Beneath the Valley of the Ultravixens (5 Stars)

I've always been a fan of Russ Meyer. He changed his style several times over the years, but I like all his films. If I were to rank his films, I'd put "Beneath the Valley of the Ultravixens" in third place, after "Faster Pussycat Kill Kill" and "Supervixens".

Unlike in "Supervixens", the women aren't called Super, but I think you'll agree that everything about Junkyard Sal is super. Sadly, this was the actress June Mack's only film. Five years later she was shot dead in the street. There are various rumours floating around about the motive. Most common is the story that she was the target of a crazed drug dealer, but the killing looked so professional that others think she was the victim of a professional hit man. We'll never know the truth.

The film is narrated by Stuart Lancaster, appearing in his sixth film directed by Russ Meyer. For most of the film we think he's just a random off-screen character, but in the last five minutes we discover that he's Lute, the farmer in "Supervixens". This means that "Beneath the Valley of the Ultravixens" is a quasi-sequel.

Russ Meyer never made another film, apart from the mockumentary "Pandora Peaks", which he seems to have stitched together in a hurry. It's a film I like to ignore. I haven't watched it for 10 years, and it's possible I'll never watch it again. Time will tell.

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Supervixens (5 Stars)

This is something I never thought would happen. "Supervixens" has always been one of my favourite films – in my top 10 – but I've always cursed the poor quality of the DVD. I've been crying out for a Blu-ray release, but now, bang! I'm holding a 4K release in my hand, painstakingly restored from the original negatives by Severin Films. So far, only five of Russ Meyer's films are available on 4K discs, but I'm expecting others will follow.

It's difficult for me to review the film itself, because I've said it all before, especially in this review. That's what you should read if you want to know more about the film. I apologise for the poor quality screenshots from the DVD. Maybe I should go back and replace the images. I'll consider it, if I have time.

Russ Meyer's films are gloriously inappropriate. Who else would show a naked woman lying in the hay doing a Hitler salute?

Many people don't like Russ Meyer's films because they don't understand them. Others dislike his films because they do understand them and disagree with his messages. Whatever they think, Russ Meyer was a visionary genius. His films will live forever. Hopefully in 4K.

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Supervixens (5 Stars)

Dancer's Top Films #10

There are films that are impossible to file under any one genre. Is "Supervixens" a road movie? Is it a comedy? Is it a political satire? Is it a fairy tale? Is it a sex film? Is it a neofeminist propaganda film?

It's all of them and more.

While anyone who sees the film for the first time might be shocked and confused, fans of Russ Meyer will laugh and say "It's typical Russ Meyer".

The opening credits are accompanied by the Nazi marching song, "Heil Hitler Dir". I wanted to quote the lyrics here, but they're so disgusting that I'm ashamed to post them on my blog. You can easily find them online if you search. Was Russ Meyer a Nazi? Far from it! He frequently spoke out against political extremism on both sides of the political spectrum. By using racist political imagery in his films, he was just acknowledging a fact. Racism exists. We all know that it's bad, but if we don't talk about it, it'll grow stronger.

The film's hero, if he can be called that, is Clint Ramsay. He's a poor, not too intelligent man, who lives somewhere in the South of the USA. "Supervixens" was filmed in Arizona, but it could be anywhere. Clint's curse is that he's irresistible to women. He does his best to fight them off, and he suffers as a result.

Clint works at a gas station owned by Martin Bormann, Hitler's former private secretary. As everyone who watches Russ Meyer's films knows, he survived the war and fled to America, where he became a respected citizen. In this film he's a lowly gas station owner, but in "Beneath the Valley of the Ultravixens" he's worked his way up to become the owner of a Christian radio station. In America anything is possible.

At least, that's the theory. Look at the town where they live. The houses look like they've been built in a scrap yard, surrounded by junk and poor farms. There might be an American dream, but this is the American nightmare.

People who take a quick glance at Russ Meyer's films see the naked women with large breasts and shrug them off as films that exploit women. The opposite is the case. The women are in control, and they use their nudity to get what they want. There are three archetypes in Russ Meyer's films, two male archetypes and one female archetype. The men fall into one of two categories.

The first type of man is weak and stupid, but sexually capable.

The second type of man is strong and stupid, but sexually impotent.

The women are all strong, intelligent and sexually demanding.

Women use the first type of men for their sexual pleasure. They ridicule the second type of men. In fact, they ridicule both groups. They demand more and more sex from a man, and when he's eventually worn out they laugh at him.

