Supervixens (5 Stars)

Russ Meyer is best known for making "Faster Pussycat Kill Kill", but I consider "Supervixens" to be his best film. It contains more comedy elements than most of his films, but it still contains all the characteristics of his later films. Meyer is my favorite ever director.

Russ Meyer's films take place in a world where the women are strong and the men are weak. The men fall into one of two categories: either they are intelligent and weak, or they are strong and stupid. The women are all intelligent, large-breasted and sexually aggressive. They control the intelligent men by overcoming them physically, and they control the physically strong men by intellectually outwitting them. Meyer's films take place in the southern deserts of the USA, where people live in poverty. The lines are always clearly drawn between black and white, there are no greys. It's always obvious who the good and who the bad people are. Good always triumphs over evil.

The film starts in a small town in Arizona. Clint Ramsay works at a gas station, "Martin Bormann's Super Service". Yes, his boss is the Martin Bormann, Hitler's private secretary who managed to flee at the end of the Second World War. Though it is commonly assumed that he fled to South America, several of Meyer's films show Bormann living in the USA. Clint is married to a beautiful but jealous woman called Super-Angel. They have a fight, and a neighbour calls the police. Police officer Harry Sledge breaks up the dispute.

Clint goes to Super-Haji's bar to get drunk. Harry stays at Clint's house to have sex with Super-Angel. Harry is unable to get an erection, so Super-Angel mocks him. In a rage he kills her and burns the house down. Clint is the only suspect. Super-Haji refuses to give him an alibi because he had refused her sexual advances, so Clint flees, heading west to an undisclosed destination, and the film turns into a surreal road movie. Everywhere he goes he is confronted by busty super-women who cause him problems, with names such as Super-Cherry, Super-Soul and Super-Eula.

Eventually Clint meets a gas station owner called Super-Vixen, and he moves in with her. But his happiness doesn't last long. Harry Sledge visits the gas station by accident, recognises Clint immediately and decides to lure him into the desert to kill him.

This is a film that could only have been made by Russ Meyer. I wish someone else would pick up the baton and make films in a similar style, but since he made his last film in 1979 nobody else has even come close. His films showed a lot of nudity, but they were never pornographic. His films are at the same time a critique on the impotence of men and the impotence of America as a country. I don't expect there will ever be another Russ Meyer, but I hope I'm wrong.