As Russ Meyer stumbled to the finish line of the nudie cutie craze, it was apparent that he was a filmmaker of commanding energy and imagination that had run through the proverbial store and exhausted it of its contents. 1963’s Heavenly Bodies, his last true nudie cutie, is indicative of both conceits. For Heavenly Bodies is quite literally a segmented movie in the same spirit as Erotica that gives full-throated articulation, in numerous anecdotal ways, how the photography of beautiful women is the cornerstone to most commerce through advertising. Throughout each segment in the film, Meyer covers his models in every conceivable pose and situation in an attempt to justify the film’s reason for being. Unfortunately, the film is nothing more than a treatise on the decidedly uncontroversial opinion that, if you already weren’t aware, sex sells.
Heavenly Bodies may not, in fact, even be a real nudie cutie. It’s sort of a combination between a nudie cutie and a pseudo-documentary on photography. This film is little more than Meyer shooting various cameramen shooting models in various states of undress; like a distilled Brian De Palma sexploitation picture in which the movie audience watches people within the movie watching. I might go so far as to say that this might be of equal interest for fans of Meyer’s parade of buxom women or those who have a raw enthusiasm for photography.
And just because the film is trite and silly and exhausted of anything that would make it work as entertainment, there is no denying Meyer’s skill for framing and composition. Some of the earliest images in the film wherein the camera is foregrounded aside Meyer’s models stunningly resemble the split-diopter shots that famously pepper the films of the aforementioned Brian De Palma. Additionally, the segment featuring Nancy Andre has a wild, unbridled energy that would later propel Mudhoney and Vixen showing, once again, that these nudie cuties were just woodshedding opportunities for Meyer. Just as the upshot view through the bed springs first made its storied appearance in Wild Gals of the Naked West, the utilisation of the model in the spinning Danish chair looks suspiciously like a key moment in Cherry, Harry and Raquel!.
Perhaps one of the film’s most interesting and revealing moments comes in the second segment as Russ Meyer leads his fellow buddies in the Army’s 166th Signal Photo Company out in the woods to photograph Althea Currier and Monica Strand. Less cheeky than some of the narration in this and the other films before it, Meyer almost deftly uses a photo field trip and all of its trappings to show a metaphoric group sex orgy in which almost every single line of narration could be taken as wry double-entendre. And it is only in this portion of the film that Meyer’s talent and wit collide to make something interesting. “Was your class reunion anything like this?” the narrator asks as Meyer’s buddies all snap away at the ladies as he stands behind them and directs them all. This is Meyer in a metaphoric nutshell. He was a tough, no-nonsense man who took his work very seriously but he was famously big-hearted and generous to friends and loved-ones. Meyer loved to work but he also liked to show people a good time and to be the ringmaster of such journeys. Here, the idea is made flesh and Meyer is showing his Army buddies, the closest friends he ever had, just how awesome his life is surrounded by tits and ass, encouraging them to indulge themselves.
But, honestly, that’s about all that can be said about Heavenly Bodies, the merciful end to Russ Meyer’s nudie cutie period. It’s a dull, mostly rote affair that, at 55 minutes, feels a little incomplete. But the fault in the film is more or less due to the depletion of the tank. For even after blazing the trail and exploring its outer limits, Meyer could still find ways to make the dullest of the sexploitation subgenres achieve a certain artistry in their visual execution.
That said, I sure am glad he only made a finite amount of them.
(C) Copyright 2022, Patrick Crain
Patrick Crain is a freelance writer and film programmer for the Oklahoma Film Society. He spends his days in semi-retirement by pacing around his home in Oklahoma City, watching movies, writing about them, and then pouring wine for both he and his wife at around 4:30CST. His scribblings about the motion pictures can be found at www.apollotwin.com. He can be found on Instagram here and on Twitter here. He is also on Letterboxd.
Everyone is a collector of something. Human beings seem to find a ‘thing’ that they love, cling on to it for dear life and hoard as much of it as they can to bring them joy, pride and, occasionally, money. I have yet to meet anyone who doesn’t collect something, or used to house a collection of items in their past. I’ve collected many things during my 33year existence, the most prolific being movie posters and memorabilia. It’s addictive, sometimes expensive, and it quickly grows on you. Eventually I realised that I needed to downsize; there were a lot of things I owned that sparked a joy within me, but ultimately I felt that they no longer had a place in my life. During the pandemic I decided to start selling off a lot of what I had acquired and decided to focus my personal collection on solely collecting and building my own Russ Meyer archive. As I said last November, my plan is to overhaul this blog over time, eventually turning it into a (predominantly) online Meyer archive (with the odd non-Meyer related article), and I will add the various pieces of memorabilia that I have amassed on here too for visual records. Whilst looking for articles for this years MEYER MONTH I stumbled across this short piece on WorthPoint, which as a collector and fan I found quite interesting, so I’m hoping that some of you will too.The original can be found here, but I have transcribed it below.
‘The Immoral Mr. Teas’ US 1-Sheet poster, 1959. Sex and humor were good bed-fellows from very early on in Meyer’s films. (Photo: http://www.emovieposter.com)
Like it or not, sex sells! Unsurprisingly, sex figures prominently in popular culture through history. Early movies were quick to capitalize on sex, although the introduction of the Hays Code in 1930 and the resulting strict censorship kept things fairly buttoned up for nearly four decades.
