RUSS MEYER 101 by Craig Hammill
How do you solve a problem like Russ Meyer? (Sung to the melody of How do You Solve a Problem like Maria from The Sound of Music)
First and foremost, Mr. Meyer and his cinema aren’t really a problem. They are a mind-befuddling joy. An insane vortex of sex, satire, idiosynchrasy, brazen individualism, and marquee filmmaking masquerading as burlesque, as exploitation, as the American male id stripped bare, than flogged, than made to heel at the Juno-esque bosom of the always more intelligent female at the heart of almost all of Meyer’s cinema.
Russ Meyer made many movies. On his tombstone in Stockton, California is engraved “King of the Nudies” followed by “I was glad to do it.” (True story).
Meyer made movies with titles like Vixen, Motorpsycho, Mondo Topless. But the crowning twin peaks upon which the film community shall always lay its head to succor will be 1965’s Faster Pussycat Kill Kill and 1970’s even greater Beyond the Valley of the Dolls. Voluptuous monuments to Meyer’s ripe fleshy impossible to corset heaving talent.
What’s so confounding about Russ Meyer movies is that they shouldn’t work in 2023. They shouldn’t have aged as well as they have. After all, they are filled with well-endowed women (often disrobing) and a very peculiar World War II all-American horny GI sensability. And while Meyer’s movies DO have certifiable problematic aspects to say the least, their bone marrow deep satire, refusal to take anything too seriously, sincere adoration of strong women, and view that women are often the smarter of the sexes have coalesced into a unified auteurist vision worthy of Renoir, Kurosawa, Hitchcock, Fassbinder.
This movie is even more awesome than this poster.
Faster Pussycat Kill Kill which wins the best title in the English language ever award before even frame one of the movie has unspooled follows a trio of thrill seeking go-go dancers into the desert hell bent on car races, kicks, and money if they find the right sap(s) to seduce and steal it from.
This trio of female predators is headed by Varla played by Tura Santana who, along with Meryl Streep, has to be celebrated as one of the strongest female American actresses ever to grace the screen. I mean. . .once you see this movie. . .there’s no doubt who the smartest, strongest, most badass person in the movie is. It’s Varla. It’s Tura. AND THAT NEVER CHANGES.
You mess or make love with her like you mess or make love with a viper. . .from hell. . .or outer space.
Tura Santana as Varla in Faster Pussycat Kill Kill is like the Greek goddess Hera herself decided to try her hand at exploitation movies.
Although I’m going to have to ask Quentin Tarantino (if I ever get the chance) if Faster Pussycat was in some way an inspiration for his Deathproof contribution in Grindhouse, it’s hard not to notice how Russ Meyer’s kick ass women have almost certainly influenced some of Tarantino’s own filmmography.
What makes a Russ Meyer movie so special, so akin, in its way, to a John Ford Western or a David Lynch dreamscape, is the consistency of its recipe: clever hilarious dialogue, surprising top tier cinematography and editing with minimal resources, women so strong and full of lust any male in comparison is just going to seem stupid. And in fact, most of the men in Meyer’s movies, usually are manipulated by the women. Even in Beyond the Valley of the Dolls, a late third act reveal/twist reinforces that ONLY the women in Meyer movies really are the movers and shakers.
But it goes beyond that. Russ Meyer makes choices so brilliant and nutso, they achieve genius level.
In Faster Pussycat, Linda (Susan Bernard), the unlucky girlfriend of a preppy speedster the go go dancers kill in the first act, remains in her bikini. . .almost the entire movie. Dramaturgically it kind of makes sense since the entire movie takes place in one afternoon but. . .it never ceases to be a visual joke in almost every single scene that Linda is in (as in, this woman is terrified, why can’t someone help her with some pants and a shirt?)
In Beyond the Valley of the Dolls, easily Meyer’s most swelling heaving achievement, written by (soon to be) Pulitzer Prize winning critic Roger Ebert, there’s an Eisenstienian cut that should offend almost everyone and yet it usually gets a shocked laugh. One character is considering an abortion than Meyer cuts to pancake batter being ladled into a pan over a stovetop.
If Faster Pussycat is Meyer’s Hamlet then Beyond is his King Lear. Beyond follows a female rock group trio who venture from the midwest to 1970’s swinging Los Angeles where they encounter a Mephistopholes-esque record producer named Z-Man (who only speaks in Shakespearean iambic pentameter), sex, drugs, rock and roll, porn stars, lizard tongued gurus, greedy stodgy lawyers who try pot for the first time, big hearted fashion designer aunts who randomly rediscover the love of their lives at midnight parties, the civil rights movement, boxers who never wear their shirts, narcissistic self absorbed beach god actors. . .and lots and lots of naked vigorous passionate sex.
The montage sequences in Beyond the Valley of the Dolls are Don Siegel Casablanca level good.
Meyer himself considers Beyond his masterpiece and this writer 122% agrees. What is so inspiring about Beyond is how Meyer brought his indie film aesthetic full force to a 20th Century Fox produced movie, was allowed to make a movie that got an X (NC-17), compromised nothing, and basically got a big budget to do everything he ever wanted.
What’s even more inspiring is how the final product of Beyond the Valley of the Dolls somehow manages to be a Shakespearean comedy satire of the Los Angeles music and movie scene in the late 60’s/early 70’s, a surprisingly progressive look at race and gender, a totally bonkers sex film, and an out and out musical with great numbers.
The fictitious Carrie Nations rock band in Beyond the Valley of the Dolls were almost certainly the inspiration for Josie and the Pussycats.
And that’s not even mentioning the self-aware plot twists upon soap opera plot twists that yield a third act climax that feels like an acid and cocaine fueled Scooby Doo episode .
So anyway, all of this is to prepare, praise, panegyricize the singular genius of Russ Meyer. An exploitation moviemaker who made masterpieces despite or maybe because of just how singular a human being he was. Yes, he was obsessed with breasts. But that was because he was also truly in awe of women.
Craig Hammill is the founder.programmer of Secret Movie Club.