Russ Meyer March 21, 1922-September 18, 2004

Every man loves breasts. But no one loved them more than Russ Meyer, who died of pneumonia on Saturday at his home in the Hollywood Hills. He was 82. Managing to win prizes with films that he made when he before he was 15, Russ always had a camera in his hands. When the time came, he became a newsreel photographer in the World War II-torn Pacific. (He relates some of his experiences in the excellent documentary Shooting War, available in the new Saving Private Ryan DVD set.)

After the war, he became a professional photographer, shooting some of the first Playboy spreads. But still photos were never quite enough. He soon moved on to the “nudie-cuties” of the 50s. After working on a few as cinematographer (whatever that meant for those rather stationary films), he decided to go to work for himself.

His first film in this vein was actually a short called The French Peep Show in 1950, but not many people have seen that one (including your humble narrator). The first film of any consequence that he wrote, directed, shot and edited was 1959’s The Immoral Mr. Teas. It broke box office records (for a nudie-cutie, anyway) because it actually had a story. It wasn’t just a parade of young women disrobing. Mr. Teas is a door to door salesman who constantly encounters nude women.

Ok, so it didn’t have much of a story, but compared to a camera running through a nudist camp, this was fucking Hemingway. And people loved it. They came in droves. (Yes. Pun intended. Russ would love it.) The star, Bill Teas (strangely, his real name), was a fellow Pacific photographer who was in Russ’ unit during the war. Watch for this film in the River Phoenix/Lili Taylor film Dogfight and its influence in the Seymour Butts series of porn films.

But it would be 1965 that brought out his masterpiece. Faster Pussycat! Kill! Kill!! is pretty much the top of the sexploitation movie heap. It features Tura Satana as Varla, one of Meyer’s strongest female characters. (Most of his females were very strong…and violent. And, of course, buxom as all hell.) Varla and her 36Ds blew through town all dressed in leather and stilettos. Her group of Hell Kittens took over the small town and terrorized a young couple and no one could stop them.

The movie took the nation by storm. Well, the underground nation, anyway. It’s still recognized as Meyer’s best work and even has the distinction of having a punk band name themselves after it. (Russ directed a video for Faster Pussycat in the 80s. It was one of his last jobs as director.)

(Russ’ film from the same year, Mudhoney, also inspired a band. I think we children of the 90s all know who they were.)

Meyer’s film career took off from there. All of his movies were hits on the nudie circuit and more people started to hear about him. His 1968 film, Vixen!, got him noticed by 20th Century Fox and they tapped him to direct a semi-sequel to their earlier hit The Valley Of The Dolls. (It also inspired the MPAA to create a new rating: the soon to be dreaded X.)

Of course, Russ had different ideas. His buddy, Roger Ebert, wrote the script for Beyond The Valley Of The Dolls, which involved an all girl rock band coming to Hollywood to make it big. Fortunately for us, they only find sex, drugs and violence. The film is so over the top weird that Fox didn’t really know what to do with it. But it’s become a cult classic and is still one of only three films that not so rotund anymore critic Ebert ever wrote. (He and Meyer tried to collaborate on another film starring The Sex Pistols, but it was killed after one day of filming. Too bad. I would have loved to have seen that.) Even so, it became one of the top grossing films of 1970.

Check out the reference to Beyond in Austin Powers. (“This is my happening and it FREAKS ME OUT!”)

His next film was the rather straight Seven Minutes. It’s based on a book written in the 20s about a bookstore clerk who is indicted for selling sleazy material. It’s all done to drum up votes. And, unfortunately for everyone involved, most of the film takes place in a courtroom.

The film flopped and Meyer went into seclusion, vowing to never make another studio film again. (Of course, the Sex Pistols movie was going to be another Fox film. Go figure.)

Two years later he came back with Blacksnake!, the story of a plantation woman who knew how to keep her slaves in line. It didn’t fair much better than The Seven Minutes.

So Russ went back to busty women in trouble. Supervixens starred the overflowing Shari Eubank and became a big hit. Even in a world of hardcore porn, Russ could stand on his own.

And that’s actually what started his next career downturn. He refused to do actual porn. He believed in titillation, not penetration. He wanted to show the boobs and get lots of laughs in the process. He didn’t want to go so sleazy that he could never come back from it.

His last two films, Up! And Beneath The Valley Of The Ultra Vixens starred Kitten Natividad and got him closer to porn than he was ever willing to go. I actually haven’t seen Up!, but I remember at least one erect penis with cum on the tip in Ultra Vixens. Not Russ’ finest hour.

By the way, these are the other two films that Ebert wrote. Funny that they all have lots of sex in them.

So he packed his cinematic bags with that 1979 film. Porn was too popular and his brand of sexploitation was going way out of style. Throughout the 80s and 90s he basically just became a recluse, doing the occasional guest shot in other peoples’ movies. (Most notably John Landis’ Amazon Women On The Moon in 1987.) He also shows up in some documentaries about cult heroes and some Playboy videos.

Russ’ influence is felt all over film today. From the exploitative films of John Waters to the more mainstream exploitation of John Landis. Sex probably would never have made it to the mainstream if it weren’t for Russ. Without Russ there would be no gratuitous boob shot of Halle Berry. And, while his direction style wasn’t exactly the most extravagant (he usually kept the camera still and let the action speak for itself), he is a very important figure in film history. His images of women in power started a whole genre of film that is still being made today. Who knows? Maybe without Russ there would be no Ripley.

Russ always threatened to make another film. In the days when a tit on TV causes such a furor (and a fucking $550,000 fine!), we would have needed a tit-titan satirist to blow us away with his own brand of weird-assed humor.

We’re sorry to lose you, Russ. I hope you’re laying between the two biggest breasts you’ve ever seen.