The more laissez-faire attitudes following the Second World War, however, resulted in a steady move to explore sex on screen in more daring ways. Most often, sex was used purely for commercial exploitation and pretensions of high art did not figure into the mix. One of the earliest—and most successful—directors to mine the oeuvre was Russ Meyer (1922-2004).
Christie’s Rate Russ Meyer In December 2005, Christie’s held an auction of “Exploitation Art” in London. The first 15 lots in the auction were all for Russ Meyer movies. This was an important event, as it brought validation to collectors of the associated genres. The first Christie’s lot featured a poster for ‘The Immoral Mr. Teas‘ (1959), this being Meyer’s debut movie. Being an early such poster, a light-hearted risqué experience was suggested whilst genuine eroticism took a back seat. Nice examples of this poster will cost $300-400.
Time Marches on and Clothes Fall Off Within five to six years, the dawn of the new “permissive age” meant that Meyer was able to document the activities of his buxom starlets with increasing quotients of nudity. By this time, the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) abandoned the Production Code in favor of the new MPAA film rating system . Poster advertising was always constrained by virtue of being on public view, but compared to ‘Mr. Teas‘ the poster for ‘Up!‘ (1966) shows how things had progressed. ‘Up!‘ shows that Meyer and artist Tom Chantrell were clearly on the same wavelength. (SIDE NOTE FROM LYDIA – ‘Up!’ was actually released in 1976 and not 1966. The poster referenced is the British quad poster that was made for the 1976 release in the UK. Tom Chantrell was a wonderful British artist who designed and painted some amazing film posters, some of which you will recognise from their now iconic and historical imagery. You can buy posters, promotional materials and original artwork from his estate.)
The quad poster focused on the key ingredient of Meyer’s movies (i.e., large breasts), and his tongue-in-cheek illustration for the poster is eye-popping in its outrageousness. The coincidence of these two collectable names means this poster can command prices of $600-$700. Also from 1966 is ‘Mondo Topless‘. The increasing adventure and ribald nature of Meyer’s films meant that in the UK, this film failed to gain a release until 1984. At this point, a quad poster with a retro feel was commissioned. The poster clearly promised an abundance of female flesh and has become a much sought after Meyer classic (valued at $500-$600).
‘Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!‘ US 1-Sheet poster, 1965. This is an original from 1965, but be careful as the 1995 re-release looks similar. (Photo: http://www.impawards.com)
Violence & Inter-Racial Sex Spice Things Up Of course, Meyer had company on both sides of the Atlantic as copycat nudie films and copious low-budget sex-comedy movies were being churned out. Unless illustrated by collectable poster artists (Chantrell, Peffer, etc.), most such movie posters are of limited interest. Meyer’s response to the competition was to shift from the tongue-in-cheek humor of his earlier films to embrace more adult themes. ‘Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!’ (1965), for instance, featured some significant violence. The fact that the violence was being perpetrated by three buxom strippers on hapless males, however, still stamped the film with Meyer’s trademark fascination for all things mammary! Original 1965 US 1-sheet releases will cost you $1,750 to $2,000.
Original Poster Artwork Wets the Appetite Until the 1990s, most movie posters in both Britain and the US were based on painted illustrations and, unfortunately, the bulk of this original artwork was lost. Some artists never got back their work back while others who did sometimes trashed it themselves! As movie poster collecting has gathered force over the past three decades, poster values and appreciation of the artists behind the posters has developed as well. We have already touched upon the “match made in heaven” between Meyer and the British artist Chantrell, whose deliciously over-the-top artwork for the 1981 British re-release of ‘Vixen!‘ (1968) and ‘Cherry, Harry and Raquel!’ (1970) is a good example. Painted on artboard with an acetate overlay for the text, this piece encapsulates Meyer’s idiosyncratic and irreverent contribution to the world of 20th Century cinema. Expect to pay in the region of $3,500-$4,000 for similar pieces of original artwork.
Conclusion For many years, aficionados of sexploitation movie posters were regarded as fringe participants in the world of movie poster collecting. This sector is still relatively under-valued but certain movie-makers stand out. Russ Meyer is one such leading light. Meyer posters vary in price but an entry level for most pockets is available. If you’re broad-minded and have a sense of humor, then this just might be the place for you!
Mike Bloomfield has been collecting cinema & music memorabilia, with a particular focus on UK concert memorabilia & quad cinema posters from the 1960s and 70s, for 30 years. He runs the two MEM Music and Cinema Memorabilia websites — RockPopMemand MoviePosterMem, holds private exhibitions too, provides insurance valuations, a consultancy service to the auction industry, and has contributed to various book publications. You can e-mail him at info@memcollect.co.uk.
One of the drawbacks of the nudie-cutie film is that there are just so many interesting ways to show nudity for nudity’s sake for the sixty minutes that made up the average length of the movies. Most of the time, as was the case with The Immoral Mr. Teas and Eve and the Handyman, the films were a string of adult party jokes come to life in episodic fashion. In Erotica, Russ Meyer’s third feature, there is more emphasis on the episodic as the film is built out of what literally feels like a series of differing nude scenarios with Meyer and Jack Moran’s corny narration spot-welded to the images after the fact.
