Tag: Russ Meyer

Posted in: by Richard T. Jameson, Contributors, Film Reviews

Review: Supervixens

Written by Richard T. Jameson

[Originally published in Movietone News 42, July 1975]

My experience of Russ Meyer films has been less than encyclopedic (Finders Keepers Lovers Weepers, Beyond the Valley of the Dolls, The Seven Minutes), so I can’t state authoritatively just what breakthroughs SuperVixens may represent in his oeuvre. Complete frontal nudity was not featured in the others I saw, and I believe the man himself has cited this as the first instance of male frontal nudity, at any rate. It’s still softcore, although back in the groove resolutely enough to warrant an X-rating (Richard Corliss opined in print that the MPAA had ruled The Seven Minutes R instead of PG so as not to embarrass Meyer before his old fans). And it’s still the most energetic sex filmmaking, qua filmmaking, around: 2,800 setups, Meyer told an SFS preview audience, and they do go blazing past, so frenetically, and some of them downright dynamically, that anybody with camera- and cutting-sense is going to have a hard—make that a difficult—time keeping his mind on the ostensible subject.

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Posted in: Film Reviews

Review: Beneath the Valley of the Ultravixens

Written by Peter Hogue

[Originally published in Movietone News 64-65, March 1980]

Russ Meyer’s Beneath the Valley of the Ultravixens is a rowdy, funky, and occasionally obnoxious comedy which just happens to be one of the livelier entertainments of 1979. Meyer, of course, has long been known as an uncommonly talented filmmaker on the burlesque-house side of the industry, and—at the very least—his latest effort seems likely to more than satisfy his fans. The oversized female breasts, the nonstop libidinal overdrive, and the cartoonish sexual antics are all here in abundance. But there’s also a chance that word may get around about Beyond the Valley‘s generally happy mixture of sex, satire, and film art—in which case, some people may begin suggesting that this middle-American Rabelais’s new film is his masterpiece. The thing has a plot, but to summarize it would be to miss the point. It’s rather like what you would expect if a Henry Miller character had rewritten Our Town for serialization in Playboy or Penthouse. Better yet, and perhaps also worse, a Meyer press release describes the film thusly: “…an all out assault on today’s sexual mores and more—an end around attack against women’s lib—blasting through the male machismo syndrome—blasting the crap out of convictions, hang-ups, obsessions—the whole bag—sexually aggressive females, willing klutzy men, petroleum jelly, gingham and gossamer, tax-sheltered religion, black socks, bedroom prowess, bunko artists, big breast fixation, rear window red necks, therapeutic cuckolding, the sixty mile an hour zinger, born again immersion,” etc., etc.

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