Nude Pearl Diver
The post about topless Japanese pearl diver women prompted a reader to rummage through his dead-tree books, resulting in this gem of an image:
The book he found it in (Eros In Hell: Sex, Blood, and Madness in Japanese Cinema) speaks of an entire genre of Japanese nude flicks based around this theme:
Glimpses of straightforward screen nudity were not uncommon even in the 1950s…. The trend was sneakily initiated by Shintoho Studios in the mid-’50s with a new genre, the “girl diver” movie. Girls were shown wet-bloused, then later topless, then later even naked as they dived for pearls in such films as Onna Shinjuo No Fukushu (Revenge Of The Pearl Queen) and Ama No Bakemono Yashiki (Haunted House Of Ama aka Girl Divers Of Spook Mansion). … More recent entries in the persistent “girl diver” sub-genre include Atsushi Fujiura’s Yobai Ama (Nasty diver, 1977) and Shikijo Ama (Lusty Diver, 1981).
Shorter URL for sharing: http://www.erosblog.com/?p=2733
It’s a shame there’s no real equivalent to that in American culture. I mean, topless what? Coal miners? Wood-cutters?
The fantasies just run rampant at the possibilities.
Judging from the title, I’d say Girl Divers
of Spook Mansion did not make anyone’s top
ten list. ;) Unfortunately, there is no mention
of it in Japanese Sex Cinema: The Sex Films
by Thomas and Yuko Mihara Weisser.
Probably the closest American equivalent would
be something like The Mermaids of Tiburon,
which was released in various versions.