Beneath the Valley of the Ultra-Vixens

Russell Albion “Russ” Meyer (March 21, 1922 – September 18, 2004) was an American motion picture director, producer, screenwriter, cinematographer, editor, actor, and photographer.

Meyer is known primarily for writing and directing a series of successful low-budget sexploitation films that featured campy humor, sly satire, and large-breasted actresses.

Russ Meyer was born in San Leandro, California to William Arthur Meyer, a German-American police officer, and his wife Lydia Lucinda Hauck Howe. His parents divorced shortly after he was born, and Meyer was to have virtually no contact with his father during his life. When he was 14, his mother pawned her wedding ring in order to buy him an 8mm film camera. He made a number of amateur films at the age of 15, and served during World War II as a U.S. Army combat cameraman for the 166th Signal Photo Company. It was in the Army that Meyer forged his strongest friendships, and he would later ask many of his fellow combat cameramen to work on his films. Much of Meyer’s work during World War II can be seen in newsreels and in the film Patton (1971). On his return to civilian life, he made industrial films, was a still photographer for mainstream films (he did the still photography for the film Giant), and became a well known glamour photographer whose work included shoots for Hugh Hefner’s newly launched Playboy magazine. Meyer would shoot three Playboy centerfolds during the magazine’s early years, one of his wife Eve Meyer in 1955. He would do a pictorial of then-wife Edy Williams in March 1973.

His first feature, the nudist comedy The Immoral Mr. Teas (1959), cost $24,000 to produce and eventually grossed more than $1,000,000 on the independent/exploitation circuit, ensconcing Meyer as “King of the Nudies.” Over the next decade, he made nearly twenty movies with a trademark blend of warped humor, huge-breasted starlets and All-American sleaze, including such notable films as Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! (1965) and Vixen! (1968). Russ Meyer was a true auteur who wrote, directed, edited, photographed and distributed all his own films. He was able to finance each new film from the proceeds of the earlier ones, and became very wealthy in the process. And unlike many independent directors of his era he chose to cast actresses like Shari Eubank or Cynthia Myers who were considered extremely beautiful and wholesome.

Meyer’s output can be divided into several eras. Earlier works like The Immoral Mr. Teas, Eve and the Handyman, and the Western-themed Wild Gals of the Naked West were stylistically similar to the nudie cutie fare of the era, though separated from the pack by their superior color cinematography. 1964’s Lorna saw the ever economical director revert to black-and-white; with this change came a greater emphasis on storyline, almost theatrical violence, domineeringly psychosexual women, and their insipid male counterparts. The “Gothic” period (as it was termed by Meyer) reached its apex with the commercially underwhelming Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!, which would eventually be reclaimed as a cult classic. It has a following all over the world and has inspired countless imitations, music videos and tributes.

After producing the popular mockumentary Mondo Topless (1966) with the remnants of his production company’s assets and two mildly successful color melodramas, Meyer made headlines once again in 1968 with the controversial Vixen!. Although its lesbian overtones are extremely tame by today’s standards, the film — designed by Meyer and longtime cohort Jim Ryan as a reaction to provocative European art films — grossed millions on a five-figure budget and captured the zeitgeist just as The Immoral Mr. Teas had a decade earlier. He followed it up with Cherry, Harry & Raquel! (1970), which depended upon montages of the California landscape (replete with anti-marijuana voiceovers) and Uschi Digard dancing in the desert as the film’s “lost soul.” This plot device was necessitated after the lead actress, Linda Ashton, left the shoot early and there was 20 minutes of footage needed to complete the film.

Reeling from the success of Easy Rider and impressed by his thrifty attitude, 20th Century Fox signed Meyer to produce and direct a long-simmering proposed sequel to Valley of the Dolls. What eventually manifested was Beyond the Valley of the Dolls (1970), scripted by film critic (and Meyer devotee) Roger Ebert and bearing no relation to the novel or film’s continuity (necessitated by a lawsuit involving Jacqueline Susann). Many critics perceive the film as perhaps the greatest expression of his intentionally vapid surrealism — Meyer went so far as to refer to it as his definitive work in several interviews. Others, such as Variety, saw “BVD” “as funny as a burning orphanage and a treat for the emotionally retarded.” Contractually stipulated to produce an R-rated film, the brutally violent climax (depicting a decapitation) ensured an X rating (Later reclassified to NC-17). Though disowned by the studio for years to come and amid gripes from the director after he attempted to recut the film to include more titillating scenes after the ratings debacle, it still earned over $6 million domestically in the United States on a budget of less than $1 million.

After making his most subdued film, an adaptation of the popular Irving Wallace novel The Seven Minutes (1971), Meyer returned to grindhouse-style cinema in 1973 with the Blaxploitation period piece Black Snake, which was dismissed by critics and audiences as incoherent. In 1975, he released Supervixens, a return to the world of big bosoms, square jaws, and the Mojave desert that earned $17 million (American) on a shoestring budget. Meyer’s theatrical career ended with the release of the surreal Up! (1976) and 1979’s Beneath the Valley of the Ultra-Vixens, his most sexually graphic films. Film historians and fans have called these last three films “Bustoons” because Russ Meyer’s usage of color and mise en scène recalled larger than life pop art settings and cartoonish characters.

In 1977, Malcolm McLaren hired Meyer to direct a film starring The Sex Pistols. Meyer handed the scriptwriting duties over to Ebert, who, in collaboration with McLaren, produced a screenplay entitled Who Killed Bambi? According to Ebert, filming ended after a day and a half when the electricians walked off the set after McLaren proved unable to pay them. (McLaren has claimed that the project actually died at the behest of main financier 20th Century-Fox, under the pretext that “We are in the business of making family entertainment.”) The project ultimately evolved into The Great Rock & Roll Swindle.

Despite the fact that hardcore pornographic films would overtake Meyer’s softcore market share, he retired in the late 1970s a very wealthy man. —Wikipedia