This is fantastic fun. Russ Meyer rose to the occasion of working for a big studio by making a film that looks great and is packed to the gills with stuff - more characters, more story, more everything.
Like the best Meyer films it's driven by women - I can't believe he didn't make this a hard and fast law about his movies because whenever he did it paid off in spades (eg this, Vixen, Faster Pussycat). It's a "three girls" film with the girls being in a band - they are positive, likeable and diverse (one black, one gay).
The acting is very good. Dolly Read is immensely winning as the main girl - fairly early on she cheats on her boyfriend David Gurian with Michael Blodgett, and you don't mind, in part because the boyfriend is such a drip, but also because she's a nice person.
Cyntha Myers is stunning and likable as the girl who realises she's a lesbian after falling pregnant and having an abortion. Like Read, I'm super surprised Myers didn't have more of a career, even if only as a regular on Glen A Larson TV shows.
The black characters actually have something to do - the girl, Marcia McBroom, loves her pot, her boyfriend (Harrison Page from Vixen) wants to be a lawyer, and there is a fun love triangle with a boxer.
Gurian is a whimp but handsome and his whimpness works totally for the role. Edy Williams is great fun as a man eater. Michael Blodgett is excellent as a gigolo and John Lazar is outstanding as G man. Erica Gavin seems a lot less intense than in Vixen - she's actually not that great.
Like a lot of Meyer there's some impotence and men worried they're gay and outlandish plot. Unlike a lot of Meyer this one has gay dudes in it.
In case we get bored they throw in a plot with Phyllis Davis, as Read's aunt who is in love with Charles Napier, Duncan McLeod as a dodgy lawyer. (This feels tacked on - I think it was because the film was originally a sequel to the 1967 film, and these characters were from that one. They remain in this non-organic state. Meyer should have made Davis a blonde or red head to differentiate her from the others more).
I loved the set design, the music, the feel.The songs were catchy.
The one draw back of the film is all the queer characters are killed - I don't mind Z man, or even Gavin and Blodgett, but it's a super shame that Myers had to die, and so horribly, because she really didn't do anything wrong.
That aside its a tremendously entertaining film and a deserved classic.
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