Shot in just two short weeks, Jack Cardiff managed to take a relatively unknown French erotic novel (at least unknown outside of France), and weave it into a Stream of Conciousness motorcycle diary for the 60′s Beat generation. It’s not the slickest of productions, and much of the supporting dialogue was fairly crudely dubbed over the material shot in Europe, but somehow Cardiff pulled off something quite unique and dream-like. The sexual intensity is palapable in every scene, but quite confounded the British censors, who couldn’t quite see where and what to cut among the giddy solarised dream sequences, and fast paced editing. The American release was a quite different story, the late 60′s censorship drive Stateside had a field day with it’s scissors, and cut scenes left, right and centre. To polish of the hatchet job, some silly sod changed the title to ‘Naked Under Leather’, which I’m sure confused the viewer no end.. a porno movie, with the sex cut out.
