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Buenos dias. I am your Greek chorus,
your cacophony of carnality, the

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of... Okay, I'm not.

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Hi, my name is Elizabeth Purcell. I'm a
film historian, film programmer, and

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filmmaker. And I am quite excited to
have this opportunity to get to talk

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a film that has, frankly, fascinated me
for many, many years now.

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And that is Russ Meyer's 1976 film, Russ
Meyer's Up.

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Russ Meyer is someone who has been a
huge influence on me and my own tastes

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interests. He is someone who I first
heard about as a precocious kid, pre

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in the early years of the Internet.

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So it was a long time before I was ever
able to actually see any of his films.

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I eventually figured out a way to use
Netflix's DVD -by -mail service, pre

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-streaming, this is pre -YouTube, pre
-any of that.

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to get a copy of Beyond the Volley of
the Dolls when I was in early high

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and frankly, I was changed for life.

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It would be a long time before I'd be
able to see any of these other films

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because they were out of kind of wide
distribution, but that one film alone

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kind of, I don't know, it really did
just change me.

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He's someone who I think is, you know,
not only one of the great sexploitation

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filmmakers, or not even one of the great
sex film directors, I think he's one of

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the great filmmakers.

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Period. That said, I think Up is kind of
underrated.

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Even Meyer, in the end, was kind of
mixed on it.

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When he was asked by Ed Lowry and Louis
Black in a 1980 interview with Film

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Comment magazine whether or not he was
pleased with how the film turned out, he

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said, quote, No, not particularly.

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At the time I was fairly pleased, but I
see a lot of reasons why it was not as

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successful as Supervixens.

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I'm not sure if that's really a fair
comparison to make, given the fact that

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Supervixens, at the time of that
interview, was one of the top 100

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-grossing films of all time, and was a
film that had so much momentum behind

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and was one that was heavily touted as
being, you know, the return of Russ

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Meyer, whereas this was just the new
Russ Meyer movie.

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That said, I do think that the mixed
reputation that Up has had for decades

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in large part because of the way that
it's always been seen, as an open mat

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transfer taken from a video master made
in the 1980s.

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You know, Russ Meyer was someone who
very famously spared no expense when it

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came to his own video releases.

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At a time in the 80s when most studios
were just going to interpositives or

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up release prints, to do their
telecines.

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Russ Meyer went all the way back to the
original camera negatives. He did shot

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-for -shot, scene -for -scene color
grading. He used the best quality blank

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tape. You know, he was someone who
charged a premium price for his films,

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also treated them like, you know, the
highest of the high class.

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At the same time, though, you're only
watching these on very small televisions

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and not theatrically, not in the right
aspect ratio, so the framing is a little

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off. Seeing the film presented
theatrically, even as a very beat -up,

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grindhouse sort of print that was very
faded, gave me a new appreciation and

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understanding of the film.

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There's a big difference, I think,
between watching a film like this by

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at home on a TV and...

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being surrounded by about a hundred
other people who are all, you know,

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laughing their asses off and having a
great time, and just seeing it blown up

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big. This is, I think, one of Russ
Meyer's most beautifully shot and

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edited films, especially his use of wide
landscapes throughout, like in that

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title sequence we saw a couple of
minutes ago.

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There's this way that he's shooting
these scenes in these extreme long

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placing bodies amongst the huge expanses
of the forests of northern california

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where he shot this film you know in some
ways it's kind of more of a landscape

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movie than any of his other films um
it's funny there was that uh anthology

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archives retrospective back in 2014
which was called i believe russ meyer

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glanscape artist uh this is probably the
cliff as he came to making a glanscape

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film

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But he's also using frames within
frames, like the large windows of

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cabin later on in the film, or the
sunroof of Homer's car.

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And there's some really truly incredible
shots throughout here, like that POV

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shot of Homer's cock, of Mary and Mark's
character, the chesty young thing,

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unzipping his zipper.

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Ruckmeyer is also someone who is always
utilizing cutaways, but the way that he

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is literally carving up bodies and
focusing on things like...

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individual breasts or Kit Natividad's
pubic area or Raven Delacroix's rose

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tattoo are really, really fascinating,
especially when combined with the

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breakneck rhythm that the editing
establishes.

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It's almost a sort of free associative
sort of thing.

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And I love the almost pop art shots of
the head's person licking a nipple or

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eating a banana or like pulling a ruler
out of her mouth.

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Amongst the many reviews of this film
that I've read over the years, there's

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this one bit from the Oregonians review
that I just kind of want to read because

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I think it sums everything up.

