Tuesday, April 25, 2017

April's Forecast: Scattered Showers

Well, it took a while to get around to this favorite spring topic. And in truth I've mined this so many times each April that it's hard to come up with unique material. But I did scrape together some more famous men in the shower (such as our cover boy, the always-delectable George O'Brien), so here we go again!
Broadway and occasional film actor, Johnny Coy. The Canadian performer died at only age fifty-two. He can be found in films such as Bring on the Girls (1945), That's the Spirit (1945), Earl Carroll Sketchbook (1946), Ladies' Man (1947) and Top Banana (1954.)
Italian hunk Rossano Brazzi (of South Pacific, 1958), washing sand and presumably NOT a man out of his hair.
1940s & '50s leading man John Payne.
Burly 1940s & '50s leading man Victor Mature.
Bob Hope rinsing off during a scene in Call Me Bwana (1963.)
This scene is from The Young Lovers (1964) with Sharon Hugueny and Peter Fonda.
While it could hardly be called scandalous, this image of Hugueny pressing her hand against the glass next to Fonda's bare chest (not to mention the fact that he was ostensibly naked the rest of the way down!) was provocative for 1964.
This next sequence of shots is from the 1965 spy thriller Operation Crossbow.
Spy George Peppard is working in a munitions plant and taking an after-shift shower when his contact Jeremy Kemp, pushing a broom, comes by to exchange some info.
It would be hard to resist sneaking a glance at Peppard, who was at his most desirable during this period.
See what I mean...?
Anyway, they continue to try to confer while attempting to appear nonchalant.
Then again, Kemp coming IN to the shower stall while it's in use isn't exactly standard operating procedure! (But who could blame him?)
This assortment of men, showering communally, is from the prison movie Cool Hand Luke (1967.) At far left is Lou Antonio while two bodies over is Ralph Waite (of The Waltons.) To the right of him (of a similar height) is Joe Don Baker.
Now that Waite is under a shower head, we see the previously hidden Dennis Hopper, who plays a mentally-afflicted character in the movie.
Here's a better look at Pa Walton (who also has a brief rear nude scene in the film.)
In the center of this shot is 1960s actor Robert Drivas (who was shown to such eye-popping advantage in Where It's At, 1969.) The man at left is Donn Pearce, who not only co-wrote the screenplay, but is the author of the source novel (and who did not approve of Paul Newman's casting as the title character.)
Helmut Berger is shown hosing off during the film Dorian Gray (1970)
Here he's seen later in his career enjoying a waterfall as a shower. (Berger was often to be found without clothing in the 1970s!)
This beefcake-y publicity photo from Love Story (1970) caused me to seek out the scene in question because I had no recollection of him taking a shower in the movie.
Sure enough, there is a brief shower scene of him and a pal at the gym after playing a game together.

We love (and miss!) the many movie scenes that took place in open or semi-open shower rooms like this during the 1960s - 1980s.
Speaking of, we have this scene from the 197o TV-movie Tribes.
Among the closely-shorn marine recruits, you may recognize Jan Michael Vincent.
A key sequence takes place in the showers as one of the soldiers is on the verge of cracking up, perhaps due to drug use.

