Jim Carrey’s Butts in the Air: His Debut Movie He’d Rather Forget

Before he became the star of The Truman Show or Man on the Moon, Jim Carrey started at the bottom of the ladder and struggled to become a comedic star in Hollywood in the mid-1990s. He considers the years of hardship that he is going to make a film to be a kind of youthful mistake.

Because in 1981, Jim Carrey is fighting. Just refused Saturday Night Live, and lives on stage between her impersonation show and a TV movie project (Meeting… Janet, later renamed Rubberface) that she’s set to film for Canada’s CBC. Then he was offered a small role in a project called “All in Good Taste”, signed by Canadian Anthony Kramreiter.

After several years of independent filmmaking to support his company financially, Kramreiter made documentaries involving nudity (Mondo Strip, Mondo Nude). It is this personal history that he puts into the scenario of All Good Taste.

So we follow a director who can’t find anyone to finance his big film that condemns the conditions under which children are adopted. Instead, he is offered more erotic films or filming the world of striptease. He refuses, but the producer blackmails him and finally accepts.

Carrey is present for about ten minutes of the film, interpreting Ralph Parker, a photographer who follows the director (played by Jonathan Wells) as he discovers the world of nudity. The actor does not say a word in his scenes, which take place in a kind of nudist camp. The instruction is to undress, he performs, but we often see him in the background, less exposed to the image, as if in a rather awkward position.

The movie is so weird, I obviously don’t know which foot to dance on. Seemingly eager to condemn directors who add nudity to sell their films, All in Good Taste does the same, offering up some spectacular moments while nudism is sometimes looked upon favorably, sometimes derided, and simply reduced to gratuitous voyeurism.

Images from Mondo Strip and Mondo Nude, the directors’ previous films, are also used to illustrate many of the nudity or striptease scenes, and the script sits on the corner of the table.

Filmed in 1981, All in Good Taste wasn’t released until 1983, when Carrey was already more famous in Canada. It will apparently be released on video, with the actor’s face prominently featured on the cover to attract the public.

Will be reserved for Jim Carrey completists only.