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Quote, If anything, Up is overplotted.
If anyone else had made it, it would

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been five hours long with two
intermissions.

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Ross zips through it so rapidly that he
has time for relatively extraneous

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lyrical sex interludes, some lasting
perhaps as long as 45 seconds.

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For what it's worth, I did some messing
around with the film in DaVinci Resolve

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and found out this film actually has
roughly about 2 ,000 cuts in a little

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80 minutes.

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So about 25 cuts per minute.

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Compare that to, say, the 700 in Motor
Psycho, which is a film that was made

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about a decade before this one.

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Also, to me, this film is just kind of
the ultimate expression of the sort of

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comic book aesthetic that Russ Meyer was
going through in his later years.

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He was always comparing his films to Al
Cap's little Abner comics, and that's

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something that's really underscored by
the advertising materials for Up, none

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which actually lists the names of any of
the cast.

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Instead, just say things like, quote,
starring Margot Winchester with Adolf

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Homer, Sweet Little Alice, and the
Headsperson.

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It's clear from going through lots of
newspaper coverage and magazine coverage

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of the film that a lot of people thought
that Raven Delacroix's name was Margot

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Winchester.

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This kind of goes hand in hand with, I
think, what is the film's most

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controversial element, which is its use
of sexualized violence.

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It's a rough film.

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But it's also a film that I think just
cannot be taken seriously.

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Especially when you see it properly
presented, like in this new restoration.

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You know, the details like, say, Leonard
Box's comically huge cock during the

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scene where he sexually assaults Margot
Winchester are so absurd and so tongue

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-in -cheek that you just can't take it
seriously.

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And I don't think any of the sexual
violence in this film is eroticized.

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You know, the rape scene in the stream
that we're about to see is frankly

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horrific. The scene later on in the film
with Rafe in the cafe is also just so

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cartoonish and over -the -top.

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It's, you know, I don't think it's
necessarily making light of rape, but at

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same time it is just a comic book.

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All this to say, I do think this is one
of Ross Meyer's most underrated films,

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and I think the one that is really ripe
for rediscovery and reevaluation.

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This commentary is not going to be scene
specific.

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If it was going to be scene specific, I
would have to stop every 10 minutes to

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recap what I've been talking about.

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So instead, I kind of want to just tell
the story of the film as best as I can

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and, you know, make that be kind of a
counterpoint to what's happening on

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screen.

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So I think in order to properly talk
about Russ Myers Up, we do have to go

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a bit, all the way back to the beginning
of the 1970s.

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Russ Meyer began that decade with one of
his biggest personal and professional

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successes, which was Beyond the Valley
of the Dolls, which was his first film

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for 20th Century Fox.

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It's a film that didn't get great
reviews, but did very well at the box

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especially compared to Michael Sarnes'
Meyer Breckenridge, which was Fox's

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X -rated film from that year.

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I think Beyond the Valley of the Dolls
really is Russ Meyer's masterpiece. It's

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the film that he, in interviews, was
always saying that he was the proudest

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When the BFI recently did their latest
edition of their Sight and Sound

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Films of All Time poll, I think I was
one of the only people to include it on

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their ballot, which I think says a lot.
It's truly a masterpiece.

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And if you're listening to this and you
somehow haven't seen it, just go watch

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Beyond the Bars at all.

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That film led to a three -picture deal
with the studio for what were to be

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different adaptations.

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The first was to be Peter George's 1966
crime novel, The Final Steal.

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to be followed by Irving Wallace's 1969
novel The Seven Minutes, and then to be

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finished with Edward Albee's 1962 play
Everything in the Garden.

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Meyer had wanted to follow Beyond the
Valley of the Dolls up with the final

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steal, but was instead pushed by the
studio into doing The Seven Minutes

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If you're not familiar with that film,
it's...

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Probably one of his most obscure. It is
a courtroom drama about an obscenity

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trial regarding a smutty paperback
novel, which the studio had picked up as

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of a deal for three of Irving Wallace's
books.

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It's a film that really doesn't make a
whole lot of sense for him to do. I

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it is literally a courtroom drama.

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But it also kind of does, given his
history of fighting obscenity trials,

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especially his war against Charles
Keating from Citizens for Decent

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over Vixen.

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Personally, I think The Seven Minutes is
actually a very good film, but it's one

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that has very, very little to no nudity.

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It was a flop, and it spelled the end
for Meyer's time at Fox.

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He was then going to go to Warner
Brothers to make an adaptation of the

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novel Choice Cuts, which was much, much
later adapted as the film Body Parts by

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Eric Radd in 1991, but that deal wound
up falling through.

