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.
Wednesday, December 05, 2018
Movie review - "Cherry Harry and Raquel" (1969) ***
Russ Meyer's nutty desert saga, made flush with the confidence of his success with Vixen. It's got some familiar male faces - Stuart Lancaster, who played old men a few times in Meyer films, and Charles Napier, who would go on to become a familiar face on screens.
There is a story - Napier is seeing two women (brunette Linda Ashton and blonde Larissa Ely) and involved in a crime ring. Ely in particular is a lot of fun - like many a Meyer starlet I wish we'd seen her in more things. Napier is good rugged value - he does full frontal running across the desert which was a shock. Meyer was surprisingly progressive in a lot of ways. Like the ending - it has Meyer and John Milo shooting at each other while Ashton and Ely have sex. It's a wonderfully positive message - men tend to violence and death, the women like to have sex.
Meyer had to rewrite some of the film because a lead actor didn't want to do it (Ashton?) So he threw in shots of Uschi Digard running naked around the desert. And it totally makes sense in the context of the film.
There is a story - Napier is seeing two women (brunette Linda Ashton and blonde Larissa Ely) and involved in a crime ring. Ely in particular is a lot of fun - like many a Meyer starlet I wish we'd seen her in more things. Napier is good rugged value - he does full frontal running across the desert which was a shock. Meyer was surprisingly progressive in a lot of ways. Like the ending - it has Meyer and John Milo shooting at each other while Ashton and Ely have sex. It's a wonderfully positive message - men tend to violence and death, the women like to have sex.
Meyer had to rewrite some of the film because a lead actor didn't want to do it (Ashton?) So he threw in shots of Uschi Digard running naked around the desert. And it totally makes sense in the context of the film.
Tuesday, December 04, 2018
Movie review - "Finders Keepers Lovers Weepers" (1968) **
Russ Meyer really getting into his creative groove now - check out the credit sequence, intercutting dancers at a strip club with men watching and the credits on bottles. The handling is very confident.
Unfortunately after a strong beginning this isn't a very good movie. I think the idea is good - and Paul Lockwood is a strong lead. He kind of looks like a rugged Robert Pattinson - I'm surprised he didn't have more of a career. He plays the manager of a strip club who is enticed over to the house of his brothel mistress to have sex with a woman then his mistress, so the mistress can organise a robbery of his strip club. He doesn't realise that his wife is dancing at the club and is sleeping with a bar tender.
It's not an enjoyable film. It gets very violent at the end - it's a Desperate Hours scenario. The sex isn't as fun because people doing it have agendas - to distract other people mainly. Anne Chapman, who plays the wife, never looks like she's having fun. There's a scene where Lockwood appears to basically rape her. Then she dances at the club but it's more out of revenge. She sleeps with the bar tender but seems to regret it
There's none of the joy and fun and love of sex that would be found in, say, Vixen. It's a downer.
Some decent acting but the thugs. And there's a naked black woman which was a Meyer first.
Unfortunately after a strong beginning this isn't a very good movie. I think the idea is good - and Paul Lockwood is a strong lead. He kind of looks like a rugged Robert Pattinson - I'm surprised he didn't have more of a career. He plays the manager of a strip club who is enticed over to the house of his brothel mistress to have sex with a woman then his mistress, so the mistress can organise a robbery of his strip club. He doesn't realise that his wife is dancing at the club and is sleeping with a bar tender.
It's not an enjoyable film. It gets very violent at the end - it's a Desperate Hours scenario. The sex isn't as fun because people doing it have agendas - to distract other people mainly. Anne Chapman, who plays the wife, never looks like she's having fun. There's a scene where Lockwood appears to basically rape her. Then she dances at the club but it's more out of revenge. She sleeps with the bar tender but seems to regret it
There's none of the joy and fun and love of sex that would be found in, say, Vixen. It's a downer.
Some decent acting but the thugs. And there's a naked black woman which was a Meyer first.
Movie review - "Vixen" (1968) ***1/2
A blockbuster success for Russ Meyer - the right film at the right time, but he was also fortunate in discovering Eric Gavin whose performance in the title role really makes this fly. In the first 40 minutes Vixen has seduced a mountie, her husband, a guest, the guest's wife and her own brother. She takes a break at the end so Meyer can throw in some plot about a communist who wants to go to Cuba.
The acting is very solid. Gavin is a star and she really looks as though she loves sex and is having a good time. Vincene Wallace is very attractive too - the love scene between her and Gavin is the sexiest in Meyer films at least to me. I think other people share that opinion too - in part because Meyer actually builds up to it, plays the suspense and tension, instead of just cutting to a guy grinding away on top of a girl.
The photography is strong as always as is the editing. It's full of life.
I didn't like Vixen's racism. It got wearying. And if the film was really anti racist Vixen would have slept with the black dude.
Although set in Canada it was shot in California.
The acting is very solid. Gavin is a star and she really looks as though she loves sex and is having a good time. Vincene Wallace is very attractive too - the love scene between her and Gavin is the sexiest in Meyer films at least to me. I think other people share that opinion too - in part because Meyer actually builds up to it, plays the suspense and tension, instead of just cutting to a guy grinding away on top of a girl.
The photography is strong as always as is the editing. It's full of life.
I didn't like Vixen's racism. It got wearying. And if the film was really anti racist Vixen would have slept with the black dude.
Although set in Canada it was shot in California.
