This was a post that I had originally planned to include in this years MEYER MONTH but didn’t get around to posting. Friend of Russ Meyer, and now a friend of mine, Tom Porter, wrote this blog post back in 2012 to celebrate what would have been the directors 90th birthday and I think it’s a nice little anecdote to include on what would have been the year that Russ turned 100. I obviously never met Russ, but absolutely live for these stories from his friends which I love and find so illuminating, and I hope it’ll make you smile too.Many thanks to Tom for letting me re-post his entry here, the original can be found on his site!
One of the true great joys in my life was to know and share laughter with the amazing, brilliant filmmaker Russell Albion Meyer.
I was already a fan dating back to 1975 and Supervixens, and in awe of the Meyer ‘intensely personal and unique vision of the world,’ when we met in Las Vegas in 1989 and became friendly. Over the next several years we saw each other many, many times. Russ was a guest in my home in Washington DC, and I his guest numerous times in the Hollywood Hills and out in Palm Desert.
We enjoyed a great many meals, film screenings, nights on the town, and sundry adventures – including a rendezvous in Paris, and a day shooting cutaways in the Mojave Desert. One of the great nights of all time was our dinner, twenty years ago tomorrow night, celebrating Russ’s 70th birthday.
I was staying at the Bel Air Hotel, and we’d arranged to celebrate in style on the premises. He drove across town, arriving late, and laden with armloads of artwork – Annie Fannie-style illustrations he called “Bust-oons” that he was having prepared for his long-awaited, by then much-unfinished masterpiece A Clean Breast. He laid these out on the table at dinner.
We talked about the book, the production hassles, his can’t-miss film project ideas (a shot-for-shot remake of Faster Pussycat! Kill! Kill! with LaToya Jackson, for instance), the usual recounting of amorous escapades, and life as an iconoclast in the company town.
Then we turned to his third marriage, to Edy Williams. It turned out the 1970 wedding had taken place on the premises, in the Garden of the Bel Air Hotel. Russ’s tardiness arriving for dinner was due to his having rooted around in the garden on the way in, but he’d gotten lost; we agreed that after dinner we’d scout around to see if we couldn’t find the ‘scene of the crime’. Many glasses of wine later, that we did.
To stand under the stars at midnight, stumbling about on the rolling lawns of the Bel Air, while Russ rhapsodised about Edy Williams’ charms even as he brandished the rolled-up Bust-oons in the air, batting wildly at the stars, railing against her “shrewishness!” – “But I have no regrets, Sir – I have None At All !“. Pure heaven.
Over many years’ time, Russ introduced me to a cavalcade of characters, among them Dave Friedman, Stuart Lancaster, James Anthony Ryan & Bert Santos, Charles Napier, John Lazar and others, as well as trusty Janice and his leading ladies Melissa Mounds, Haji and Tura Satana. Here is a beautiful clip that provides a glimpse of the work, the spirit and joie de vivre of old RM (Lydia – sadly this link no longer works but I have found a video of a commercial for the program mentioned which I think is as close as I can get for now!).
I learned so much from this unique man. And our friendship meant and still means very much to me.
I really like Jimmy McDonough’s style; his writing is fast-paced, free of fluff and tells you what you need to know. He is completely unprejudiced and lets everyone else do the talking, especially when it comes to the final part of Meyer’s life. He obviously loves Meyer’s stuff as much as he does Andy Milligan’s (he wrote his biography as well), and really likes the women in Meyer’s movies, but then that’s the point, isn’t it? Meyer was all about the boobs!
After an introduction that teases you with a few details, McDonough runs through Meyer’s life and films more or less chronologically, from his early wartime and glamour photographer years, through to his descent into dementia at the very end. There are lots of details from people like David K. Frasier (who was a good friend to Meyer and did his own biography), Tura Satana, Tempest Storm, Charles Napier, Haji, etc., all adding their own flavour into the mix about how Meyer was a generous man, but an absolute bastard when making films; everything had to be just perfect, although there were times when Meyer appeared to relish in stirring it up for the hell of it. His three marriages are covered in detail, his union with Edy Williams being of most interest; McDonough lets Edy have her say and basically gives her all the jewel-studded rope she needs! There is a complete film guide at the back of the book, including the names of film scripts that were never made (Who Killed Bambi?, Blitzen, Vixen & Harry, etc.) and a modest colour picture section at the centre of the book.
