Buds in Suds

Hey, it gets a little tough to come up with new subject names after having visited this topic before here, here, here and here!  But we're back again with a selection of movie & TV men enjoying their baths. Sometimes you just need to brighten up the winter with a little gratuitous skin. Cover boy today is actor James Stacy, though I'm afraid I don't know for certain the project in question. I believe it is from his western TV series Lancer (1968-1970.) Now, time to draw the baths!

Since we started with a western motif, lets dig in right away to another memorable bath from a show we adore for its handsome leading duo.

Laramie (1959-1963) starred brunette Robert Fuller and blond John Smith as cohabitants on Smith's ranch, often depicting them in domestic situations. Here, Smith comes home from a hard day to find Fuller indulging in a big, foamy bubble bath.

Fuller, who some of you might recall from the later show Emergency! (1972-1978), displays a ton of fresh-scrubbed charm from his wooden tub.

I simply couldn't help myself from capturing him with a variety of expressions...

But the REAL eye-opener came when, in the midst of his conversation with Smith, Fuller began to rise up out of the suds in full view of the camera!

My brain began to short-circuit as the scene continued to progress and the camera never cut away. This was 1959 and I knew that nudity was completely out of the question.

And so it was still... turns out, in a joke-y "climax" to this sequence, Fuller was killing two birds with one stone by bathing AND washing all his clothes at one time.

Nevertheless, this was a highly-enjoyable moment in a series dotted with them.

Here, we find Cameron Mitchell enjoying a bath in another western TV series, The High Chaparral (1967-1971.)

One thing about western television shows and movies is that they are such dusty affairs that the characters (and the audience, vicariously) frequently need to be washed off.

As is so often the case in on-screen baths, the participant isn't left alone to enjoy it in peace.

This time out, guest star Dub Taylor feels the need to enter the room and interrupt Mitchell's privacy with a round of conversation.

Dale Robertson did a mite better with his interloper in the form of costar Gary Collins during Iron Horse (1966-1968.)  Note the prices on the wall for this bath and accoutrements!

When it comes to western baths, it's tough to beat towering Clint Walker getting a scrub-down (from Leticia Roman) in Gold of the Seven Saints (1961.)

This tub is HUGE and Mr. Walker is just the man to fill it.

This is actually a pretty forward scene for 1961 Warner Brothers product, especially for the stalwart and upright Walker, though it's presented as more playful than sexual.

Then again, it's implied that these two have been more than friends and an extremely horny Roger Moore is hovering behind the scenes awaiting his turn (his turn with Roman or with Walker?! LOL)

Bathtime emerged as one of the highlights of the 1970 film There Was a Crooked Man, set in a desert prison. Here, fellow inmates (and implied homosexual couple) John Randolph and Hume Cronyn wash up.

A whole variety of inmates are stripped down and scrubbed clean in the sequence.

The nude male seen walking in the photo above and also at far left in this one is Michael Blodgett. I added a shot of his face on the right, which some of you might recognize from Beyond the Valley of the Dolls (1970.)

The movie's star Kirk Douglas is in on the action, too, naturally.

He even coaxes the prison's new warden (costar Henry Fonda) to partake of a sudsy bath himself.

As the late-'60s dawned, stars were beginning to show far more skin than they had in all the previous decades.

Though it isn't bath-oriented, this other shot of Douglas' rear end from the same film was a better and more flattering one, so I'm including it as a bonus (a bonass?) Do you see any family resemblance between him and son Michael?  LOL

You know, for a while around here it seemed like every other post concerned Fantasy Island. This scene is from that show. Guests Christopher Connelly and James MacArthur are indulging in an old west fantasy (that includes plenty of boob from the gal shaving MacArthur!)

True to form, Connelly's bath time is anything but private.

Here are close-ups of how they looked in the episode.

Still another person drops by before the sequence is over.

Moving on now, we find Dean Martin having his tub time intruded upon by his manic comedy partner Jerry Lewis in one of their big screen romps.

You aren't likely to recognize this gent practicing in the tub along with a reel-to-reel audio tape. His name is David Atkinson, a Canadian baritone and opera singer. He appeared on Broadway in a few short-running productions and in occasional TV work, but did make a mark as Richard Kiley's replacement in Man of La Mancha, even performing "The Impossible Dream" on the 1968 Tony Awards broadcast.

In Sons and Lovers (1960), Trevor Howard is given a thorough going over by wife Wendy Hiller.

Carol Lynley carries on a conversation with her brother Keir Dullea in Otto Preminger's mystery Bunny Lake is Missing (1965.)