This is Clint's wife, Super Angel. Do you find the name strange? All the women in the film are called Super. It shows their position in the pecking order. Super Angel is fiercely jealous of Clint. She constantly suspects him of infidelity, even though he fights off women all the time. She's isn't faithful to him. She's quick to jump into bed with any man she likes. That's her privilege as a Super woman.

This is Super Lorna, tempting Clint at the gas station. She wants to drag him into the men's room, but luckily Martin Bormann drags Clint away. Nazis can be useful at times.

Back home, Clint and Super Angel get into a fight over his alleged infidelity. A neighbour calls the police. Along comes Sheriff Harry Sledge, who throws Clint in jail to cool down for a few hours. Super Angel wants Harry as a replacement for her husband, but she's disappointed. Harry belongs to the second type of men. When she laughs at his sexual inability, he kills her and frames Clint.

At the time of Super Angel's death, Clint was sitting in Super Haji's bar getting drunk. She could have given him an alibi, but she was angry with him because he'd refused to have sex with her. So Clint flees, hitchhiking across the USA towards the West. Everywhere he goes he meets Superwomen who want his body.

After turning down Super Cherry, she kicks Clint in the groin so hard that he's left lying unconscious at the roadside.

Clint is rescued by a farmer, but his wife Super Soul needs another man.

Clint flees from the farm and rents a room in a motel, where he's accosted by the motel owner's daughter, Super Eula.

Incidentally, this is her father. As Eddie said in "Jurassic Park: The Lost World", there's not much of a family resemblance.

On the run again, Clint finally arrives at Super Vixen's Oasis. Water in the desert. I told you it's a fairy tale! Until now he's resisted every woman who wanted him, but Super Vixen is different. She reminds him of his wife, which is hardly surprising, because she's played by the same actress, Shari Eubank.

"My name is Supervixen. My friends call me Vix".

Super Vixen gives Clint a job, and they become lovers. And they all lived happily ever after?

Not quite. I have to leave a few things open.

This is an absolutely brilliant film. It's not as culturally significant as "Faster Pussycat Kill Kill", but I still think it's Russ Meyer's best film. For unfathomable reasons it's been out of print in America and the UK for years. It can still be bought in Germany.

The Seven Minutes (4 Stars)

"The Seven Minutes" is one of Russ Meyer's rarest films. It has never been released on DVD in its own right. It was included as an extra feature on a limited edition release of "Beneath the Valley of the Dolls". I was lucky enough to buy it when it was first released, because it's now out of print.

This is one of Russ's most serious films. It deals with a topic that was close to his heart: censorship. Maybe the 1970's were more liberal than the 1950's, but there were still attempts by the moral right wing of America to outlaw everything it didn't like. In this case it's a highly artistic novel in which a woman describes, in seven chapters, the seven minutes she spends in the act of sexual intercourse. But it's a general subject that affected Russ himself. His films, which he made from 1959 to 1979, were considered outrageous by some, but the pinnacle of erotic art by others. It's no secret which side I take in the debate.

The great actor Charles Napier only appears briefly in the film's opening scenes. I consider him to be the most underrated actor who has ever lived. He should have had a breakthrough while he was young, but he spent most of his career typecast as a square-jawed soldier. It's true, he did have a square jaw, but there was so much more to him.

Mora Gray only appeared in three films from 1968 to 1983. This was her biggest role. She's the rather distracting secretary in the lawyer's office. How did anyone manage to get any work done?

Beneath the Valley of the Ultravixens (5 Stars)

"Gimme that old time religion, it's good enough for me".

This is the 17th film in the Russ Meyer Collection, made in 1979. It can be considered a sequel to the 15th film, "Supervixens", because a lot of the characters return.

In "Supervixens" Martin Bormann owned a petrol station. He's now come up in the world. He owns a Christian radio station, which earns him a lot more money, judging by the Mercedes he drives. The radio evangelist who works for him is Eufala Roop, who was briefly introduced as "Tom's other wife" in "Supervixens". So she was (or still is) in a bigamous relationship? That doesn't matter. God forgives everything.

The farmer Lute returns, this time as the film's narrator, together with his wife Super-Soul. I never mentioned Super-Soul in my review of "Supervixens" that I wrote yesterday. Silly me. How could I have ignored her? Super-Soul is played in both films by the Swedish actress Uschi Digard, one of the most beautiful actresses who has ever lived. She also played Soul in "Cherry, Harry and Raquel", but that was a different character.

