Mondo Topless (4 Stars)

I've been hesitating for days before writing this review. I'm afraid that it won't do justice to the film or the man behind it: the legendary Russ Meyer. Finally I decided to write something, anything, and then possibly return and improve it later.

I gave this film 4 stars. Would Russ have judged it the same way? Probably not. In the interview on the DVD he calls it "a piece of crud" that he only made to make money after his previous films had been unsuccessful. I think he's being unfair to himself. This so-called piece of crud was his first big success as a film maker and finally made him a millionaire. If he didn't like it, the fans did, and it was shown at drive-in theaters across America for more than a year. The public couldn't get enough of it.

It was the right film made at the right time. Technically it can't be called a film. Running at only 60 minutes long it only qualifies as a "short film", since the official watershed for feature films is set at 70 minutes. It's not a story, it's a documentary. It features interviews with strippers, mainly from San Francisco, alongside images of them dancing on stage or running naked through the countryside. It's difficult to imagine a film like this even being made today, let alone being watched by millions. Its success has to be seen in the context of 1966 America. The sexual revolution was in progress, but most people were too scared to walk into a strip club because of the peer pressure. Russ Meyer knew this and decided to show Americans what they were missing in the relatively respectable environment of a film theater.

"Mondo Topless" is in the middle of Russ's film career. It comes immediately after his quartet of gothic black and white films, which were unsuccessful at the time but now considered classics. After making big money with this piece of crud he could relax and create pieces of art without financial pressure. He started working his way towards the erotic farces, which I personally consider to be the highlight of his career. If watched in order the slow progression of his films from serious to comical is obvious.

"Vixen" (1968) was Russ's biggest commercial success. Made on a budget of $75,000 it earned more than $20 million at box offices worldwide. This made the big Hollywood studios sit up and take notice, and he was signed by 20th Century Fox to make the sequel to "Valley of the Dolls", called "Beyond the Valley of the Dolls". Russ was promised a free hand in making the film, but Fox insisted on reducing the nudity and the Nazi subplots in the film. Nevertheless, it was a moderate success at the box office, and for many Americans it's the only Russ Meyer film they know. Russ's opinion of the film greatly varies from interview to interview. Sometimes he called it his definitive work, other times he cursed the interference from Fox. Whatever his true thoughts were, he learnt from his experiences and went back to making his films by himself without corporate support.

He made his last film in 1979, "Beyond the Valley of the Ultravixens". This Brechtian comedy about sexual frustration and religious hypocrisy ends with Russ showing himself making the film, showing characters from his previous film "Supervixens" (1975) and promising a sequel called "The Jaws of Vixen". This sequel was never made. It's unclear why not. Some people claim that he thought his films were no longer wanted because of the rise of hardcore pornography. That seems ridiculous, because soft porn films still have a place today, and films of the quality of those made by Russ Meyer would have remained popular. It is also said that Russ had withdrawn to make his "final work", an eight-hour autobiography, but all that he ever released was the disappointing 70-minute "Pandora Peaks" in which he alternates footage of himself revisiting his World War 2 locations with pictures of busty women. I suspect that the real reason is that he had simply lost the creative spark that had made him unique.

In 2004 Russ Meyer died. When I heard about his death I cried. I cried because my dreams of his return to film making were over. I cried because a giant of cinema, the greatest director ever, had passed away. I cried because he had died alone, having been dead for two days before his body was found. It might seem a strange thing to say, but after watching the many interviews included on the DVD's of his films I feel that I know and love him.

Farewell, Russ, you will always be remembered. 2000 years from now when names like Spielberg and Lucas are long forgotten, you will still be held high as a pioneer of the film industry.