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Instead, Meyer returned to self
-production, making an even bigger left

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his next film, Black Snake, which is a
racial slave drama about a revolt on the

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fictional island of San Cristobal and
was shot in Barbados.

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This is a film that was entirely self
-funded and self -distributed and

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unsuccessful, despite the multiple
titles and campaign that it was released

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under the years.

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It was initially released as Black
Snake. The title is referring to a whip,

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you know, something phallic. But because
newspapers and exhibitors were worried

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about that, it got re -released as Sweet
Susie, and then later on at the end of

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the 70s as both The Devil's Mistress,
Duchess of Doom, and Russ Meyer's

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The original Prince of Black Snake ended
with a trailer for what was to be

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Meyer's grand return to the sex film,
which was Foxy or Viva Foxy, depending

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where you read, which was to be a
spiritual sequel to Vixens, starring his

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-wife Edie Williams, and written by
Roger Ebert.

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In 1974, Roger Ebert wrote kind of a
description of the film, saying that it

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going to be, quote,

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Sweet little Alice, I'm going to top you
off right.

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Like I said.

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Needless to say, Foxy wasn't to be
either. According to Meyer, this was

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of the uncertainty over the Supreme
Court's ruling in Miller v. California,

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which gave local communities the
authority to determine obscenity

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meaning that a film that was safe and
legal to show in San Francisco or New

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City or more liberal areas.

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could actually be prosecuted for
obscenity, say, in the South or in

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in Nashville.

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At the same time, Meyer's marriage to
Williams was quickly crumbling,

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spilling into a messy divorce that would
carry over into Up's press cycle.

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All of this led to a lightbulb moment
for Meyer, with him realizing that he'd

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lost his way and he needed to get back
to basics.

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As he said in a 1974 interview with the
Chicago Sun -Times, quote, I'm very

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serious about what I do.

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I got off on the wrong track in thinking
I could do any other kind of film.

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I'm back to doing what I do best, big
bosoms and square jaws.

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This is the first time I could find him
using this phrase that he would begin to

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recite over and over and over again for
the rest of his life.

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The result of this was one of his
biggest successes, the aforementioned

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Vixens, which is both a clearly very
angry divorce movie, but also a warped

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funhouse mirror greatest hits package.

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See you in two weeks.

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The hardcore era, of course, began in
1970 with films like Alex DiRenzi's

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documentary, Pornography in Denmark, A
New Approach, and Howard Ziem's Mona the

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Virgin Nymph.

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With, you know, quote -unquote, the real
thing, now something that was being

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shown openly in theaters and, for the
most part, avoiding obscenity

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prosecutions, why would you pay to see a
softcore simulation?

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Many of Meyer's contemporaries tried to
hold out.

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Some, like Joseph W. Sarno, kept a foot
in both worlds, making incredible

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hardcore films like Sleepyhead and
Slippery When Wet, while also making

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00:14:22,550 --> 00:14:26,970
softcore melodramas like Abigail Leslie
is Back in Town and Concessions of a

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Young American Housewife, using his real
name for the softcore films and a

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succession of fake ones for the hardcore
ones.

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The only other softcore filmmaker who
held out as long as Russ Meyer was

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Metzger. who took his first cautious
steps into integrating hardcore with his

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1973 film Score, which was released
under his own name, before making the

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the following year with The Private
Afternoons of Pamela Mann as Henry

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Meyer and Metzger were the two biggest
names in respectable sexploitation.

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The two made very, very different kinds
of films, but each had recognizable

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00:14:59,240 --> 00:15:03,620
styles and were seen as legitimate
artists in a very disreputable genre.

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00:15:08,840 --> 00:15:13,320
The early 70s was also this brief era of
the respectable X -rated films.

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00:15:13,720 --> 00:15:18,760
Movies like Just Shaken, Emmanuel, or
Bernardo Budolucci's Last Tango in

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00:15:19,280 --> 00:15:23,240
Films that were either produced or
distributed by major Hollywood studios

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00:15:23,240 --> 00:15:27,420
were explicitly about sex, but featured
no explicit sexual content.

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00:15:28,300 --> 00:15:32,100
The success of these films proved to
Meyer that he could still do what he did

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00:15:32,100 --> 00:15:36,260
and be successful, but he had to
compensate for the lack of explicit sex

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00:15:36,260 --> 00:15:40,840
higher production values, ribald humor,
and an emphasis on graphic violence.

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00:15:41,520 --> 00:15:46,000
As the poster for Up says, it's a,
quote, class X, naturally.

