NCTATNY. Russ Meyer.

"Distinguishing Russ Meyer's Vixens for their power and not for their obvious and insatiable sexual potency is a reasonably futile endeavor, I realize, although this is precisely one of the many aspects of his career we intend to clarify over the course of the next few weeks, in which we will be reviewing each of Meyer's narrative films. And this notion of feminine power vis-à-vis objectified sexuality notwithstanding, there are other aspects of Meyer's career and work that mark him as a man of immense, if undervalued creative ingenuity." Rumsey Taylor introduces Not Coming to a Theater Near You's latest feature, Bosomania!: The Sex, the Violence, and the Vocabulary of Russ Meyer, hot on the heels of the ongoing The Mystic: The Films of Nicholas Ray.

Updated through 8/31.

The first review's a double and comes from Leo Goldsmith: "The Immoral Mr Teas and Eve and the Handyman dovetail as examples of Russ Meyer's early style of exploitation cinema: both were shot cheaply and quickly (the former for $24,000 over four days) with voiceover instead of live or synchronized sound; both are constructed as a sequence of loosely connected comic episodes; both exercise a tireless taste for double entendres; and both illustrate the persistent sexual preoccupations of 'modern man,' embodied in both films by proletarian protagonists.... What's interesting is that... each story has its own moral - or immoral, if you prefer - that is wholly distinct from that of the other film, at least on the surface."

Update, 8/26: "Lorna was the first entry in what Russ Meyer deemed his Gothic period, which is characterized by stark black and white photography and highly fatalistic premises - the Grim Reaper, even, is summoned by the end." Rumsey Taylor: "The women remain as empowered here as they are in his other films, but their beauty is not an heroic asset; rather, beauty is a catalyst for hubris and selfishness. These films generally concern violence and moral retribution, but it is the women who are often the casualties, maritally and otherwise."

Update, 8/27: "What makes Fanny Hill so interesting in Meyer's body of work is how well it plays it straight," writes Megan Weireter. "Although all the playfulness, the fun with editing, and the unceasing devotion to the hilarity of moral turpitude mark it unmistakably as a Meyer film, there's nothing particularly campy here - it's remarkably old-fashioned, though no less enjoyable for being so."

Updates, 8/29: Andrew Schenker on Mudhoney: "Meyer's extraordinary film focuses its energy on outlining the distortions to healthy sexual congress that result from a possessive, insistently masculinized attitude towards carnality and, in channeling these perversions into that ultimate screen grotesque, Sidney Brenshaw, giving inimitable expression to the wretched extremes of debased sexuality."

Adam Balz: "[R]egardless of the film's early reputation - as illicit pornography, despite its utter lack of any nudity or sex that isn't merely suggested or preempted - Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! has aged into a work of pure wonder - a beautiful animal in itself that, beneath its sexy and violent exterior, has a motive both eye-raising and wonderful."

Updates, 8/31: "Not that I subscribe to cliché," writes Jenny Jediny, "but to find a Russ Meyer film primarily starring men feels like a glaring anomaly - 1965's Motor Psycho, starring a trio of leather-clad hoods who taunt, assault, and murder a few locals during a desert road trip before wandering into war veteran philosophy, is an interesting footnote in Meyer's filmography, especially in comparison to the cult classic, Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!, that it closely resembles in plot. The men simply aren't as interesting (or eye-catching) as women in a Meyer flick, but Motor Psycho does convey a humorous take on male incompetence that, while found in other Meyer movies, is predominant in tone here."

For Andrew Schenker, Mondo Topless "proves somewhat of a letdown. Which is certainly not to suggest that the film is without interest, but simply to note that the imagery on display has a difficult time standing up to the puffed up rhetoric of the film's spoken text."

Posted by dwhudson at August 25, 2008 10:07 AM