Monday, December 03, 2018
Movie review - "Good Morning... And Goodbye" (1967) ***
Not one of Meyer's most highly regarded movies but I quite enjoyed it. His vision was in full flow by this time - plenty of nudity, and dancing, and quick cuts, and women running naked through the countryside, and overheated melodramatic plot.
It's a slice of life about several people in a small town - the narration (from Jack Moran) says eleven, but I didn't feel it was that many.
I didn't really like Alaina Capri in Common Law Cabin but she's in good form here as the town man eater, unhappy with old husband Stuart Lancaster. She chases after the town stud and a young boy who is keen on the step daughter.
Lancaster can't get it up but is rejuvenated by a sorceress played by Haji - a nutty concept but one of the fun things about the film.
I wasnt that wild about the concept of the step daughter especially when she walked in on dad doing with with Capri. It's a bit all over the shop but the cast give it all. I think I enjoyed it too because I imagined that Lancaster was Capri's surrogate - the climax of the film involves him getting sexual dominance over his wife again.
It's a slice of life about several people in a small town - the narration (from Jack Moran) says eleven, but I didn't feel it was that many.
I didn't really like Alaina Capri in Common Law Cabin but she's in good form here as the town man eater, unhappy with old husband Stuart Lancaster. She chases after the town stud and a young boy who is keen on the step daughter.
Lancaster can't get it up but is rejuvenated by a sorceress played by Haji - a nutty concept but one of the fun things about the film.
I wasnt that wild about the concept of the step daughter especially when she walked in on dad doing with with Capri. It's a bit all over the shop but the cast give it all. I think I enjoyed it too because I imagined that Lancaster was Capri's surrogate - the climax of the film involves him getting sexual dominance over his wife again.
Movie review - "Little Murders" (1971) ***1/2 (warning: spoilers)
A film made at the tail end of Gould's first big burst of stardom, which he helped produce. It was based on a play he appeared in on Broadway. It flopped but then had a successful Off-Broadway revival - something which I'm sure gave false hope to many a failed Broadway playwright.
Some of it is very funny. It does feel like a play - long monologues, most of the action takes place in apartments. The acting is superb. Loved Gould. Loved Donald Sutherland's cameo. Really liked Marcia Rodd, who isn't very well known, but has the most important role. Everyone is good - including Alan Arkin, who directed.
Maybe this isn't a movie, but it's worth watching. It's very bleak about New York. Has any city undergone a revearsal in how its depicted than New York in the 60s. Only a few years earlier you had these sunny films like Move Over Darling and Sunday in New York then by the end of the decade its Prisoner of Second Avenue, The Out of Towners and this.
The death of the lead girl is genuinely shocking and powers the last third.
Elliot Gould really had a fascinating 70s movie star career. Some zeitgeist hits, a bunch of flops and several films which should be better known, including this one.
NB Godard was going to direct this at one stage! That would have been interesting.
Some of it is very funny. It does feel like a play - long monologues, most of the action takes place in apartments. The acting is superb. Loved Gould. Loved Donald Sutherland's cameo. Really liked Marcia Rodd, who isn't very well known, but has the most important role. Everyone is good - including Alan Arkin, who directed.
Maybe this isn't a movie, but it's worth watching. It's very bleak about New York. Has any city undergone a revearsal in how its depicted than New York in the 60s. Only a few years earlier you had these sunny films like Move Over Darling and Sunday in New York then by the end of the decade its Prisoner of Second Avenue, The Out of Towners and this.
The death of the lead girl is genuinely shocking and powers the last third.
Elliot Gould really had a fascinating 70s movie star career. Some zeitgeist hits, a bunch of flops and several films which should be better known, including this one.
NB Godard was going to direct this at one stage! That would have been interesting.
Movie review - "Mondo Topless" (1966) ***
The box office disappointment of Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! prompted Russ Meyer to once again change gears, and do this colour documentary about topless dancers in San Francisco. There was surprisingly little nudity in his previous four films - well he makes up for that here, which has wall to wall breasts.
There's hyper active narration, quick cuts, interesting angles - all the Meyer trademarks really except for the narrative. The action mostly consists of topless dancers dancing, well, topless - sometimes on stage but more often than not in odd places like train tracks.
Meyer's narration can be heard over it some time (at least I think it is) - other times there are interviews with the dancers. This recorded voice stuff is very interesting.
The boobs do get wearying after a while - the just keep coming. This will sound weird but they're kind of better when they're attached to some character development. I really liked the girl who zoned out and didn't think of guys to focus on her dancing. And there's Lorna Maitland talking about how she was cast in Lorna. I would have liked to have heard more from the dancer with three kids!
I would have liked a story and gotten to know some dancers better but in many ways this is a very 'pure Meyer' film.
There's hyper active narration, quick cuts, interesting angles - all the Meyer trademarks really except for the narrative. The action mostly consists of topless dancers dancing, well, topless - sometimes on stage but more often than not in odd places like train tracks.
Meyer's narration can be heard over it some time (at least I think it is) - other times there are interviews with the dancers. This recorded voice stuff is very interesting.
The boobs do get wearying after a while - the just keep coming. This will sound weird but they're kind of better when they're attached to some character development. I really liked the girl who zoned out and didn't think of guys to focus on her dancing. And there's Lorna Maitland talking about how she was cast in Lorna. I would have liked to have heard more from the dancer with three kids!
I would have liked a story and gotten to know some dancers better but in many ways this is a very 'pure Meyer' film.
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