Clint Eastwood doesn't seem to mind his bath being interrupted by Melodie Johnson one bit in Coogan's Bluff (1968), though even they are soon interrupted by the sheriff!

A Bullet for Pretty Boy (1970) had Fabian getting a helping hand from Jocelyn Lane.

Here we see them in color (to state the obvious!)

Before Fabian's bath is over, Lane has wound up in the tub with him!

One of the more surprising bathtub scenes came courtesy of Noel Marshall in the 1971 wildlife drama Roar.

The scene, with Marshall taking a bath while simultaneously being nuzzled against by a massive lion, is shot so tightly it's difficult at times to even make out the tub, but he's in one.

Marshall, dry, is shown in the inset and has his own mane of unruly locks. He was the real-life husband of Tippi Hedren, who (along with Melanie Griffith) costarred in this movie. (The film had a tumultuous production with many delays, incidents, accidents, etc...)

Sometimes it's hard to see where the big cats end and Marshall begins! His marriage to Hedren lasted from 1964-1984. (It should also be noted that Marshall's speaking voice in the film is excruciatingly annoying throughout.)

Not only is it surprising that there is a bathtub scene of this type in the youth-aimed series The Amazing Spider-Man, but it's also a bit of a jolt to see sixty-four year-old Robert Alda doing it!

Ostensibly naked Alda is shown emerging from the tub and being offered a robe and a towel by two young ladies. Trivia buffs might be interested in knowing that Alda guest-starred not only on this series, but on Wonder Woman and The Incredible Hulk as well! Sort of a '70s superhero trifecta.

This man is Rockne Tarkington, who figures into our next bathtub scene. Since his face isn't visible for it, I give you this glimpse. The movie is Melinda (1972), a fun Blaxploitation flick with Calvin Lockhart investigating his girlfriend's death, which may involve Tarkington.

Tarkington is busy with one of his chicks in the bubble bath...

...when Lockhart comes in and, literally, kicks him up and out of the tub onto the nearby carpet!

Naked, but suds-covered Tarkington attempts to defend himself, but is hurled across the room onto the floor amid a stack of throw pillows.

Here, he is forced to call someone Lockhart is after. Tarkington is notable as the first credited Black actor ever to appear on The Andy Griffith Show and the only one to speak lines (!) in its 8-season run. He enjoyed a thirty-year career on TV and in movies with varying sizes of parts.

1988 brought the offbeat sci-fi movie Brain Damage, featuring Rick Hearst.

Hearst is contending with a creature that attaches to his brain stem, giving him states of euphoria, but for which he must provide human victims in order to continue. In this series of shots, his bathtime is interrupted by the demanding creature.

Hearst is better known for his work on several daytime soaps from Guiding Light to The Bold and the Beautiful to General Hospital, among others.

1988 also brought this bathtime shot of Timothy Daly. The movie was Spellbinder.

In it, he comes to the aid of a young lady (Kelly Preston), falls in love with her and then is faced by the fact that she's involved in group practicing witchcraft.

The candlelight does provide some flattering glimpses of Mr. Daly, who is probably best known for a sitcom I never once watched called Wings (1990-1997.)

Though he was never really my own sort of type, this might be about the best he was ever presented on-screen, the '80s being about making everyone look as glossy and perfect as possible!

This salt 'n pepper daddy in the tub is the father of Billy Elliott (2000), played by Gary Lewis.

His time in the tub is interrupted by the ever-dancing feet of his son who he eventually comes to support after a period of outrage.

You may not recognize this man right away (his far more arresting bath occurring in 1999's The Talented Mr. Ripley), but this is Jude Law in The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014.)

We have to set the scene for our next and final bath. During American Horror Story (2016), Evan Peters arrives at his newly completed mansion, the project having been overseen by his manservant Henderson Wade.

I really must say I saw this one coming, but anyway Peters has clearly missed seeing his right hand man and grabs him forcefully for a nose-squashingly violent kiss.

Next we find the twosome enjoying a candlelit bath together in a large copper tub.

Though they have a very passionate relationship, Peters does demonstrate a detached and at times unbalanced personality, dangerous, too, since as the master of the house, he holds all the cards.

Despite the feelings they share, there is a melancholy air hanging over the forbidden relationship.

Potent scenes like this one show how far the envelope has been pushed on TV (albeit basic cable TV.) I can only imagine my dear departed grandmother channel surfing and landing on this show!

Things don't end well for this couple. After all it's called American Horror Story for a reason.

And with that, we've circled the drain on this post. Til next time!