It becomes obvious that Meyer was a very private man emotionally and the book touches on his controversial upbringing, hinting at potential incest or abuse issues concerning his dominating mother, Linda, and his unhinged sister, Lucinda (SIDE NOTE FROM LYDIA – Russ’ Mother was called Lydia and not Linda). The book also delves into Meyer’s life from the 1980s onward, when it was obvious that he was succumbing to dementia; this influenced the creation of the Pandora Peaks documentary, which should never really have been made. His violent relationship with Melissa Mounds is covered, as is the entry of the most controversial person in Meyer’s life: Janice Cowart. Janice is the one person who the courts gave power over Meyer to while he was ill. She stopped his friends from coming around and stripped his house of all memorabilia. I have to give power to McDonough here for being completely impartial and letting Cowart have her say about the matter. It is entirely up to the reader to work out if she was only acting in the interests of Meyer or if she was up to something more. Whatever, she now owns RM Films and is the reason why Meyer’s legacy is being treated, in my opinion, with complete disrespect.
If you are a fan of Russ Meyer (or a fan of sexploitation cinema), then you NEED to have this book in your collection. I could not put it down and was really sad once I’d finished it. Absolutely, definitely recommended!
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.
Lydia and I have often had conversations broaching the idea of recasting movies we adore on a strictly ‘if you had to’ basis, and Beyond the Valley of the Dolls is one that’s come up often due to the large ensemble cast. Made in 1970, BtVotD’s (as it shall be referred to from here out) tells the story of an all female rock group and their misadventures in being ‘discovered’ in Hollywood at the tail end of the ‘free-love’ era. The film was auteur Russ Meyer’s first studio production in a two-picture deal with 20th Century Fox. Originally planned as a sequel to Fox’s 1967 hit Valley of the Dolls, the film was forced to distance itself from Mark Robson’s picture after author Jacqueline Susann was appalled by the prospect of a ‘soft-core porn’ director making a sequel to her original story. This, and an X-Rating courtesy of the MPAA, did not stop the film’s pulling power at the box office, however, grossing nearly ten-times it’s $900,000 budget upon it’s release. To this day, according to screenwriter Roger Ebert, BtVotD has grossed over $40 million in theatrical and video sales to date.
I learned a long time ago that nothing in Hollywood is sacred. If there is money to be made with a remake, then you bet it will get made. When I think of BtVotD however, I can’t imagine it ever being remade. The original was so completely outrageous that I think even if it didn’t exist, it wouldn’t be made today. That itself made the ‘fictional’ task of re-casting the movie for a modern remake problematic for me. Not only do I hold the film very dear to me, but also I just can’t see it ever happening. For me this is like being asked to re-cast Twin Peaks. You just couldn’t do it. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not citing BtVotD as Citizen Kane here; far from it. The performances are very hit and miss at best and I’ve never been a huge fan of Russ Meyer’s editing technique. However, I don’t think it is unreasonable to suggest that no other movie exists that can compare to BtVotD. As a motion picture it is a wholly unique experience – which is something I can only say of maybe a half-dozen movies. It’s a musical, comedy, horror, drama, thriller! All it needs is some aliens and an animated sequence and you’ve nearly got all bases covered. How many movies can you name that tick as many boxes? Above and beyond all of this, the film is remarkably entertaining. Despite the pitfalls and dangers that come with fame and excess lifestyle the characters soon become entangled in, I still gaze upon the ‘fantasy’ Hollywood and almost cartoon-like characters as created by Russ Meyer and Roger Ebert with envious eyes.
All that said, it has still been my task to cast a fictional remake of the film. So with a gun to my head, here are my casting choices, were I to direct Beyond the Valley of the Dolls.
Kelly Mac Namara (Dolly Reed) – Isla Fisher
Isla Fisher has that perfect blend of girl next door with a dash of firecracker to make Kelly work in a modern remake. Plus, I can easily see her as the lead vocalist of the Carrie Nations. It wouldn’t be her voice of course, for that I’d hire Florence Welch.
Casey Anderson (Cynthia Myers) – Jennifer Lawrence
Like Cynthia Myers, Lawrence oozes sex appeal without having to do or say very much at all – this is pretty much the essence of Casey. Her failure to adapt to the excess lifestyle makes her the ‘tortured soul’ of the group – something I think Jennifer Lawrence would own, given her God-given acting ability.
I’m a huge Rosario Dawson fan and loved her in everything I’ve seen her in. She has the looks, the attitude and the style to bring Pet to the 21st century. She would be my Russ Meyer/Quentin Tarantino nod for the film.