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00:15:47,120 --> 00:15:51,260
He wouldn't show what he called the
ultimate shot that the porno crowd

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00:15:51,340 --> 00:15:55,760
but by skirting this, this allowed his
films to have an air of respectability

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00:15:55,760 --> 00:15:58,500
and to play in proper, classy movie
theaters.

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00:15:58,900 --> 00:16:00,000
Not porno houses.

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00:16:00,700 --> 00:16:04,100
He would always say that his competition
was Barbra Streisand and Robert

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00:16:04,100 --> 00:16:07,360
Redford, you know, not Harry Reams or
John Holmes.

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00:16:10,600 --> 00:16:16,460
And with that, we finally get up...

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00:16:16,780 --> 00:16:17,780
to Up.

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00:16:18,240 --> 00:16:21,920
Russ Meyer's Up was made directly on the
heels of the release of Supervixens.

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00:16:22,260 --> 00:16:27,020
That film had its very first screenings
at colleges in February of 1975 before

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00:16:27,020 --> 00:16:28,680
going to general release in May.

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00:16:29,420 --> 00:16:32,780
Meyer went on a four -month promotional
tour and then jumped directly into the

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00:16:32,780 --> 00:16:34,220
production on Up in August.

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00:16:35,040 --> 00:16:38,880
In one of his last press interviews for
Supervixens, he described it as being,

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00:16:38,960 --> 00:16:43,340
quote, a rip -snorter, a crime satire
with a female Dick Tracy who is on the

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00:16:43,340 --> 00:16:44,660
trail of an aging Adolf Hitler.

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00:16:45,470 --> 00:16:47,010
As far out a picture as I've done.

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00:16:47,470 --> 00:16:49,690
Oh, sure, there'll be more bosoms and
square jaws.

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00:16:49,990 --> 00:16:52,210
It wouldn't be a Russ Meyer film without
that.

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00:16:53,050 --> 00:16:57,450
If you look closely, you can actually
see on that issue of the Zeit that Adolf

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00:16:57,450 --> 00:16:58,970
Schwartz is reading in his Bodicemer.

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00:16:59,510 --> 00:17:02,050
It's actually dated August 8th, 1975.

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00:17:04,390 --> 00:17:08,690
According to Meyer's memoir, A Clean
Breast, The Life and Love of Russ Meyer,

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00:17:08,990 --> 00:17:12,670
the initial idea for the film was to be
both a tribute and a vehicle for his

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00:17:12,670 --> 00:17:13,970
good friend, Henry Rolland.

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00:17:14,380 --> 00:17:18,800
and the character that he often played,
Martin Bormann, head of the Nazi Party

250
00:17:18,800 --> 00:17:22,819
Chancellery and private secretary to
Adolf Hitler, who disappeared at the end

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00:17:22,819 --> 00:17:26,920
World War II and was once famously
thought to be living somewhere in South

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00:17:26,920 --> 00:17:27,920
America.

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00:17:30,260 --> 00:17:34,360
Roland made his first appearance as
Bormann in Beyond the Bios of Dolls as Z

254
00:17:34,360 --> 00:17:38,060
-Man's butler before going on to own a
gas station in Supervixens.

255
00:17:38,640 --> 00:17:43,820
and be serviced by radio evangelist
Euphala Roop, played by Anne -Marie, at

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00:17:43,820 --> 00:17:46,000
beginning of Beneath the Valley of the
Ultra -Vixens.

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00:17:46,780 --> 00:17:49,980
According to the book, the conversation
was something like this.

258
00:17:50,520 --> 00:17:53,980
Quote, Why not put Marty in a more
familiar environment?

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00:17:54,340 --> 00:17:59,440
Like, say, a Neuschwanstein Bavarian
castle with a fresh rind wrinkle.

260
00:17:59,800 --> 00:18:02,320
Like awarding the old boy some sort of
love life.

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00:18:02,800 --> 00:18:03,800
Oh, I got it.

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00:18:04,170 --> 00:18:08,950
The trials and tribulations of a randy
slash debauched Nazi queen.

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00:18:11,390 --> 00:18:16,610
Rowland, of course, declined the role,
thus the chance to Adolf Schwartz, who

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00:18:16,610 --> 00:18:21,530
should be noted is actually the credited
author of A Clean Breast, Adolf Albion

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00:18:21,530 --> 00:18:24,570
Schwartz, with Albion, of course, being
Meyer's middle name.