The film's moral, if any, is that religion heals everything. In the case of this film the man in need of healing is Lamar. He can only find sexual satisfaction when he has anal sex, much to the disgust of his wife Lavonia. Let me digress for a moment. In the past few years pornography has become widely available on the Internet. Today's pornography isn't much different to the pornography 20 or 30 years ago. The difference is that it's easily available and discreetly available, even to young teenagers. In the past they couldn't have walked into a sex shop to buy it, but now they can download it for free. Pornography is the first sex education that many young people receive. One of the lessons taught by pornography is that anal sex is normal and all women like it. Nothing could be further from the truth. Most women don't enjoy anal sex and would only do it occasionally to please a man. It's pleasurable to men, especially men with smaller penises, because the back hole is tighter than the vagina, but it only gives women limited pleasure. It's impossible to stop young teenagers watching pornography, but they need to be warned about the false lessons it gives them.

Back to the film. Lamar tries everything to cure his problem, including a visit to the local dentist who doubles as a marriage counsellor, but in the end the only thing that can heal him is being baptised by Sister Eufala Roop. Hallelujah!

The film's sub-plots are as important as the main story itself. In his usual satirical manner Russ Meyer presents the town as living the American dream. The biggest dream of aspiring entrepreneurs is to have their own junk yard, even if they have to kill the previous owner to get it. It's a world in which everyone fights everyone else to possess junk.

Instead of his usual brief cameo there's an extended scene with Russ Meyer at the end of the film. Lute the narrator goes home to his wife, and Russ takes over the narration, giving his own take on the moral guilt or innocence of the film's characters. Interestingly, his judgement of all is kind and forgiving. That's the film's message. Religion heals everything. Religion forgives everything.

Supervixens (5 Stars)

This is the 15th film in the Russ Meyer Collection, made in 1975. It's probably his best film, a social commentary on America, law and order and gender roles. In the film all the women are super, and all the men are not super. America definitely isn't super, and neither is the American legal system.

Clint Ramsay doesn't have much of a life. He lives in a small house in the desert and works at a petrol station that belongs to the Nazi war criminal Martin Bormann. He shares his house with his girlfriend, Super-Angel. After a domestic dispute he's arrested by the policeman Harry Sledge, played by the magnificent Charles Napier. He's released from jail, but Super-Angel won't allow him back into the house because she's spending time with Harry. The evening doesn't go well. Super-Angel mocks Harry's lack of virility, so he kills her and frames Clint for the murder.

Clint flees across America, encountering superwomen wherever he goes. He tries to be a gentleman, refusing to have sex with them however much they insist. That's a mistake. By refusing the superwomen what they want he's punished, directly or indirectly. In a world where the women are super and the men aren't super, the men have to obey.

Eventually Clint meets a woman called Super-Vixen and moves into her luxurious cabin, pictured above. That's the American dream, a home to call your own. They have a few short weeks of peace, before Harry discovers them by accident. Harry is determined to kill Clint and anyone who's close to him. What follows is a fight to the death, overseen by the spirit of Super-Angel. It seems that she approves of Clint's new lover. After all, Super-Angel and Super-Vixen are played by the same actress, Shari Eubank.

As usual, Russ Meyer does a brief cameo, this time as a motel manager. Be careful, if you blink you'll miss him.

Cherry, Harry and Raquel (5 Stars)

"Whereas science has not yet proved the harmful effects of marijuana on the human body, there is little question concerning the corrupting influence on its users and purveyors".

This is the 13th film in the Russ Meyer Collection, made in 1969. It's another tale of morality. Russ had too many ideas for one film. It's like he was bursting to tell us what was on his mind. The film itself can be divided into four sections.

1. Russ Meyer lectures us on the importance of freedom of opinion.
2. Russ Meyer lectures us on the evil of marijuana (or rather, the evil of the marijuana trade).
3. The film itself.
4. Russ Meyer analyses the moral culpability of the film's main characters.

The film's central character is Harry, the deputy sheriff of San Luis, Arizona. He's played by Charles Napier, in my opinion the most underrated actor ever. He died in 2011 without ever achieving the big Hollywood breakthrough that he deserved. Harry has been making money on the side by helping a politician called Franklin smuggle drugs into the USA. Harry used the income from the drugs smuggling to buy the luxurious mansion pictured below. Maybe the drugs trade doesn't pay so well after all?

Franklin is getting old and has decided to quit the drugs trade. Harry grudgingly agrees, but another of Franklin's employees, an Apache Indian called Geronimo, wants to continue smuggling drugs by himself. Franklin is worried that things might go wrong, bringing bad publicity for himself, so he asks Harry to kill Geronimo, aided by a Mexican immigrant called Enrique.

