that, his idea of a practical joke was to slip her a mickey and shave her head, which was how she became bald in the first place. The time for justice had clearly arrived. Kelly beat her oppressor up, and removed from his overstuffed wallet precisely the amount of money he owed: $75, no more and no less. The rest of the grubby bills she threw disdainfully down at her former overlord lying unconscious on the dirty-carpet-covered floor.

She placed her wig back on her shiny head and set out on her own, 

never to be taken advantage of again.

The date of this life-transforming event, logically enough, was July 4, 1961.

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Two years later, now a seasoned independent contractor, Kelly has been working through a variety of small towns. 

                                                                                                                                                                                                     One fine summer day, the now blonde woman happens by chance upon Grantville, USA, where she strolls off the bus at the depot and is immediately taken note of by the local police authority, Captain Griff, who, it later emerges, always works in plain clothes, because everyone knows who he is.

They exchange looks of interest and Kelly sets her trap, her hips swinging from left to right and back again in a curve-hugging boiled wool skirt in all likelihood designed by Gabrielle Chanel. Kelly finds a comfortable place on a bench in the local park, where she proceeds to rest her weary legs and read a few pages of a paperback book--romance genre, naturally.

Captain Griff, being a red-blooded heterosexual male, takes the bait. He chats Kelly up and learns that she is a traveling saleswoman, peddling a new kind of champagne. The alluring woman offers Griff a special price as a way of drumming up business in the new town, she says. She knows from past experience, of course, that getting in good with the law is always a sound approach to avoiding potential tangles later on down the line.

After a bit of bubbly, the couple prepares to part ways, Griff leaving Kelly in his apartment, where he says that she can stay just until the end of the day, at which point she'd best take her business elsewhere, beyond the city limits of Grantville, USA.

At first, Kelly is miffed by Griff's rebuff, but he magnanimously offers to help her out by revealing that Candy's place is open for business, and it's located just outside Grantville, a short walk away. Griff assures Kelly that he'll be a regular customer and looks forward to seeing her there. 

The couple agrees that Kelly will be Griff's ichi-ban, a Japanese expression which he learned while serving in the military abroad.

The two part amicably, Kelly leaving behind a keepsake pen, to ensure that Griff will not forget her name.

A bit later, Kelly is snooping around Griff's apartment and discovers a bottle of cologne. 

She opens it up, takes a sniff, nods approvingly and applies some of the fragrance to her neck and décolleté.

As Kelly rubs her moist fingertips together to better diffuse the cologne, she is struck by an epiphany. She catches a glance of herself in a mirror across the way and moves closer in to carefully examine her face. 

In the harsh afternoon sunlight streaming through the window, Kelly suddenly sees that her crow's feet and marionnette lines are deepening with each passing day.

For the first time she realizes that she'd better find an alternative means of gainful employment, as the unthinkable has transpired: she has reached middle age!

part 2