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00:18:25,430 --> 00:18:29,430
Rowland did offer to dub the voice
instead, and a combination of English

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00:18:29,430 --> 00:18:32,650
German dialogue was written by associate
producer Uschi Dygard.

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00:18:33,889 --> 00:18:36,030
Finding an Adolf was harder than
expected.

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00:18:36,450 --> 00:18:40,270
Meyer wound up running an ad in Daily
Variety saying something to the effect

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00:18:40,350 --> 00:18:42,190
quote, Are you Adolf Hitler?

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00:18:42,830 --> 00:18:44,650
50 to 60 years of age?

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00:18:45,190 --> 00:18:46,190
German speaking?

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00:18:46,710 --> 00:18:47,710
Dot, dot, dot.

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00:18:48,070 --> 00:18:49,049
Comedic ability?

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00:18:49,050 --> 00:18:50,050
Question mark?

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00:18:50,350 --> 00:18:53,810
They wound up finding Ed Schaaf, a
character actor who was supposedly at

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00:18:53,810 --> 00:18:55,250
time a part -time golf caddy.

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00:19:00,360 --> 00:19:04,080
For whatever reason, this is the only
film that Meyer himself wrote that he

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00:19:04,080 --> 00:19:05,460
the pseudonym for, B.

280
00:19:05,800 --> 00:19:10,620
Callum, which he says was a reference to
the pseudonymous B. Traven, author of

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00:19:10,620 --> 00:19:12,140
The Treasure of the Sierra Madre.

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00:19:13,200 --> 00:19:19,220
A person named Buster Callum, a .k .a.
Russ Meyer, actually appeared in some ad

283
00:19:19,220 --> 00:19:22,680
mats for Beneath the Valley of the Ultra
Vixens with a photo of Russ Meyer.

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00:19:23,120 --> 00:19:25,240
But more on that a little bit later.

285
00:19:27,530 --> 00:19:29,850
So Meyer wrote the entire script
himself.

286
00:19:30,530 --> 00:19:34,090
Supervixens was the very first film that
he wrote entirely by himself, and this

287
00:19:34,090 --> 00:19:34,929
was his second.

288
00:19:34,930 --> 00:19:39,370
The only exception is that Kit
Natividad's narration as the Greek

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00:19:39,370 --> 00:19:42,530
written by his good friend Roger Ebert
under the name Reinhold Tim.

290
00:19:43,010 --> 00:19:48,590
And it's paraphrased from a whole big
wide swath of literary sources from

291
00:19:48,590 --> 00:19:53,750
Shakespeare's Macbeth, Henry Wadsworth
Longfellow's A Musician's Tale, Sir

292
00:19:53,750 --> 00:19:55,670
Arthur Conan Doyle's Hound of the
Baskervilles.

293
00:19:56,090 --> 00:20:00,250
There's some of the poetry of Hilda
Doolittle in there. You can spend hours

294
00:20:00,250 --> 00:20:05,250
trying to pick apart the extremely
purple prose of the Greek chorus.

295
00:20:11,670 --> 00:20:15,390
And that opening sequence that we saw
with Adolf Schwartz is where we get into

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00:20:15,390 --> 00:20:19,270
what really sets this film apart in
Meyer's filmography, I think, which is

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00:20:19,270 --> 00:20:22,910
depictions of queer sexuality and its
full frontal male nudity.

298
00:20:23,250 --> 00:20:27,300
And those are both... I think,
individually big, big things, so let's

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00:20:27,300 --> 00:20:28,300
those separately.

300
00:20:30,220 --> 00:20:34,320
That opening sequence, which featured
Paul topping Adolf and Gwendolyn topping

301
00:20:34,320 --> 00:20:39,780
sweet little Alice, is basically the
entire first reel of the film. It is a

302
00:20:39,780 --> 00:20:41,000
quarter of the runtime.

303
00:20:42,040 --> 00:20:47,300
That title card at the very beginning,
No Fairy Tale, this, is actually meant

304
00:20:47,300 --> 00:20:51,220
be a double entendre, though I think
that's generally lost on people

305
00:20:52,160 --> 00:20:55,320
You know, the film is not a fairy tale,
despite it having a Bavarian castle

306
00:20:55,320 --> 00:20:58,200
that's supposed to be situated somewhere
in Northern California.

307
00:20:58,960 --> 00:21:03,420
And it's also not a fairy tale, meaning
it's not gay.

308
00:21:04,060 --> 00:21:07,440
According to A Clean Brass, this was
meant to serve as a means for Meyer to

309
00:21:07,440 --> 00:21:10,700
assure his regular audience that he
wasn't, quote -unquote, abandoning them.