Beginning as an industrial film about the construction of a motion picture, Erotica jumps off the screen with Meyer’s strong visual flourishes that promises to unleash a more sophisticated nudie film than the two previous productions and one that hints that it may in fact act as a meta commentary on them; kind of like Herschell Gordon Lewis’s Boin-n-g from 1964 but… you know… good. It jumps with a breathless narration that employs Russ Meyer’s trademark double entendres, equating the filmmaking process to masturbation in a cadence that makes you feel like you’re going to be asked to buy something by the time it’s all over.
However, once the film opens up, Erotica becomes a hugely hit or miss affair. Its segmented structure serves it well as if you find yourself stuck in the tedium of a segment, you can bet that it will likely end soon. However, that same structure is what causes the film to lurch forth in fits and starts which does not help the sixty minute running time move any quicker. Truth be told, Eroticatruly feels like a Meyer sizzle reel that he may have carted around to living room parties with him; kind of like an animated portfolio to the discerning viewer, as it were. The filmmaker’s unsettled legs are apparent as he rocks back and forth between these well-staged pieces of breathing cheesecake and moments in which there seems to be an honest sexual expression that doesn’t feel like a wax put-on. Like putting Esquivel on the jukebox and looking at what once passed as your great-grandfather’s porn stash, Erotica has a kitschy charm that cannot be denied and, on a technical level, it’s quite good. But composition and color aren’t the film’s major problem as much as time is. The humor is a mixed bag of cornpone laffs for the hicks with some inspired moments that are reminiscent of a slower and bawdier Rocky and Bullwinkle episode. But hardly any of it works today which moves this further away from “entertainment” and into the arms of “museum piece.”
In watching the film, though, I began to wonder if the overwhelming feminine appeal for Meyer’s work rests not only in the agency and representation of the strong, independent, and dominate female characters but also in his gravitation to the Rubenesque, where dimples, rolls, and imperfections were all part of the package. Sure, they’re objectified, but they also seem more than exploited; they seem genuinely loved. That said, when compared to Eve and the Handyman, Erotica reflects a clear difference between women who Meyer directs and women who direct Meyer. Erotica is too much of the former and not enough of the latter and Meyer was at his best when his sexual drive and his creative energy were both motivated by a insatiable sense of wanting to be dominated by 50% hard-ass mom and 50% woman he wanted to sleep with. He could set up brilliant compositions of women in pools in his sleep. Creating something while completely obsessed with the central figure? Now THAT would be a real challenge.
Some of the framing in a few of the vignettes appear to be dry runs for much later work such as Supervixens and Cherry, Harry, Raquel!, further giving credence to the idea that Meyer used the nudie cutie to give the audiences what they wanted but also to employ trial and error in seeing what created the most aesthetic and sexual value on screen. By the time he got to his Gothic period three years later with the potent Lorna, he had an arsenal of shots, angles, and visual framing in his back pocket that allowed him to move through his productions like a hot knife though butter while creating something bold and artistic at the same time.
In the end, Erotica doesn’t add up to anything much but is still a fascinating addition to the evolution of Meyer from nudie huckster to narrative trickster. While that metamorphosis occurred in a herky-jerky manner, all points of interest are worth exploring given the incalculable amount of value Meyer gave to American film.
(C) Copyright 2021, Patrick Crain
Patrick Crain is a freelance writer and film programmer for the Oklahoma Film Society. He spends his days in semi-retirement by pacing around his home in Oklahoma City, watching movies, writing about them, and then pouring wine for both he and his wife at around 4:30CST. His scribblings about the motion pictures can be found at www.apollotwin.com. He can be found on Instagram here and on Twitter here. He is also on Letterboxd.
On the 21st of March this year legendary Director Russ Meyer would have celebrated his 100th Birthday. I am delighted to bring back MEYER MONTH for this special occasion and am very excited to share a variety of articles on the man which I hope you will all find interesting and enjoyable. Whilst looking for some additional pieces online I came across this fantastic write up on Meyer’s 1970 release Beyond The Valley Of The Dolls by Joshua Ray, who has kindly given me permission to re-post it on this site. It was originally written as a supplement piece to an online screening and discussion of the film at Cinema St. Louis in September 2020 celebrating the films 50th Anniversary, the original post can be found here.
Beyond the Valley of the Dolls: In a Scene Like This, You Get a Contact High
Altman, Scorsese, Coppola, Bogdanovich, May, Nichols, Ashby, Friedkin, Mazursky, De Palma, and even Speilberg and Lucas: These are the names most commonly associated with New Hollywood. The movement – as it can be seen now – was born when the long-established American studios failed to keep up with radical cultural shifts during the ’60s and began to follow the money. Audiences were flocking to products from the tightened purse strings of the likes of Roger Corman, who spat out films quickly and on the cheap with total budgets comparable to one studio picture’s craft services.
With themes and content catering to increasingly liberal cultural values, some of these B-movies eventually moved away from the bottom half of a double bill at drive-ins and onto more accessible neighborhood screens. The Trip, the 1967 Peter Fonda-starring, LSD-fueled road movie directed and produced by Corman for independent studio American International Pictures, reportedly sold 60 times its original budget of $100,000 in tickets. Soon after, the next Zeitgeist-tapping, Peter Fonda-starring motorcycle odyssey, the inexpensive and independently produced Easy Rider, took the fourth spot at the 1969 box office – just above 20th Century Fox’s costly Broadway musical adaptation of Hello, Dolly!. In looking at their shrinking profit margins against the indies’ growing ones, all bets were called off for the major studios.