So who are Cherry and Raquel? Cherry is Harry's wife, and Raquel is a prostitute who regularly visits Franklin. They naively build a lesbian relationship with one another while the violent struggle with Geronimo is going on around them. In typical Russ Meyer style, the final scene shows alternating cuts of Harry and Geronino fighting to the death while Cherry and Raquel's bodies are writhing in passion. In a ballet of existentialist absurdity the motions of the two fighters and the two lovers are almost identical.

This is possibly Russ Meyer's most surreal film. The controlling force in the film is an all-powerful Goddess called Soul. In herself she's invisible, but she frequently co-exists with the main characters. It's not that she occupies the body of a character to control him, she simply takes the place of that person, visible to us, the viewers, but unseen within the film. For instance, whenever we see a close up of Geronimo in the early scenes he's a naked woman, Soul. Does that make sense? Not really. It's like a crazy dream.

In the moral summing up all the men are guilty, all the women are innocent. Harry is a man "no different from anyone else", not thankful for what he has. Enrique is a greedy young man looking to make a quick buck. Geronimo is a native American who has given up his pride for the sake of money. Franklin is the ringmaster of evil, tempting everyone around him to sin. Only Cherry and Raquel are innocents, living for love. But who will judge us? Soul is the all-powerful Goddess who will reward the women and punish the men.

There's one thing I've failed to mention in my previous reviews of the Russ Meyer Collection. In almost all of his films Russ Meyer appears briefly in a cameo. In "Cherry, Harry and Raquel" we see him in a swimming pool with Soul. How does Soul judge Russ? He created her, but that doesn't earn him any special favours. More importantly, she's looking directly at us, the viewers, observing us, judging us mercilessly.

Are those Soul's words, or Russ's own words? It doesn't matter. Think about it.

THINK ABOUT IT!

The Seven Minutes (3 Stars)

I'm a big fan of the director Russ Meyer. I've seen all his films many times over. Almost all his films. This is the first time I've seen "The Seven Minutes", made in 1971, because it's never been released on DVD. I managed to find a fuzzy copy online which someone had obviously recorded from television to VCR. That's better than nothing for a fan like me.

Unfortunately, it soon became apparent to me why it has never been officially released. It's a courtroom drama. Russ Meyer? A courtroom drama? That's so far outside of his usual genres that it's difficult to believe. The only thing that made it at all Russ-Meyer-ish is the subject matter of the court case. In most of his films he made blunt statements condemning censorship and appealing for everyone to demand free speech. Russ Meyer was a true American, by which I mean that he believed 100% in the ideals of the American constitution and hated all modern attempts to subtly undermine it.

The film begins with a police operation in which a book shop is raided and all copies of a book called "The Seven Minutes", written by J. J. Jadaway (not Irving Wallace, as in the photo above) were seized, because the book was deemed to contain pornographic content. On the same day a 20-year-old boy is arrested for raping and beating up a girl he met, leaving her in a coma.  After the boy's arrest a copy of "The Seven Minutes" is found in his car, suggesting that the book is so evil that it drives people who read it to commit rape. (We actually see that the boy didn't do it, it was someone else, but the girl is comatose and unable to verify his story. This isn't relevant to the film, because it has to do with the trial against the bookshop owner).

The way the book is treated is almost unbelievable. Almost nobody has read it when the trial begins. Instead of reading it himself the prosecutor visits a Catholic priest to ask about the book. The priest hasn't read it either, but he has a report about the book written 30 years earlier. In court witnesses are called who have read the book, some calling it pornographic, others calling it a beautiful work of art.

For me this wasn't a real Russ Meyer film. It contained the erratic film editing typical for his films, rapidly cutting from one angle to another, but in this film his editing techniques seemed out of place.

The photo above isn't a mistake. In 1969 Irving Wallace wrote a novel called "The Seven Minutes" about a fictional book with the same name, and Russ Meyer based his film on Irving Wallace's novel. The fictional novelist J. J. Jadaway was based on the author Maurice Girodias, a writer of erotic fiction, of whom many of his books had been banned. A few years after the film was made Maurice Girodias wrote a book called "The Original Seven Minutes", claiming to be the book on which Irving Wallace's novel was based. Legal action was taken against him. He had to change the title to "The Seven Erotic Minutes" and remove any claims that there was a connection with Irving Wallace.

The Toy Box (3½ Stars)

This is a film that's screaming for a remake. It has so many good ideas in it, but it's let down by the poor production quality. It was made in 1970 when the technical possibilities didn't exist that we have today. The script should be reused for a big budget horror film.