310
00:21:11,640 --> 00:21:15,460
And there's something that he really
points out there in the memoir, which is

311
00:21:15,460 --> 00:21:17,520
that the title card is lavender
-colored.

312
00:21:18,440 --> 00:21:21,220
Lavender is, of course, historically a
code word for gayness.

313
00:21:21,680 --> 00:21:25,100
and one that Miro himself would use in
Beneath the Valley of the Ultra Vixens

314
00:21:25,100 --> 00:21:29,800
with the gay dentist -slash -marriage
counselor Asa Lavender, who, in keeping

315
00:21:29,800 --> 00:21:34,740
with that film's gimmick of different
colors of blood kind of depicting the

316
00:21:34,740 --> 00:21:39,100
inner personality of all the different
characters, bleeds lavender -colored

317
00:21:39,100 --> 00:21:40,100
blood.

318
00:21:40,600 --> 00:21:44,120
Also, according to the film's press
book, the addition of the Gwendolyn and

319
00:21:44,120 --> 00:21:48,280
Alice sex scene there was actually just
in case people were turned off by the

320
00:21:48,280 --> 00:21:49,280
gay sex.

321
00:21:49,400 --> 00:21:54,570
To quote, To avoid the assumption, in
some circles, that Russ Meyer has

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00:21:54,570 --> 00:21:58,510
slipped a cog, sweet little Alice and
Gwendolyn are quickly displayed in a

323
00:21:58,510 --> 00:21:59,590
spirited woodsy encounter.

324
00:22:04,030 --> 00:22:08,310
The synopsis in that press book has
truly some of the greatest lines I've

325
00:22:08,310 --> 00:22:12,330
read. And I don't want to get too off
track, but I do kind of have to read a

326
00:22:12,330 --> 00:22:12,909
of these.

327
00:22:12,910 --> 00:22:17,650
These incredible descriptions like,
quote, overwrought, aching ass.

328
00:22:18,700 --> 00:22:21,260
Grand Coulee's Louis Gate Orgasm.

329
00:22:22,100 --> 00:22:25,040
36 positions plus four known only to the
emperor.

330
00:22:25,780 --> 00:22:29,840
And my favorite, which is kind of a long
one, which is, quote, Just for the sake

331
00:22:29,840 --> 00:22:34,020
of sex, Paul and Alice hide to river and
stream, forest and glade for some

332
00:22:34,020 --> 00:22:38,540
athletic conviviality. They don't
disappoint, displaying a prowess seldom

333
00:22:38,800 --> 00:22:43,640
There is no question with regard to
Paul's ACDC nor Alice's ability to

334
00:22:43,640 --> 00:22:46,020
and score in any sexual Olympic
decathlon.

335
00:22:51,870 --> 00:22:55,790
Russ Meyer actually did do an interview
with the advocate for this film, and

336
00:22:55,790 --> 00:22:59,270
it's maybe one of the most interesting
of the many, many interviews of his that

337
00:22:59,270 --> 00:23:00,270
I've run over the years.

338
00:23:01,030 --> 00:23:05,510
The advocate is, of course, basically
the gay paper of record. It is the gay

339
00:23:05,510 --> 00:23:10,370
York Times. It was founded before the
Stonewall riots, and they were never

340
00:23:10,370 --> 00:23:14,370
really fans of Meyer's work. Just to
kind of quote two headlines of reviews.

341
00:23:15,080 --> 00:23:19,440
Beyond dolls, how to make worse out of
bad, and actually one of my favorites,

342
00:23:19,660 --> 00:23:21,920
seven minutes last two god -awful hours.

343
00:23:23,060 --> 00:23:28,120
Meyer always projected himself in
interviews as this red -blooded he -man,

344
00:23:28,120 --> 00:23:29,880
here he's maybe a little bit more
measured.

345
00:23:30,140 --> 00:23:35,080
He says, quote, It would be pretty
difficult for me to play a homosexual

346
00:23:35,080 --> 00:23:39,040
between two men straight because I know
nothing of it. I'm not at all oriented

347
00:23:39,040 --> 00:23:40,920
in that area or in that direction.

348
00:23:42,300 --> 00:23:46,420
If anything, I would lampoon it or make
sport of it, even to the extent of

349
00:23:46,420 --> 00:23:47,420
ridiculing it.

350
00:23:47,440 --> 00:23:49,060
I'm being honest, straightforward.

351
00:23:49,920 --> 00:23:52,320
I don't know anything about it. It
doesn't appeal to me.

