Russ Meyer

Russ Meyer. His name typically conjures up one image: women with enormous breasts. Now, let's be clear. It doesn't take a whole lot of effort for a guy like me to conjure up images of enormous breasted women. If a person could wager on what I'm thinking about at any given time, if they bet on boobs they would be a frequent winner. My love of boobs is what drew me to Russ Meyer movies in the first place, let's be honest, and I'm sure I'm far from the only one. But like many others, I discovered that behind the breast-obsessed voyeur was a gifted director and storyteller who made quality adult films.

Now, you'll notice I wrote "adult" films because Russ Meyer did not make porn movies. His movies contained plenty of sex and nudity, to be sure, but what his films did contain, unlike the "nudie" movies of the late 50's/early 60's, and most of the hard-core porn of the 70's and beyond, was a plot. In fact, according to John Landis in the great documentary American Grindhouse it was Meyer's 1959 debut The Immoral Mr. Teas that introduced the idea of plot driven nudie movies. Until then most of those movies were "documentaries" about nudist colonies where people stood around talking, hiking, or playing volleyball in the nude. Mr Teas, with it's story about a salesman who obtains X-Ray vision after a trip to the dentist, was a major financial success, and to many ushered in what was known as the "nudie cutie" genre. Meyer followed this up with a series of similar movies over the next five years.

In 1964, with the release of Lorna, starring Lorna Maitland, Meyer began creating the films that would eventually become his trademark: campy movies with darker themes, featuring domineering, statuesque women. This trend continued in 1965 with what would turn out to be a very prolific year with Mudhoney, Motorpsycho, and, what would become his most well-known feature, Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!, which is now an endearing cult classic. A story about three murderous, thieving go-go dancers, it contains no nudity, very uncharacteristic of Meyer's films. An interesting (to me anyway) sidenote: all three of these 1965 films had at least semi-famous bands named after them.

Meyer's output remained somewhat prolific through the remainder of the decade, the high points being the 1966 "documentary" Mondo Topless and the 1968 hit Vixen! starring frequent collaborator Erica Gavin in the title role. Vixen! contained very taboo (at the time) themes including lesbianism, racism, and even incest. As the decade ended, Meyer would begin work on what would be his most mainstream feature, the sequel to the popular Valley of the Dolls. Released in 1970, Beyond the Valley of the Dolls was written by Roger Ebert (!) and really bore no resemblance to it's predecessor in either style or subject. It did feature a performance by one-hit wonder psychedelic pop band Strawberry Alarm Clock ("Incense and Peppermints"), which alone makes it worth watching.

His output slowed somewhat in the 70's, although several collaborations with Ebert were highlights. Up! (1976) and  Beneath The Valley of the Ultravixens (1979), which would prove to be his final film, were graphic and surreal. Both featured the legendary Kitten Natividad, and were far more sexually graphic, even by Meyer's standards, than his earlier features. The latter contained an appearance by the equally legendary Uschi Digard (who had also appeared in one of his earlier features, 1970's Cherry, Harry, and Raquel!). He was hired to direct a movie about The Sex Pistols, which never came to fruition due to numerous problems. The screenplay Ebert wrote (with Pistols manager Malcolm McClaren) would eventually evolve into The Great Rock and Roll Swindle.

Though Meyer would never direct again, his films continued to make him large sums of money through the 80's and 90's via home video. He died in 2004 at age 82, from complications due to Alzheimer's disease.