They let the outsiders in – the aforementioned film-school “movie brats,” television directors, comedians, and film critics among them – to exercise their cinematic creativity within budgetary limitations, mimicking producers like Corman by giving opportunities to the hip unproved. Many of the 1970 titles in Cinema St. Louis’ 2020 edition of Golden Anniversaries are, in one way or another, beneficiaries of the old guard’s new school of thought – including M.A.S.H., The Traveling Executioner, Performance, Husbands, and even eventual Best Picture Oscar winner Patton (co-written by pioneering movie brat Francis Ford Coppola).
“King Leer” himself, the breast-obsessed auteur Russ Meyer, is almost never mentioned among this New Hollywood elite. However, his Beyond the Valley of the Dolls – one of the most profitable films featured in this year’s festival’s crop – is wholly representative of the time and the conditions that sparked the movement. Half a century on, the satire fueled by sex, drugs, and rock ’n’ roll has grown in stature, but mostly only among those willing to accept that trash can also be nurturing. Purveyors of great cinema, the Criterion Collection has released the film under its exalted banner, but, again, even that seems to come with caveats. Beyond the Valley of the Dolls is largely – and, with its sexploitation-satire origins and hyper-horny telling, understandably – regarded as a kitsch object suprême. The Pope of Trash himself, John Waters, has said that Meyer made the greatest movie ever made – and ever will be made – in Faster, Pussycat, Kill! Kill! (1965). Admittedly, Waters is as erudite and knowledgeable a cinephile as any, but his claim can open the door for dismissal from those with “refined” “good” “taste.”
Who needs those squares anyway? Meyer and his first Dream Factory foray (his second, The Seven Minutes [1971], is a fans-only curio) may represent a small blip on the timeline of narrative American filmmaking during the ’70s, but this color-splashed, widescreen spectacle is among the most incredible products to ever come from the studio system.
After Jacqueline Susann failed twice at writing a sequel to the 1967 film based on her sensational book Valley of the Dolls, 20th Century Fox had to do something with the Beyond title to which they owned the rights. In comes Meyer, a World War II battleground cameraman turned independent filmmaker whose 1968 sexploitation flick, Vixen!, reportedly had a profit margin even wider than that of The Trip. He and his screenwriting recruit Roger Ebert, who had written positively about the director’s cinematic prowess in the pages of the Chicago Sun-Times, were invited behind the studio gates to take a stab at something original. (To be fair, Mark Robson’s adaptation of Susann’s book might fit in well with Meyer’s backwoods hothouse melodramas Lorna [1964] and Mudhoney [1965] if it changed locales, added some large bare breasts, and were more self-aware.)
The idea that the contemporary king of pornography and the future’s most well-known film critic – along with a cast of Playboy Playmates, nonprofessional actors, scenesters, and the Strawberry Alarm Clock – successfully invaded the system is so outlandish, a script of the making of Beyond has been circulating around Hollywood for the past few years as its own feature – at one point with Will Ferrell attached to play Meyer. But the concept seems redundant because the film itself is already one of the most evocative of its era. Straddling (ahem) the line between parody of and homage to traditional Hollywood tropes, Meyer’s anarchic sex romp signaled a death knell for both old-fashioned modes of filmmaking and the “All You Need is Love” era that had already violently soured since its inception.
Screenwriter Ebert has said that during the writing process he and Meyer threw in everything and the kitchen sink, and, within mere weeks, gleefully banged out a satire with no real basis in reality other than that of movie genres. Intentions be damned, the fiendishly funny finished product has its sights perfectly calibrated toward contemporary American mores, a culture of capitalism, and at the great gender divide.
The two outsiders decided to lambast everything 1970 LA – or at least their perception of it – by retaining the 1967 melodrama’s trio of fame and fortune-seeking Hollywood ingénues and turning everything else on its head. Here, the central trio (played by Playboy Playmates Dolly Read and Cynthia Myers, and aspiring actress Marcia McBroom) are a band called The Carrie Nations, a psych-rock/pop outfit (with actually good music written for the film by Stu Phillips) who are about to encounter the seven deadly sins in their grooviest of forms: drug-fueled “happenings” live-soundtracked by the Strawberry Alarm Clock; an ever-revolving roundabout of lovers of any gender; hangers-on who want a piece of the pie; and a fateful night that erupts in horrific violence a little too familiar after 1969’s Tate/LaBianca murders perpetrated by Charles Manson’s clan. Ebert and Meyer really do find a place for nearly every genre and genre trope, so much so that if a viewer were to experience all of the bodily reactions film scholar Linda Williams assigns to melodrama, pornography, and horror, they might end up like John Cassavetes at the end of Brian De Palma’s The Fury (1978).
A possible full body explosion would also be aided by Meyer’s over-the-top style. Every element of his mise-en-scène here is so far-out that it might appear that 20th Century Fox allowed Meyer to supply his cast and crew with an unending supply of amphetamines. His cuts are as fast as today’s action films, with Eisensteinian montage thrown in for good measure and providing some of the best laughs present. There are practical reasons for the Meyer filmic rhythms, various justifications bandied about from those close to and knowledgeable about the filmmaker. Supposedly, footage from his previous indie, Cherry, Harry & Raquel!, was destroyed, causing the director to edit around the missing footage. The whiplash-inducing results fit so well within his aesthetic and values, Meyer simply continued increasing his tempos. Another might say that he hated seeing actors blink, so he’d cut around them doing so, adding to their already turned-up performances. Meanwhile, others say budgetary constraints made camera movement impossible, so Meyer adapted and created the illusion of movement through rapid editing.