Donna works for her uncle, who is the ultimate voyeur. He pays people to come to his castle for sex parties, so that he can sit and watch them. Donna's boyfriend Ralph travels all over the world to find people of different races and skin colours to take part. They are extravagant parties, with role-playing scenes such as Roman gladiatorial fights, but they always end as mass orgies.

Donna and Ralph don't usually take part in the parties, but this is a special occasion. The uncle has died, and his last wish is that for his wake there should be one last orgy around his corpse. The party begins as normal, but then strange things begin to happen. Guests are murdered and decapitated. Random men and women become possessed by an unseen force and kill their sex partners. Ralph and Donna try to escape, but the doors are locked.

I have mixed feelings about the film. The combination of sex and horror works well, but the horror scenes are let down by poor special effects. Some of the ideas can only have come from a very twisted mind, such as the possessed bed sheets which rape and kill a woman. Then there's the butcher who keeps dead women on meat hooks. He unhooks a woman so that he can have sex with her decaying corpse, but while he's in the act she comes back to life as a zombie and kills him. It's all very fascinating, but it could have been done better. The film should be remade.

Beneath the Valley of the Ultravixens (5 Stars)

This was Russ Meyer's last film, made in 1979. Ironically, it was the first film of his I saw. I still remember going to watch it at a cinema on Stuttgart's main street, the Königstraße, which is now known to the world after being shown in "The Avengers" (or "Avengers Assemble", or "Marvel's Avengers Assemble", or whatever they finally decided to call it). The cinema was next door to a comic shop I used to visit, Heinzelmännchen, a great shop which unfortunately closed down in 2005. But let's try to keep to the subject. The film was advertised with a series of photos of nude women outside the cinema. I shook my head, amazed that a porn film should be shown in a serious cinema on the main street. In those days I was less open-minded than I am now, I disapproved of pornography. A day or two later I read a review of the film in the local newspaper, the Stuttgarter Zeitung, praising the film enthusiastically as a political satire. I thought I should give it a look. And I wasn't disappointed. From then on I watched all of Meyer's previous films in the cinema. (German cinemas frequently show older films, not just new releases).

The film's plot may sound seedy, but look below the surface. Lamar Shedd is a young man from Smalltown, Texas, doing a university correspondence course, despite his IQ of 37. He can only find satisfaction by having anal sex, much to the distress of his wife Lavonia. Lamar works for Smalltown's main business, Sal's Junk Yard, where old cars are recycled to make Polaris missiles. Sal is a tough boss, threatening to fire any employees who don't have sex with her. Lavonia also has sex with Lamar's colleagues, since she doesn't find any satisfaction in doing it Lamar's way. The film's soundtrack is German wartime marching music and Christian hymns.

The film is a sequel to "Supervixens". We see the return of Martin Bormann, who now owns the local Christian radio station, Rio Dio, "100,000 Watts of healing power". Since the last film he's developed a taste for having sex in coffins. His partner is Rio Dio's host, the faith healer Eufala Roop. The film's narrator is Lute, the farmer from "Supervixens". His family is now involved in incest, but what else can we expect in small town America? The film ends with the promise of another sequel called "The Jaws of Vixen", a film that was never made.

The film breaks through the third wall, in a meta-film style. As the film draws to a close the narrator speaks to Russ and draws him into the film. From this point Russ takes over the narration himself. Maybe Russ suspected this might be his last film. He shows some distress that the film crew has gone home and he's been left alone on the set. The only person left with him is Martin Bormann, lying asleep in his coffin.

Russ Meyer lived another 25 years after making this film. He announced that he had plans to make a mammoth film, an eight-hour epic, but it never happened. When his friends encouraged him to make more films he sadly said that nobody was interested any more; people only wanted pornography, not art. Russ's films had evolved from the nudist films of the early 1960's. Lots of nudity, but no explicit sex. Those days had gone, in his opinion. I disagree with him. If he had continued to make films in his own style, without compromises, people would still have watched them. There is a big gap left in the film world since his death, or rather since 1979. We need another Russ Meyer. Doesn't anyone out there have the talent and the vision to pick up where he left off?

As a certain popular book tells us, "A prophet is not accepted in his home town". Russ Meyer is American, but very few of his films have ever been released on DVD in America. He has much greater popularity in Europe than in America. In America it's mostly film freaks who know and admire him. In the TV series "Dawson's Creek" Russ's name was mentioned in conversation several times, usually by Dawson, the aspiring film director. I wonder how many of the viewers knew who he was talking about.

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.