After several decades of going that away, Western movies are now going the way of all flesh. And we don't mean horse flesh, pardner. The current crop of cowboy flickers includes as much horsing around the bunkhouse as the old corral. Even the Indians are getting into the act. In a new United Artists release, Gun Fever, a nobly-stacked Ceylonese actress named Jana Davi plays an Injun gal who is asked, not to bite the dust in the classic cowboys-and-In-dians tradition, but to peel off her buckskins, saunter into a river and wash the dust off her attractive torso, then saunter out again. Sad to relate, a good bit of this scene has been cut from the final footage released for Gun Fever, so Jana's elegant epidermis is viewed only by actor-director Mark Stevens, his movie crew, and the million-plus readers of Playboy, Despite the capricious clipping of this particular film, however, the horse-kissing, shucks-ma'm style of cowboy who rode off into the sunset with only his guitar for solace is clearly a thing of the past. The posse can still be counted on to head the rustlers off at the pass, but meanwhile, back at the ranch, a prairie pretty is usually rustling up a pass or two of her own with a cowhand who was smart enough to stay behind. A change for the better, say we; a welcome breath of fresh air in the hitherto stuffy Wide Open Spaces.
Below: actress' Indian makeup requires touching up before the scene begins.
At right: Mark Stevens assists Jana out of robe and into river.
Before the nude sequence is filmed, Jana is instructed by actor-director Mark Stevens.
Below: the Indian maid enjoys a cool dip in the river, then, in this scene from the film, scampers out of the water and onto the bank in an example of the New Look in Westerns.
Above: after emerging from the water, Jana Davi, svelte Ceylonese star of Gun Fever, retrieves the Indian costume she left on the river bank and dons it in full view of the camera.
Below: the scene completed, a shivering Jana is taken back to mobile dressingroom by the wardrobe mistress.