In his prime, Vincent was an amazing physical specimen and didn't shy away from nudity at all.
This next series of photos very nearly did me in. You see, I collect photographs of showers from May until the following April for use in this annual post. But this time I neglected to make note of (or remember!) the movie these are from!!! And they are good ones, too....
I scoured my brain, searched through lists of teen sports and teen sex movies... I spent hours and hours trying to determine which film this scene is from and FINALLY figured out that they are from 1983's Losin' It.
I recall thinking as this young man (not one of the movie's stars) came around the bend, he seemed to be looking at or for something...
Then we see what it was!
Though the strain of trying to remember the movie in question almost made me lose it, I can definitely recommend this scene from Losin' It to shower curators!
This movie I do remember. Dreamscape (1984), featuring Dennis Quaid.
He's the guest of a research facility on dreams (and also has a somewhat memorable towel scene.)
This is the movie Dangerously Close (1986) featuring John Stockwell (who some of you may recall from Christine (1983.)
The steamy high school shower room features both bare bottoms and one of our nostalgic favorites, the Speedo.
There's some drama in the room as Stockwell and his buddy hear some sniggering around the corner.
Someone has decided to spray graffiti that suggests his character is in the habit of doing something untoward (untoward as far as his classmates are concerned anyway!)
Turning momentarily to the music world, we find George Michael under the nozzle in this shot.
And hosing off in this poster, which came with his album Controversy, is Prince. It's completely coincidental that the two pics I gathered of '80s/'90s singers in the shower wearing Speedos both died prematurely within seven months of one another last year!
These pics are from the opening credits of a movie that had Robert Morse and Avery Schreiber in supporting roles, which is why their names are plastered across the subject's chest!
The movie is Hunk (1987), about a nerd who sells his soul to the devil in order to obtain a perfect house, car, face and physique, and the title role is filled by John Allen Nelson. (In the upper right corner, Nelson is checking to make sure everything was improved upon in the deal!)
This was a late discovery that barely made this year's cut. Shown are Vincent Spano and David Ogden Stiers.
The movie is Creator (1985), which has young doctor Spano in an argument with Stiers over some experiments that Peter O'Toole is conducting.
In frustration, Spano leaves the shower in a huff, only to have to come back because he's gone the wrong way, affording some brief, misty, rear nudity.
Later, Spano is frolicking with Virginia Madsen and they head in from the beach to take showers. She playfully steals his towel...
... leads to them taking a shower together! Fans of Spano need to see this movie as he is often shirtless or otherwise scantily clad throughout the whole thing.
For those of you who've been patiently awaiting a Rob Schneider shirtless scene, it comes courtesy of 2001's The Animal.
As a man raised in the wild and unused to modern conveniences, he enjoys his first shower, but then unfamiliar with a towel, shakes himself dry (and, it must be noted, he was in pretty good shape for this one.)
The movie Mindhunters (2004) provided some mid-career beefcake from Christian Slater.
In this suspenseful scene, he can't escape the feeling that he isn't along in his ultra-modern shower room.
And... it turns out he was right.
I've featured snaps from this one before, but not this high in quality. I'd not actually seen the movie until several months ago. (I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry, 2007.) This is Gary Valentine with the shampoo bottle who is, in real life, Kevin James' older brother.
The man with the blue towel is a real-life NYC fireman who was recruited to work as an extra.
When the movie's straight lead characters (Adam Sandler and Kevin James) marry in order to secure health benefits, their confused coworkers are suddenly horrified to shower with them, though they've been doing so uneventfully for years prior.
Sandler and James' entry to the shower room causes tension.
Tension escalates when Nicholas Turturro drops his soap. The guy on the right is Peter Dante, a frequent Sandler movie cast member.
He's all done up with big hair and a thick mustache to be a sort of noo yawk fireman, a goofy, somewhat unappealing caricature of sorts. But it didn't work in my case, I thought he was dead sexy at all times!  LOL
In order to secure a PG-13 rating instead of an R, the filmmakers had to add CGI soapsuds across Dante's heretofore naked butt crack. (How can I land that job?!?)
Soon, Ving Rhames comes in, his own character having some out in the wake of the other guys' announcement. He causes quite a sensation when he breaks into a rendition of "I'm Every Woman" but nobody's about to say a word to his "bad ass..."
Meet Gilles Marini, whose outdoor shower caused the heart of Kim Cattrall to beat more quickly in Sex and the City (2008), not to mention the hearts of practically everyone in the theater.
Because I like to keep this site reasonably safe for work, I cannot show you the log-splitter, er, eye-opener that help Marini gain kudos from viewers, but the pics are out there... It helped him build a TV and movie career that flourishes today.
This shower is from the movie Tormented (2009), in which the ghost of a bullied student comes back to exact revenge on those who did him wrong.
Tom Hopper has his towel stolen first of all, but that winds up being the least of his problems!
Here's a glimpse of what he looks like in the light of day. The scene winds up pretty gory in the end, but he certainly looks good throughout it.
On the left is one of the endless line of men from The Bachelor (Chris Soules) while late night fixture Jimmy Kimmel is on the right, visiting Soules' outdoor shower in a parody of the one Soules used on the show.
Some of those hard to reach spaces get the necessary attention...
...but this is what we came for.
Now we have Idris Elba in the thriller No Good Deed (2014) opposite Taraji P. Henson.
Lastly, we offer some batbutt. In a deleted scene from Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016), later restored for the "Ultimate" edition, which is rated R, we find Ben Affleck in the shower. This is likely the first time that The Caped Crusader has been shown in the buff, isn't it? But this is far from Affleck's most notable turn in the shower. That one came in 2014's Gone Girl.