352
00:23:52,800 --> 00:23:54,680
I'm not in opposition by any means.

353
00:23:54,980 --> 00:23:57,000
If somebody wants to, it's their thing.

354
00:23:57,480 --> 00:24:02,720
But as far as me trying to be one who
can express whatever I do in a film, I

355
00:24:02,720 --> 00:24:05,120
turned on in a film. I am turned on by
what I do.

356
00:24:05,460 --> 00:24:06,460
I have to be.

357
00:24:06,640 --> 00:24:10,160
I can't say by any stretch of the
imagination that two men making it would

358
00:24:10,160 --> 00:24:11,160
me on.

359
00:24:11,200 --> 00:24:15,160
If anything, I'd probably find it highly
amusing, which does come through, I

360
00:24:15,160 --> 00:24:16,160
think, in Up.

361
00:24:16,980 --> 00:24:20,000
According to that same interview, Meyer
mentioned receiving criticism from gay

362
00:24:20,000 --> 00:24:22,600
critics while on the film's press tour,
saying, quote,

363
00:24:45,720 --> 00:24:49,580
It's funny. I think in a very
unintentional kind of roundabout way,

364
00:24:49,580 --> 00:24:53,660
does play into some of the tropes of
queer filmmaking from the 70s.

365
00:24:54,280 --> 00:24:57,420
The 1970s are, of course, the era of gay
liberation.

366
00:24:57,820 --> 00:25:02,280
This is in the wake of the Stonewall
riots in 1969, kind of the dawning of a

367
00:25:02,280 --> 00:25:07,160
consciousness, of gay activism, of queer
people finally standing up and fighting

368
00:25:07,160 --> 00:25:08,119
for their rights.

369
00:25:08,120 --> 00:25:10,180
And also trying to...

370
00:25:10,680 --> 00:25:15,320
put together and build images that could
be disseminated across the world and to

371
00:25:15,320 --> 00:25:16,840
create positive representation.

372
00:25:17,400 --> 00:25:22,000
And one way you see this reflected in
queer cinema from the 70s was this kind

373
00:25:22,000 --> 00:25:28,560
association of queerness and queer
sexuality as being natural and positive

374
00:25:28,560 --> 00:25:33,500
good. There's a very important
documentary from 1977 called Word Is

375
00:25:33,500 --> 00:25:34,500
of Some of Our Lives.

376
00:25:35,080 --> 00:25:39,920
And that film basically is just
interviews with 26 gay men and lesbians

377
00:25:39,920 --> 00:25:44,300
talking about, you know, their
adolescence and their upbringing and

378
00:25:44,300 --> 00:25:47,380
out and their relationships and their
lives. And, you know, this is what it's

379
00:25:47,380 --> 00:25:49,340
like to be gay and being gay is good and
natural.

380
00:25:49,680 --> 00:25:53,900
And the way that the filmmakers try to
underscore this visually is by

381
00:25:53,900 --> 00:25:56,060
interviewing some of these people out in
nature.

382
00:25:56,680 --> 00:26:00,860
In a lot of these films from this era,
you see, you know, queer sexuality and

383
00:26:00,860 --> 00:26:04,080
queerness being depicted in nature
because queerness is...

384
00:26:04,280 --> 00:26:05,280
natural.

385
00:26:05,420 --> 00:26:09,020
One of the stars of this film, Robert
McClain, who we'll be talking about in

386
00:26:09,020 --> 00:26:13,220
just a little bit, who plays Paul,
actually did star in one of the very

387
00:26:13,220 --> 00:26:16,500
gay independent films, which was called
A Very Natural Thing.

388
00:26:21,080 --> 00:26:25,620
Unlike these critics from the time, I
don't think Meyer is making some sort of

389
00:26:25,620 --> 00:26:30,940
grand statement on how ugly gay sex is
by having Adolf Schwartz being in this

390
00:26:30,940 --> 00:26:31,940
dungeon.

391
00:26:32,410 --> 00:26:36,330
I think it's just kind of commenting and
parodying S andM culture, really.

392
00:26:37,670 --> 00:26:41,810
You know, it's funny. I think the
sexuality of the characters in this film

393
00:26:41,810 --> 00:26:43,490
really fascinating, especially Paul.

394
00:26:44,130 --> 00:26:47,250
He reminds me of a character that you'd
see in a Joe Gage film.

395
00:26:47,570 --> 00:26:52,290
Joe Gage, a .k .a. Tim Kincaid, one of
the biggest and most influential gay

396
00:26:52,290 --> 00:26:54,190
filmmakers of the 1970s and 80s.