These reasons seem to point to Meyer as an auteur by accident. Although happenstance and working conditions may certainly have influenced Meyer’s choices, when reviewing his filmography, one can clearly see a gradual development of an artist working in an imitable mode. Yes, his camera is stationary, but the innumerable set-ups are also purposefully composed and artful, somehow colorful even when they’re in black-and-white. Meyer claimed his major filmmaking influence was Al Capp’s “Li’l Abner” comic strip, and this cartoon tutelage aligns his style closer to other film satirists like Frank Tashlin or Jerry Lewis than his softcore pornographic brethren.
But Beyond the Valley of the Dolls is more like Paul Verhoeven’s Starship Troopers (1998) than any of Tashlin’s or Lewis’ work. Like the fascist space opera, Meyer’s knotty satire is both wagging a finger at the thing and a supreme example of the thing. His films had increasingly become aware of their effects on an audience looking for titillation, and Meyer and his screenwriters started mixing them with social satire. Vixen!, for example, surely aroused viewers in spades, but even though Erica Gavin (playing lesbian lover to Cynthia Myers’ Casey here) has all kinds of sex – straight, gay, and even incestual – throughout Vixen!, that same audience is challenged to confront her stridently racist and downright deplorable actions.
Although Beyond earned an X rating, its prurience is tame compared to Meyer’s previous films – something the director regretted after aiming for an R rating by tamping down the sex and nudity. Nevertheless, the film is filled to the brim with “transgressive” behaviors: drugs are ever present; free love is performed without regard to emotion; queerness is (to an extent for the time) normalized; and gender roles are completely deconstructed and remixed. Meyer may moralize these notions in his intentionally silly coda, but even the punishments for said transgressions aren’t moral judgments. Instead, they’re a prompt for his audience to negotiate between being turned on by both the scene and the way he and Ebert destroy it.
In 2020, however, some of the problematizing present is troubling. In the climax, the Shakespeare-spouting record producer Ronnie “Z-Man” Barzell (John Lazar) is revealed to be a trans man just before lopping off the head of Lance (Michael Blodgett), his sexual conquest, set to the Fox-logo fanfare. He then proceeds to murder the film’s other queer characters. Ebert, who claims to have invented Z-Man’s great reveal in a moment of inspiration, says Meyer approved because “you can never have too many tits.” Clearly, the two were unaware of the accumulation of years of cinematic doomed queer characters and queer murderers and were working toward pure shock. B. Ruby Rich, the great feminist and queer-film theorist, once justified the portrayal as an act of queer revenge.
More viable is her linking Meyer’s personal predilection for assertive women with a deconstruction of gender norms present in his work. The director’s fantasies are thrust upon the screen, which grants his female characters power largely unseen in cinema before this: They’re hypersexual, smarter than their weak male counterparts, and always take center stage in the narrative. The image of Ashley St. Ives (Playboy Playmate Edy Williams and future Mrs. Meyer) from the perspective of impotent Harris (David Gurian) as she towers over him likens her to a superhero, with her femininity as her superpower. Beyond also affords its Black characters, another often marginalized group, a fully fleshed out narrative of love, betrayal, and reconciliation – complete with an idyllic roll in the grass for two of them, a sight rarely seen in mainstream films of the time.
With these more progressive representations, the dizzying kaleidoscopic construction, and slightly askew potent quotables, the prominence of Meyer’s mainstream outing among cult films is understandable, particularly when it comes to queer audiences. For that group, the bald-faced transgressions against pervasive cultural norms are as identifiable as the “closeted” layers of truth buried deep within its satire. Beyond the Valley of the Dolls is indeed riotously enjoyable, but also contains complex multitudes that, for the enlightened few, are as invigorating and rewarding as more well-respected films in the hallowed canon. Those who are blind to its richness are welcome to, well, to quote the film itself, either “Find it!” or “Go screw.”
HONOURABLE MENTION – Z-Man’s Superwoman costume (Beyond the Valley of the Dolls)
One of the sharpest dressed characters of 1970 release Beyond the Valley of the Dolls, it’s Z-Man’s final outfit that stands out the most; his Superwoman outfit. Forget a costume akin to something Wonder Woman might wear, this is a regal ensemble that makes as much impact as the declaration he makes; that he is in fact a she. With a colour scheme that tries to add some legitimacy to his claims (purple as a colour has often been related to monarchy and money as if he can buy his gender through money or respect), he tops the outfit off with a simple gold crown which says he/she’s in charge. For those that stand in his way he has the answer of a sword, one of the ultimate phallic symbols which also represents his willingness to castrate his male identity.
HONOURABLE MENTION – Vixen’s yellow bikini (Vixen!)
An instance where costume reflects the character’s personality, Vixen’s bright yellow bikini is as fun-loving, outgoing and confident as she is. Standing out against the natural colours of the forest, the bikini ensures that she is the one that stands out amongst the small community in which she lives making her all the more desirable.
#5 – Ashley St Ives crochet dress (Beyond the Valley of the Dolls)
Ash St. Ives (Edy Williams) is a superficial porn star out to sleep with whoever she wants, whenever she wants. So it’s hardly surprising that one of the most memorable costumes from Beyond the Valley of the Dolls is Ives’ beige crotchet dress, which leaves very little to the imagination. Consisting of pants and a dress that comprises a bikini top with a panelled body piece, the dress is the perfect visual representation of Edy Williams’ character; superficial, vapid and attention seeking.