Ronnie ‘Z-Man’ Barzell (John Lazar) – Cillian Murphy
This was a bit of a no brainer for me, and perhaps the easiest to cast. Now, I don’t take John LaZar’s performance as Ronnie ‘Z-Man’ Barzell lightly, as he’s without a doubt my favourite character, but I just can’t see ANYONE else in today’s talent pool delivering the line “You will drink the black sperm of my vengeance!” better than Cillian Murphy. Plus, I think he’d really enjoy calling someone a ‘buggery knave’.
Lance Rocke (Michael Blodgett) – Dolph Ziggler
Here is my wild card casting for the film. For those unfamiliar, Dolph Ziggler (real name Nick Nemeth) is a professional wrestler for World Wrestling Entertainment. Those who ARE familiar will get exactly why I’ve cast him. The character of Lance Rocke is pretty much the character of Dolph Ziggler. He not only has the looks and the body to carry out the role, but the calibre of performances Ziggler delivers on Monday Night Raw every week are no further a stretch than that played by Michael Blodgett in original movie. Except for the gold digging part. Not much of that in pro-wrestling.
Harris Allsworth (David Gurian) – James McAvoy
James McEvoy has an annoying quality of being instantly likeable in whatever role he’s in. What’s interesting about the idea of him playing Harris is that his character seesaws throughout the story – we like him, we hate him and then BAM! He can miraculously walk again and we all cheer. I’d love to see McEvoy handle this type of character.
Ashley St. Ives (Edy Williams) – Christina Hendricks
Christina Hendricks is THE quintessential ‘Meyer girl’ for the movie and who better than her to fill the crocheted dress of Ashley St. Ives? Who wouldn’t pay good money to see Hendricks as a hyper-sexed porn star? Mad men, I tell you. MAD MEN! *Sorry!
Roxanne (Erica Gavin) – Liv Tyler
This casting was based solely on who I could see paired up with Jennifer Lawrence in the more intimate scenes between Roxanne and Casey. After a couple of Empire Records flashbacks, I settled on Liv Tyler. She has a very sultry and almost tender nature that would be key to the seduction of Casey. I think the chemistry between her and Lawrence would be off the chart.
Susan Lake (Phyllis Davis) – Sherylin Fenn
Who didn’t fall in love with Audrey Horne in Twin Peaks? Raise your hands… I see no raised hands. Point proven. This one is a bit of indulgence casting. I was on a bit of a Peaks revival while writing this and well… Fenn could do this role with her eyes closed. Although I wouldn’t ask her to do the role with her eyes closed. That’d just be weird.
Emerson Thorne (Harrison Page) – Columbus Short
Naturally if I was doing this in the mid-90s, the role would have gone to Alfonso Ribero, but now that he’s older, I just picked someone I figured could A) tame a rock n’ roll Rosario Dawson and B) convincingly not stand a fucking chance of winning a fight against Randy Black – although when you see who I cast as him, that pretty much could have been anyone…
Porter Hall (Duncan McLeod – Bill Murray
It’s Bill fucking Murray. End of discussion.
Randy Black (James Iglehart) – Terry Crews
At first I considered another wrestler for this role –even changing the character to a professional wrestler rather than a heavyweight boxer (Randy Black being based on Mohammed Ali). Then it dawned on me that this guy, in this day and age would be a cage fighter and the body that Terry Crews is rocking, hell, you’d believe he could beat up the Moon! Not really a difficult decision here. With Crews’ dynamic personality to boot, he’d own the role of Randy Black.
Baxter Wolfe (Charles Napier) – Kurt Russell
Despite the fact that I love Kurt Russell and want to see him in more stuff, I’m going with the Meyer ‘square-jaw’ trait on this one. Kurt Russell is a man’s man. And if anyone was going to step into the boots of Charles Napier, it’d be Snake Plissken… Or R.J. MacReady… Or Jack Burton… Or Stuntman Mike… Or Dean Proffitt.
Otto (Henry Rowland) – Udo Kier
Seriously, who the fuck else?
Paul Davis is a writer and filmmaker from London. His short film Him Indoors starring Reece Shearsmith and Pollyanna McIntosh is finally available to watch online and his next short The Bodyis currently in production.
