If you know the name Russ Meyer, the chances are that there is one thing that comes immediately to mind – or, rather, two. Severin Films’ rereleases of two lesser-seen flicks by this master of 50s, 60s and 70s sleaze play directly into his reputation – the releases are branded Russ Meyer’s Bosomania.
In actual fact, there’s a lot to appreciate about these films and others from Meyer’s considerable oeuvre; why else would a maker of softcore films for straight audiences have such an extensive gay following? Unfortunately, as the Golden Age of Pornography petered out in the face of VHS and social changes, films such as Meyer’s turned into relics, a vaguely quaint brand of filth. And our paradoxically prudish current era hasn’t gotten around to re-evaluating those artists who worked in soft- (or even hard-) core pornography the way makers of similarly declassé genres such as horror, Blaxploitation, and spaghetti Westerns are now routinely celebrated.
Of the two undervalued gems included here, both lie in the shadow of a greater success. Motorpsycho anticipates in many ways the theme and style of Faster Pussycat! Kill! Kill!, both being products of the mid-60s era in which Meyer was making straightforward black-and-white thrillers with little to no nudity. But while Faster Pussycat is a minor icon of exploitation cinema, Motorpsycho has actually been unavailable to watch for most of its life. And that’s a shame, because it’s a solid thriller and more intelligent than, perhaps, it lets on. The plots an exceptionally straightforward rape-revenge thriller in the style that proliferated in the wake of Bergman’s Virgin Spring, but Stephen Oliver’s portrayal of chief villain “Brahmin”, a disturbed Vietnam veteran, presages more celebrated anti-heroes and anti-villains in the same mould, from Travis Bickle to John Rambo. Brahmin’s chillingly determined to lead himself and his two compadres down a desert road of rape, murder, mayhem and rock ‘n’ roll that could only ever end in death. The action climax, perhaps, is contrived and the emotional resolution a little pat, but the film does everything it does with so much speed and style that the end result is positively endearing.
By some way the more remarkable film of the two, Up! has to be the only film of the 70s or any other decade to open on the sadomasochistic sodomy of Adolf Hitler – er – Schwartz. In contrast with Motorpsycho, the plot of Up! is both convoluted and, for long stretches, nonexistent. Luckily, Meyer provides a narrator – naked, and usually sat up a tree or in a thicket – who is happy to summarise events in a breathless rush of allusions to Shakespeare, Ben Jonson and Nietzsche. She’s as spiritedly campy as anything in Up!, a remarkable film that manages to work Nazis, police brutality, the CB radio craze, the Italian giallo films and the nascent slasher genre, among others, into its mad mid-70s collage. It’s also a daring film, including male-male and female-female couplings alongside many other permutations and occasionally showing glimpses of anatomy not usually accepted under the softcore label.
In this last point, Meyer’s tone and style helps. Shots rarely last more than ten seconds – this is true for Meyer across the board, but more notable when actually shooting scenes of sex and nudity – and closeups tend to be so extreme that it is difficult at times to identify exactly what part of the body we’re supposed to be looking at. Far from eroticising anything, the film oversaturates sex to the point it seems to satirise sexuality itself, exploding the body to the point that Meyer’s performers are sometimes barely recognisable as people – even the opening credits introduce the actors with individual body parts – the mouth, the breasts, a tattoo – rather than the body or face.
And all this is to say, Meyer is a brilliant director. The incessant sense of boredom with which he seems to direct – anxious to move on to the next shot, the next scene, the next piece of absurdist sexual violence – gives his films a no-fat economy of storytelling lesser directors dream of. And that’s almost odd praise to give when the films in question, an action thriller and a softcore comedy, are by their nature reliant on gratuitous scenes. But, while both heavily dated films may not transcend the specifics of the times in which they were made, Meyer’s nutty genius shines through even on these lesser titles.
The added value of these releases is not as extensive as what one might see elsewhere, but enjoyable nevertheless. Film historian Elizabeth Purchell gives commentaries on both pictures – joined for Motorpsycho by filmmaker Zach Clark. It’s heartening to hear films this cheap and, well, sleazy, being treated so reverently. It also remains quite amusing, even after a good couple of decades of rereleases such as these from Arrow, Second Sight, Severin (the company behind this release), and others. Each film also contains about twenty minutes of interviews with its principals – disappointingly, the room for these presumably could not be found one the 4K disc so one must change to the Blu-Ray to watch them: “Desert Rats on Hondas” for Motorpsycho, with Alex Rocco and Haji; and “No Fairy Tale…This!” for Up!, with Raven De La Croix.
These are beautiful-looking and exceptionally well-restored re-releases of two little-seen – yet both, in their own way, quintessential – pictures by one of the most overlooked filmmakers of the mid-century.