#4 – Varla’s black jumpsuit (Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!)
Second only to Supervixens in terms of iconography (see below), Tura Satana’s black get-up in Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! is one of Meyer’s most recognised and imitated visuals. The all black, skin-tight catsuit combined with her lethal moves effectively shows her off as the sleek killing machine that she is, as well as representing the dichotomy of gender stereotypes that she represents. The boots and leather gloves she wears are masculine traits to identify with whilst the fact that she doesn’t mind getting her clothes sweaty and dirty shows she isn’t afraid to be involved in some rough and tumble. Whilst the catsuit is certainly figure hugging, Satana as Varla is pretty much covered up in comfortable racing gear that wouldn’t be out-of-place on a man. The plunging neckline and exposed cleavage (Satana wore a custom-made bra to make sure she stayed in) are the only indication of her female sexuality which she always uses to her advantage. Meyer took a similar approach with Charles Napier’s serial killer character Harry Sledge in Supervixens, kitting him out in all black and gloves to be a male counterpoint to Varla.
#3 – Mr. Teas’ jumpsuit and straw hat (The Immoral Mr. Teas)
Inspired by Jacques Tati’s character Mr Hulot, Mr Teas’ brightly coloured jumpsuits and straw hat make him visually all the more detached from the world he is already emotionally scared of. Whilst the scantily clad and nude women he stumbles upon seem relaxed in their environments and at one with nature, Mr Teas in his absurdly loud orange jumpsuit looks more like an astronaut stranded in a world that he doesn’t really understand which links him in some way to his viewing audience who would have been viewing the film as new territory themselves.
#2 – Casey and Roxanne’s fancy dress costumes (Beyond the Valley of the Dolls)
He may have had a few issues but Z-Man’s choice of costume for lesbian lovers Casey (Cynthia Myers) and Roxanne (Erica Gavin) to wear at his costume party in Beyond the Valley of the Dolls was the perfect visual metaphor for their relationship. Roxanne was very much the Batman figure to Casey; rescuing her, taking her under her wing and clearly being the dominant figure in the relationship. In return Casey was the perfect Robin, happy to always be by Roxanne’s side. Whilst Gavin stays in her Batman gear for a while, Myers only wears her Robin outfit briefly but it makes an impression. This is one of the best instances in Meyer’s work where costume really reflects the characters wearing them. Making it even more fun, the outfit Myers wears is one that Burt Ward wore himself in the 1960s Batman television series.
#1 – SuperLorna’s red shirt (Supervixens) Christy Hartburg only ever starred in one Russ Meyer film and it wasn’t a long appearance either but when it comes to the iconography of Meyer’s cinematic career, it’s Hartburg’s costume from Supervixens that tops the list. Tiny white shorts, hair in bunches and a pinky-red shirt tied at the waist, exposing a massive cleavage that one can’t help but notice in all its glory. Whilst Satana’s costume is visually just as iconic, it’s the above picture of Hartburg that is regularly used to advertise Meyer’s work (from DVD box sets to t-shirts, mugs to book covers and usually to accompany articles in magazines and film books) and was the main image used in the Supervixens publicity campaign. The perfect image to sum up the women that Meyer liked to portray in his features; outgoing, fun and provocative. Oh, and very top-heavy.
It would be an understatement to say that director Russ Meyer’s world was dominated by women, but it would also be a misconception to think that this was entirely the case. Just as much as there are women that shaped and characterised parts of Meyer’s life, in equal measure are the men that also coloured various points in his career. So, for once, lets forget about the big bosoms and celebrate those with the square jaws!
#10) German men
A big generalisation to start this countdown with but it’s well-known that Russ Meyer disliked Germans, probably as a reaction to his time spent in Europe during WWII. The director hated the Nazi regime that swept over Germany during the 1930s and 40s and frequently derided Adolf Hitler (yes, I know he was Austrian…) and Martin Bormann in his later pictures. Meyer’s long-absent father was also German, leaving his mother to raise him alone. Go figure.
#9) Harry Sledge Mean. Ruthless. Vile. Murderous. Chilling. Impotent. Harry Sledge is the nastiest guy in the history of Russ Meyer’s career and the instigator of the most violent scene in the whole of the directors career, the infamous bath scene in the 1975 release Supervixens.
#8) Anthony James Ryan
Many of Meyer’s female stars stayed loyal to him until the very end but if there was ever a male counterpart to all of those combined it would be Anthony James Ryan. A friend since he toured with the sexploitation director in WWII, Ryan was the titular male star of Eve and the Handyman (1961), a producer and writer on several other Meyer projects and looked after the legend during his illness in his last years.
#7) The Old Man
Sleazy, creepy, deceitful and a family man?! Stuart Lancaster’s portrayal of The Old Man in Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! ensured his infamy in Meyer-verse by creating one of the most popular villains in his filmography. Confined to a wheelchair, the bitter and twisted man looks after his two sons on an isolated ranch in the middle of the Mojave Desert. Traumatized by his wife’s death, hiding all his wealth in his chair and raising a disturbed and mute son into a muscular vegetable drive this man to eventual insanity and death at the hands of some dangerous and beautiful women. Camp, hilarious and vile. Perfect.
