Pulp Features

Russ Meyer, pioneer of the sexploitation film, died last Saturday, aged 82.

He made his film debut in 1959 with The Immoral Mr. Teas, the first ‘nudie’ film (soft-core sex film) to make a profit (over a million dollars). This led to a string of self-financed films that gradually became more bizarre, violent and cartoonish. In 1964-5 he established his style with his ‘Gothic period’ a quartet of black-and-white films (Lorna, Mudhoney, Motor Psycho and Faster Pussycat! Kill! Kill!) that many consider to be his best work.

The critical and commercial success of Vixen (1968) caught the attention of 20th Century-Fox execs, who signed Meyer to direct the Roger Ebert written Beyond the Valley of the Dolls (1970) which was his biggest success. This was followed by The Seven Minutes (1971) which flopped. After his experiences with Fox, Meyer retrurned to the independent production and distribution of his own movies.

The demise of the drive-in market and the emphasis on hard-core pornography (which Meyer always eschewed) effectively ended his directorial career and he spent the 1980s working on various autobiographies, both in film (The Breast of Russ Meyer) and print (A Clean Breast).

But the purpose of this feature is to highlight some of the peaks of his three decades of filmmaking. Plot summaries are taken from the IMDb.

Faster Pussycat! Kill! Kill!

Three strippers seeking thrills encounter a young couple in the desert. After dispatching the boyfriend, they take the girl hostage and begin scheming on a crippled old man living with his two sons in the desert, reputedly hiding a tidy sum of cash. They become houseguests of the old man and try and seduce the sons in an attempt to locate the money, not realizing that the old man has a few sinister intentions of his own.

Of all Meyer’s films, Faster Pussycat has probably found the widest audience worldwide, and has even inspired a rock band to name themselves after the film (as did Vixen and Mudhoney).

Vixen

Vixen lives in a Canadian mountain resort with her naive pilot husband. While he’s away flying in tourists, she gets it on with practically everybody including a husband and his wife, and even her biker brother.

Big breasts and a political subtext from this Vietnam-era film which follows the fortunes of a black draft dodger and takes time out to spotlight a bunch of commies who want to hijack a plane and fly it to Cuba.

Vixen Palmer (Erica Gavin) also manages to strike a blow for female empowerement with a wet fish…

Beyond the Valley of the Dolls

A hip and happenin’ all girl rock group head to LA to claim lead-singer Kelly’s inheritance and make it (and make it) in LA. They immediately fall under the spell of rock’n'roll Svengali, the ‘Teen Tycoon’ of rock Ronnie ‘Z-Man’ Barzell, and other rapacious Hollywood party types as lustful porno actress Ashley St Ives, ravenous lesbian Roxanne and shady lawyer Porter Hall. Soon the girls fall into a morass of drugs and deceit as their recording success soars. It takes several tragedies to make them stop and think… but is it too late?

Meyer’s big studio movie - a sequel in name only to The Valley of the Dolls - was written by film critic, Roger Ebert, and follows a girl band who come undone - in every sense of the word - in a time of sex and drugs and rock-and-roll. As one of the characters so poignantly puts it: “There’s juice freaks and pill freaks and then everyone’s a freak. What you need is grass or a downer or something.”

Super Vixens

Clint Ramsey has to leave his job working at Martin Bormann’s gas station and flee after his wife is murdered by psycho cop Harry Sledge, who tries to pin the murder on Clint. Crossing America, Clint gets sexually harassed on all sides by various voluptuous nymphomaniacs, and it all ends in a literally explosive climax.

Kind of a mad road movie, with psycho cops, brazen nymphos and - of course - badly fitting bras.

Up!

This kicks off with the murder of one Adolf Schwartz (who bears a striking resemblance to another famous Adolf) by placing a ravenous piranha fish in his bathtub. Who did it? No-one knows or cares, as they’re too busy being distracted by busty Margo Winchester, who hitch-hikes into town and gets involved with all the local men. It all ends with a series of complicated plot twists that reveal that just about everyone is really someone else. And if it gets too confusing, Russ Meyer helpfully arranges for a one- woman nude Greek chorus to pop up at intervals to explain what’s going on.

Think of Up! as an existential whodunnit… with breasts.

Beneath the Valley of the Ultra-Vixens

Believe it or not even in Smalltown USA there are still people who are unfulfilled and unrelieved in the midst of plenty. Levonna & Lamar could have the perfect relationship if it were not Lamar’s obsession with rear entry. After submitting to the one last time Levonna comes up with a plan. While Lamar is trying find other tail to try his technique on, Levonna becomes Lola with aid of a wig and a Mexican accent. A Mexican cocktail later Lola finally has Lamar straight, but he wasn’t awake for it. The gay marriage counselor, attracted to Lamar’s problem, couldn’t help them and Lemar must finally seek redemption at the church of Rio Dio Radio and the laying on of hands by Sister Eufaula Roo.

Beneath the Valley of the Ultra-Vixens, Russ Meyer’s final film is a bawdy, burlesque satire of small-town mores, top-heavy with bared breasts, cacophonous arguments and cartoonish protagonists. Proving, once and for all, that if it ain’t broke, don’t try to fix it.