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Erotica
So
how does a sex film become a celebrated piece of American pop culture,
as opposed to being relegated to the instantly forgettable (and ever-condemned)
ranks of porndom? What makes a sex film "good" as opposed to
"bad?"
"Well,
first of all, you’ve got to have Russ Meyer direct it," the
76-year-old Meyer explains. "And, of course, the leading lady is
most important. She has to be pneumatic, outrageously abundant, and that’s
about it. I’m not looking for Sara Bernhardt–just for a good,
smart girl. And it works just fine."
Naturally,
this preoccupation with bounteous breasts infuriates Meyer’s feminist
critics. By aggrandizing huge boobs for 40 years, they charge, he has
helped further unrealistic images of the female form while profiting handsomely.
And indeed, if that’s all Meyer revered in women, he’d be guilty
of some heinous objectifying.
But
women aren’t simply love machines in his films. They’re usually
aggressive, independent, commanding leads–and very sexually demanding
for their own needs. Those types of characterizations are rare in movies
even today, let alone in the ’60s. In fact, some feminists are now
reconsidering Meyer’s films–B. Ruby Rich, in the Village Voice,
reevaluated Pussycat, finding positive images in its strong-willed women.
"One
of the reasons why Faster, Pussycat has succeeded is that women have discovered
the film," insists Meyer, "and they are the ones that are generating
interest in rentals and purchases. It’s affected the other pictures
the same way. I’m starting to release the other films–I’ll
have Supervixens, Cherry, Harry & Raquel, and Vixen
to begin with, and then Beneath the Valley of the Ultravixens.
So I’m gonna go out again with them, because people can handle it."
But
people haven’t always been able to handle it, particularly when Meyer
attempted to unleash his first nudie, Mr. Teas, in ’59. Previously,
sex movies were just that–back-room bits of crude pornography not
meant to entertain, exactly. Meyer introduced the concept of making a
funny movie with general appeal that just happened to have lots of nudity.
In this case, Mr. Teas goes to the dentist and, as a side effect of the
anesthetic, is able to see every girl in the raw. Not exactly "hardcore"
material, but enough to get it banned on its initial release.
"That
film was busted on its first day in San Diego largely because we hadn’t
paid a bribe, a ‘patch’ as it’s called, to the local police,"
Meyer recalls. "It was exactly that–the San Diego police. So
we were out of business for about a year. Couldn’t play it. Everybody
was afraid. It just goes like a prairie fire through the distribution
ranks.
"Fortunately,
my partner Pete DeCenzie was able to encounter a man who was on the censor
board in Seattle, Washington. And he was able to talk him into conducting
a screening of a 16mm print of The Immoral Mr. Teas in a hotel
suite. After a lot of Italian take-out food and a lot of red wine, the
censor board–for the first time in its existence–convened under
those circumstances with that kind of … shall we say some sort of
encouragement? I don’t want to create the impression there was any
money passed, or anything of that nature. They liked the film, they laughed
at it.
"It’s
like a license to steal once you get through the censor board. In fact,
it had a 58-week play at a very fine art house."
From
there, Meyer became a hugely successful independent film maker, churning
out his odd tales of lusty women and brawny men, including camp classics
like Supervixens, Russ Meyer’s Up! and Beneath the
Valley of the Ultravixens. While it’s hard to believe any of
them could have been conceived as truly erotic–they’re far too
silly for that–they were nonetheless fun "cartoons," as
Meyer calls them. Now they’re considered classics of "psychotronic"
film making.
Motor
Psycho
Psychotronic
movies aren’t art by any means. In fact, most were made simply to
cash in on whatever trend was current at the time–bikers, zombies,
bikinis, psychedelia…sometimes all of the above. Produced in the
’50s-’70s, most could be considered campy hodgepodges of clunky
dialogue, ridiculous acting and pathetic special effects. But despite
all that, somehow, the twisted vision of an oddball film maker still comes
through, as in the work of Ed Wood, Jr. or Ray Dennis Steckler (The
Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies).
By any measure, Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! is one of the ultimate
psychotronic movies.
"Ladies
and gentlemen, welcome to violence–the word and the act." The
smooth, steady voice-over at Pussycat’s start could be from
an industrial film–no doubt because Meyer once made them. "Violence
devours all it touches, its voracious appetite rarely fulfilled. Yet violence
doesn’t only destroy. It creates and molds as well. Let’s examine
closely, then, this dangerously evil creation…"
In
a barren desert landscape–shot in luminous black and white–we
race with three viciously beautiful women gunning their sports cars through
the dust. We learn that their leader is the deadly Varla (Ikido expert
and burlesque dancer Tura Satana), attired in skin-tight black pants and
blouse, not to mention black leather boots and gloves. After winning a
chicken race against a hapless preppy boy in an MGB, Varla is forced to
break his back after he demands she return his stopwatch. Kidnapping his
screeching, mousy girlfriend, the deadly trio stop at a run-down farmhouse
to find a crippled old man and his two sons…who might have a stash
of money. Varla immediately decides to stay, and plots to relieve them
of their cash.
The
supervixens of Pussycat are merciless and unapologetic. Whatever
they want, they take. Brazenly libidinous and greedy to the core, they
pretty much have their way, toying with whatever men should cross their
paths. You can rest assured that there’s never been a character like
Tura Satana’s Varla before or since. You know she’s pure evil,
but you can’t help but root for her because she’s just so damn
cool.
Despite
the lack of an actual plot, everything comes together into an other-worldly
whole in Pussycat. Perhaps unintentionally, Meyer creates his own
strange realities within his films, where people talk and act like nowhere
else. In contrast, his cinematography is smooth and orderly, again like
an industrial film, with perfect lighting and composition. Truly, Meyer’s
films are his own. And they work.
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