#6) David K. Frasier
Another personal friend of the director, Frasier helped Meyer archive his library for his autobiography A Clean Breast and again for Frasier’s reference book Russ Meyer: The Life and Films. Frasier’s opening chapter ‘Russ Meyer: American Auteur’ remains one of the most comprehensive and informative accounts of the directors career and filmography and Frasier recently wrote an excellent booklet to accompany Arrow Films re-release of their Russ Meyer box set. More must read literature for serous Meyer/sexploitation film fans and scholars.
#5) Charles Napier The one and only square-jawed actor, Napier was to men what actress Tura Satana was to women in Meyer’s films. Napier was the epitome of the male, Meyer’s archetype for the sex and most loved character actor. Friends since they met on the set of 1970 release Cherry, Harry & Raquel!, Napier went on to star in a further three of Meyer’s pictures; Beyond the Valley of the Dolls, The Seven Minutes and Supervixens.
#4) Ronnie ‘Z-Man’ Barzell
One of Russ Meyer’s greatest male (or should that be female…?) creations, Z-Man is a legendary character within the world of cult film. Loosely based on music producer Phil Spector, Z-Man is the villainous producer at the heart of Beyond the Valley of the Dolls; host of the best partes, full of theatrical antics and spouting some of the best quotes cinema has to offer with Shakespearean deftness.
#3) Jimmy McDonough
Succeeding where many failed, McDonough is the author of Meyer biography Big Bosoms and Square Jaws, currently being adapted for screen. Prior to becoming ill, Meyer had already stopped one writer from publishing a biography on him and no doubt had Meyer not been ill, he would have stopped Jimmy too. Big Bosoms is an honest and interesting account of the directors life, amplifying his legacy and illuminating light onto the mans character. A must have for fans.
#2) Roger Ebert
Life-long friend of the sexploitation director, legendary film critic Roger Ebert wrote the screenplay for Meyer’s studio masterpiece Beyond the Valley of the Dolls. Not that the collaboration stopped there. Ebert, under a pseudonym, also went on to write a further two screenplays for the filmmaker, Up! and Beneath the Valley of the Ultra-Vixens, whilst also writing the script for the ill fated Sex Pistols film Who Killed Bambi?. Script-writing aside, Ebert was also important for being one of the first film critics to publicly praise Meyer’s work, draw attention to it and describe him as an auteur, championing the director until hs death.
#1) Mr. Teas The man who started it all, Mr. Teas was the titular character from Meyer’s feature debut The Immoral Mr. Teas(1959). A simple man who starts seeing women in various stages of undress after an anaesthetic, Mr. Teas was the voyeur that Meyer knew existed in most men and who Meyer decided to make films aimed at. Rather innocent in nature compared to later male Meyer specimens, Teas was almost scared, if not terrified, by the beautiful creatures he kept seeing before him, his surprise echoing the shock of the male audience who had never seen nude women in anything other than nudist documentaries or in illegal pornography. Certainly one of the most important male characters in the history of sexual depiction in Western film, without Teas there would have been no sexploitation genre and the later pornography market probably wouldn’t have flourished as quickly as it had.
My personal favourite and one of Russ Meyer’s more well-known pictures, 1970 release Beyond the Valley of the Dolls was his first film as part of a three picture deal with 20th Century Fox. Following the story of an all girl rock group trying to make it big in 60s Hollywood, the film has achieved a cult status for numerous reasons including it’s fantastic soundtrack which is arguably one of the best film soundtracks ever recorded. First named The Kelly Affair and then re-named The Carrie Nations, none of the actresses who play Kelly, Pet and Casey (Dolly Reed, Marcia McBroom and Cynthia Myers) actually sing nor play any of the instruments on the tracks.
These duties instead fell onto composer Stu Phillips (The Monkees, Battlestar Galactica, The Amazing Spider-Man, Knight Rider) who Meyer specifically brought into the project against Fox Studios wishes. Phillips had previously co-written and produced the title track to Meyer’s film Cherry, Harry & Raquel which was released the previous year. Also on board were Bill Loose, who would wind up doing later Meyer soundtracks in the 70s, and vocalist Lynn Carey who did the voice work for the character Kelly McNamara that Dolly Reed was to lip-sync to. Carey’s vocals are incredible and were sadly replaced on the film’s soundtrack album with those of another singer, Ami Rushes, due to a dispute over royalties. Simply put, Rushes just don’t compare and are notably inferior to Carey’s who Phillips apparently had to stand on the other side of the room from the mic during recordings as her voice was so strong.
Whilst Phillips did the soundtrack and the score, I’ve decided to instead focus on the film’s soundtrack with this being my personal top ten…
#10 – ‘ONCE I HAD LOVE’ – THE CARRIE NATIONS
A rousing rock ballad by composer Stu Phillips, Once I Had Love is the perfect song for The Carrie Nations, an ode to all the friendships and relationships that they have lost. Interestingly not included in the film but on soundtracks that have been released over the years.
#9 – INCENSE AND PEPPERMINTS – STRAWBERRY ALARM CLOCK The number one hit from 1967 gets played by the band themselves at record producer Z-Man’s first party (he owns them). A perfect example of psychedelic rock/folk music that epitomizes the whole tone of the film, the lyrics fit perfectly for the moment the song is heard in the film. The party is the first time that band members Kelly, Pet and Casey get to taste the hedonistic lifestyle that being in a successful rock group can bring them and start to question who they are personally and where the band is going under their current manager Harris, Kelly’s boyfriend. The irony in the lyric ‘Little to win, but nothing to lose’ is brilliant, there really is little for these girls to win in Hollywood but there’s everything to lose.