I recieved a few emails and messages regarding the short post I did on director Russ Meyer’s early career as a glamour photographer and decided to put up this short post showcasing a few of his photographs. I have only attached pictures on here that I have actually been able to verify that Meyer took. If you search online the internet chucks a whole lot of beautiful images at you but a lot of them are wrongly credited to Meyer. These are just a few and I suggest anyone interested in sourcing any other images look for/physically buy any old mens/girlie magazines that he either contributed to or shot the front cover for, pick up his autobiography A Clean Breast which has a stack of gorgeous stills he took over the years or pick up The Glamour Camera of Russ Meyer which is all about his photography. In the meantime, I hope you enjoy these beauties. They just don’t make them like this anymore…
Marguerite Empey pictorial, Playboy, February 1956
June Wilkinson photographed by Russ Meyer, Caper magazine, May 1959
Eve in Red Lingerie by Russ Meyer, 1959
Edy Williams pictorial shot by Meyer, Playboy, March 1973
Gold Lamp and Lorna, Russ Meyer, 1964
Sabrina (Norma Sykes) pictorial photographed by Russ, Cabaret magazine, August 1957
Eve Meyer as photographed by Russ, Frolic magazine, June 1954
Eve Meyer photographed for Playboy, June 1955
Yvette Vickers pictorial, Playboy, June 1959
Eve Meyer photographed by Russ, c. 1950s
June Wilkinson photographed by Russ, Adam magazine, 1950s
Eve Meyer pictorial, Playboy, June 1955
Lorna Maitland photographed by Meyer, Fling magazine, May 1965
Diane Webber pictorial, shot by Russ Meyer for Globe Photos Inc., 1956
Most of you will know Russ Meyer as the auteur of sleaze, the most successful and iconic filmmaker in the sexploitation genre. His films are love letters to hypersexual, highly empowered and incredibly curvaceous women. Meyer turned his breast fetish into a profitable career and, whether or not it floats your own boat (which becomes more debatable as his subjects get more exaggerated in his later films), he managed to capture on celluloid a bevy of lovelies in their unique beauty. One cannot deny that Meyer’s camera adored the women it was pointed at. Each of his shots were composed and lit with a knowledge and understanding of photographing the female form that many directors now struggle to achieve, even with good cinematographers behind them. Russ Meyer was so successful because of his extensive experience and career in photography which preceded his filmmaking. Not many people know that Meyer started out as a combat photographer during WWII before moving on to the world of glamour photography.
Evelyn ‘Treasure Chest’ West
Like many men returning from the War, Meyer found nothing but rejection when it came to finding work back home in America. After doing the rounds in Hollywood trying to find film work, Meyer eventually bought himself a Speed Graphic camera and set about photographing the women that he desired the most. The future director started out taking photographs of stripper Evelyn ‘Treasure Chest’ West, doing a deal with the Oakland night club she was appearing in which saw him supply them with free stills in exchange for time taking pictures of her. After continuing to photograph various strippers that came into town (developing his stills in the family bathtub, much to Mother Meyer’s delight), a fellow combat buddy of Meyer’s persuaded him to try to take advantage of the recent boom in girlie mags and become a pin-up photographer. Russ signed up with the Globe agency and found himself shooting pictorial’s for Gent, Fling, Frolic and Escapade amongst a number of other publications.
It was an encounter with one particular stripper that would kick-start the ambition in Meyer to become a filmmaker. Through photographing strippers, Russ met Tempest Storm who was performing at the El Rey Burlesk Theatre, owned by Pete DeCenzie. After doing some stills work which the two men would sell at the theatre, Meyer decided to shoot a short reel of film of Tempest doing her stuff. After smuggling the reel into Kodak to be developed, Meyer showed the it to DeCenzie who loved it and invited Russ to film a show at the El Rey. That reel of film became Meyer’s first short film, The French Peep Show (1950), which is now presumed lost.
Although bitten by the filmmaking bug, Meyer’s enthusiasm and talent for glamour photography never died. During the 1950s he shot numerous photographs of his second wife Eve Meyer, including her pictorial when she became June’s Playboy Playmate in 1955. Eve was probably the only woman to have lingered for any significant time in front of Meyer’s camera and his pictures of her are undeniably is best. All the women he shot look beautiful, well poised and immaculate. Eve just looks something else, stellar almost. The chemistry between her and Meyer is evident in every shot he took. It’s an understatement to say that they just don’t make women like that anymore. Alongside Eve’s Playboy gatefold, Meyer only shot another two; Marguerite Empey and Yvette Vickers.
Meyer would go on to shoot many famous models and actresses during the 50s establishing him as one of the prominent pin-up photographers of the decade. Throughout his life, Russ would snap away at his paramour’s, actresses and muses. Some would appear in publications like Playboy, for instance his pictorial of then-wife Edy Williams to publicise the never made Viva Foxy!, whilst others appear on every other page of his autobiography A Clean Breast like a catalogue of conquests. Clearly a huge influence on his filmmaking career, everything Meyer learnt about exposing and exhibiting the female form he learnt from his stills career and for those who haven’t seen much of it, it’s worth checking out. Trust me, you won’t be disappointed.
Miss Meyer 