review for Hideout in the Sun on AllMovie

Doris Wishman's unique career spanned four decades and boasted more than two dozen features, and it all started with this humble yet charming nudist colony film. Wishman had already worked for several years in the film distribution business when an untimely heart attack took the life of her husband. Grieving the loss and needing a project to help restart her life, the young widow decided to make her own movie, choosing the then-spicy (and profitable) realm of nudist colony films for her debut. Funded for a pittance by family members and shot in sunny Florida, Hideout in the Sun made money and Wishman went on to self-finance a steady stream of low budget, high concept adult features that share a distinctively off-kilter flavor. Hideout is atypical of Wishman's oeuvre, possessing a crude yet conventional approach to composition and pacing unlike her later, more eccentric films. However, Wishman's taste for the bizarre is already evident -- she sets Hideout's climax at a roadside tourist attraction called the Miami Serpentarium and dares to inject some film noir sensibilities into the eternally sunny nudist colony formula. Like other genre-standard nudist films, Hideout in the Sun extols the virtue of the lifestyle with handsome, healthy naked folks (genitals always discreetly covered by towel or beach ball) engaged in various wholesome outdoor activities. "Everyone here is so healthy looking, they seem so happy," opines one character, "it's a wonderful way to live and to bring up children." Nary a hint of sexual impropriety exists on the screen, but the audience certainly had prurient ideas in mind for all the nude bathing beauties on display and the legality of these films paved the way for the full-on hardcore assault of the 1970s. Wishman followed Hideout with seven more nudist colony features (including the delirious sci-fi/nudist hybrid Nude on the Moon) before moving on to harder-edged fare as the marketplace demanded. But the innocent energy of her debut, with its clumsy criminals and deadpan lovers, will please those seeking nostalgic thrills. Wishman devotees take note, the director makes a brief (fully clothed) appearance early in the film as an extra -- she's the red-headed woman walking out of the bank during the holdup.