#8 – FIND IT – THE KELLY AFFAIR
Our first introduction to The Kelly Affair are the roaring vocals of lead singer Kelly McNamara (Dolly Reed) although it’s actually singer Lynn Carey doing the duties. This is the group before they take the trip to Hollywood, doing their own set-up, lighting effects and playing small town shows, hungry for a shot at fame; ‘I’ve got to find a direction to follow, Something that’s mine not something I borrowed’. What’s great about this scene are the subtle beginnings of the story of resentment between Harris and Kelly that Meyer hints at using some well-timed editing skills (listen to the lyrics, watch which face they fall on…). Phillips actually taught Reed, Myers and McBroom to lip-sync and play instruments to a degree that they could pass off playing them when acting (maybe not all of McBroom’s drum bashing…) which he’d never done before. Whenever the girls weren’t shooting, Meyer made sure they were practising in an empty studio with Phillips. This was a track that Phillips and Carey wrote together, in five minutes, with Phillips writing the music and melody and Carey providing the lyrics.
#7 – BEYOND THE VALLEY OF THE DOLLS – THE SANDPIPERS This track is used to soundtrack the growing relationship between lesbian lovers Roxanne and Casey every time that they are alone on-screen, the sweet and tender music making their sex scene seem loving and natural and adding to its intimacy. Also used at the end of the film for its resolution scenes, the song perfectly sums up the idea of giving love a second chance, which practically most of the main characters do. I do love happy endings!
#6 – LOOK ON UP – THE CARRIE NATIONS
Another moment in the film where Meyer’s editing, the composition of the shot and the lyrics of the song really come together and play the story out well. This is also one of composer Stu Phillips favourite songs from the whole soundtrack. The Carrie Nations are successfully on the rise, caught between hot-shot popular producer Z-Man and their previous manager Harris, who has become an envious mess of a man. The girls are blossoming whilst Harris is stagnating, and this scene sure as hell makes the audience aware of it. He is literally looking up from the bottom. Watch Dolly Reed’s eyes when she’s singing. Those are the eyes of a woman on a mission to ridicule a man (trust me, I know). The decline downhill suddenly just got steeper…
#5 – I’M COMING HOME – STRAWBERRY ALARM CLOCK
This is another track that the Strawberry Alarm Clock are playing at Z-Man’s first party, again fitting in well with The Kelly Affair’s first appearance on the Hollywood party scene. You can see the enthusiasm and excitement in the girls eyes as they are being introduced to people and the idea that they have found their ‘home’ in this crowd is a strong one. Little do they know…
#4 – IN THE LONG RUN – THE CARRIE NATIONS
Newly christened The Carrie Nations and still looking somewhat more wholesome than they do in later performances, this is the start of Z-Man’s takeover and the eventual pushing out of Harris from the friendship group. Look at the composition of the shot; the overly happy and excited Harris versus the scheming Z-Man. He knows what’s good for the girls and it doesn’t involve nostalgic relationships getting in the way. Z-Man is on a mission to become the one that the girls will lean on in the long-term, if only the plan will work… Also used to musically illustrate each new relationship a character develops with another, helping the extend the guessing game of whether these relationships will provide any amount of longevity or crash and burn.
#3 – THE SORCERER’S APPRENTICE – STU PHILLIPS/PAUL DUKAS One of Meyer’s many references to other cinema in Beyond the Valley of the Dolls, Phillips adapted Dukas’s legendary piece of music to add to the trippiness of the ‘private party’ that Z-Man holds towards the end of the film. It’s a sinister scene, with Z-Man gleefully enjoying getting drugs into Casey’s blood stream despite her obvious apprehension. The naughtier cousin to Kenneth Anger’s Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome, it all goes rapidly downhill from here. Nothing will ever be the same again.
#2 – COME WITH THE GENTLE PEOPLE – THE KELLY AFFAIR
And so it begins… This is the journey that The Kelly Affair take to Hollywood and drag the audience along with them, using that much-loved 40/50s film cliché of having the map superimposed onto the screen (remember folks, as much as Meyer denied it, this is one of the best satires on the 1960s as a decade to hit the film medium). They are the ‘gentle people’ wanting to spread love and trying to persuade Harris that it’s all a good idea. His apprehension is well noted, if only they’d listen and take note of his sarcastic peace sign. They feel out-of-place in their hometown, Harris feels out-of-place in his disregard for the idea of taking the trip to the West Coast and little do they know that they’ll all find Hollywood a bit out-of-place too…
#1 – SWEET TALKING CANDY MAN – THE KELLY AFFAIR Without a doubt this is the best song from the whole film. They came to Hollywood to be heard and, boy, do you hear them in this scene. Tensions are already running high between Kelly and Harris, Casey is beginning to show signs of boredom with the whole scene, Z-Man has begun plotting his takeover of the group and the break-up between Kelly and Harris, everyone’s flirting with each other, the group become The Carrie Nations… With lyrics the singer really should be listening to herself, this is the one number I can’t help but belt out whenever I play the soundtrack at home and features some of Lynn Carey’s best vocals.
Miss Meyer 