The Naked Truth 1957

Nigel Dennis is a calculating blackmailer who threatens to publish embarrassing secrets in his magazine The Naked Truth. After attempting to squeeze money from a famous scientist who tries to take his own life, and an MP who suffers a heart attack in Parliament, his latest targets are Lord Henry Mayley, Sonny MacGregor, Flora Ransom, and Melissa Right. Each figure weighs whether to pay up or risk exposure, and several quietly decide that murder would be the easier option rather than giving in to blackmail.

With desperation mounting, the four victims – Mayley, MacGregor, Ransom, and Right – eventually team up and decide to strike back with a coordinated plan to outsmart their schemer. Mayley’s luck takes a strange turn, nearly placing him in the crossfire of both MacGregor’s schemes and Ransom’s machinations, highlighting how thin the line is between allies and targets when danger looms.

That uneasy alliance persists as they attempt another gambit to bring Dennis down, yet this second effort fails as well, and Dennis is eventually arrested for an earlier crime. When Dennis threatens to reveal all at his trial, Mayley proposes a bold counter-move: break him out of prison and ship him off to South America, with the help of hundreds of his other victims. They mount a distraction by phoning in numerous fake calls for help to clog up the London police, while Mayley, MacGregor, and MacGregor’s reluctant helper Porter – disguised as policemen – whisk Dennis away.

The escape sequence unfolds with tense timing: Dennis is knocked unconscious at intervals to keep him under control, and the group makes for the cabin of a blimp heading toward a rendezvous with an outbound ship. But the plan hinges on a risky unknown, and Dennis, once awake, reveals he never intended to reveal any secrets in court; the copies of The Naked Truth had already been destroyed by the plotters. Satisfied that they’ve outsmarted him again, the captors realize they’re still unsure of their own location. In a final twist, MacGregor fires a pistol that punctures the blimp, sending it careening away into the distance as Dennis, unaware of their exact whereabouts, is left to face the open sea.