397
00:26:54,450 --> 00:26:57,870
The filmmaker who made this series of
road movies.

398
00:26:58,520 --> 00:27:01,160
that kind of created this archetype
called the gauge man.

399
00:27:01,500 --> 00:27:05,260
And gauge men were easygoing, they were
blue -collar, they were people who could

400
00:27:05,260 --> 00:27:08,420
make it with both men and women and
didn't really care about labels.

401
00:27:09,520 --> 00:27:14,040
In interviews and in the synopsis in the
press book, Meyer always underlines

402
00:27:14,040 --> 00:27:16,860
that Paul was supposed to be strictly
bisexual and not gay.

403
00:27:17,340 --> 00:27:21,480
Yet at the end it's revealed that Alice
kills, or at least castrates Adolf,

404
00:27:21,660 --> 00:27:23,620
because Paul can't get it up after their
sessions.

405
00:27:24,649 --> 00:27:28,270
All of the women in the film are
functionally bisexual, though Margot

406
00:27:28,270 --> 00:27:31,050
feigns interest in Alice at the end as a
means of self -preservation.

407
00:27:31,690 --> 00:27:34,430
Yet, apart from Paul and Adolf, none of
the men are.

408
00:27:35,710 --> 00:27:41,290
In the end, neither Adolf or Paul are
positive, sympathetic representations of

409
00:27:41,290 --> 00:27:44,610
queerness. Yet at the same time, none of
the characters in this film are

410
00:27:44,610 --> 00:27:45,610
sympathetic.

411
00:27:46,070 --> 00:27:49,070
Especially all the men. The men are
terrible in this movie. They're all

412
00:27:49,070 --> 00:27:50,070
rapists or gay.

413
00:27:58,320 --> 00:28:02,040
But going off of that, I think the other
reason why this film is very notable in

414
00:28:02,040 --> 00:28:05,560
Meyer's filmography is that it's his
first to really feature full frontal

415
00:28:05,560 --> 00:28:09,960
nudity. The notorious scene between
Harry the Cop and Super Angel and Super

416
00:28:09,960 --> 00:28:11,160
Vixens was the very first.

417
00:28:11,460 --> 00:28:15,080
And Meyer claimed that his intention for
doing this and making this movie in

418
00:28:15,080 --> 00:28:16,860
general was to target the female
audience.

419
00:28:17,380 --> 00:28:19,040
And this was his way of doing so.

420
00:28:19,660 --> 00:28:23,960
Meyer, in an interview with the Daily
Trojan, said, quote, women are very much

421
00:28:23,960 --> 00:28:25,120
into frontal male nudity.

422
00:28:25,600 --> 00:28:28,520
It's been reflected in the reception
magazines like Playgirl have received.

423
00:28:29,040 --> 00:28:32,240
I know that I've always had girls that
have been really well endowed in my

424
00:28:32,240 --> 00:28:35,440
films, and that probably is a little
tough for a lot of women to handle.

425
00:28:36,260 --> 00:28:40,340
But now, with this new film with all the
men with giant appendages, I've denied

426
00:28:40,340 --> 00:28:41,540
the women long enough.

427
00:28:45,600 --> 00:28:49,600
It's a strange strategy given how much
sexual assault there is in this film,

428
00:28:49,600 --> 00:28:52,960
I think it's a really fascinating
evolution for Meyer, and one that's very

429
00:28:52,960 --> 00:28:53,960
canny.

430
00:28:54,410 --> 00:28:57,950
In the hardcore world, there was this
concept of what was called couples

431
00:28:58,390 --> 00:29:02,170
These were more melodramatic and
romantic hardcore films with high

432
00:29:02,170 --> 00:29:07,330
values that were made as a means of
trying to learn couples and women, you

433
00:29:07,330 --> 00:29:08,330
not just men.

434
00:29:08,450 --> 00:29:13,070
These are movies that men could take
their girlfriends to without having to

435
00:29:13,070 --> 00:29:14,070
them along.

436
00:29:14,290 --> 00:29:17,990
I think kind of the best example of this
is Chuck Vincent's early 80s film In

437
00:29:17,990 --> 00:29:21,830
Love, which kind of has to be seen to be
believed. It's one of the most over

438
00:29:21,830 --> 00:29:22,950
-the -top melodramatic.

439
00:29:23,929 --> 00:29:25,730
hardcore romances I've ever seen.

440
00:29:26,990 --> 00:29:30,490
At the time, I think Meyer's female
audience by and large would have

441
00:29:30,490 --> 00:29:33,570
been women who were going to see the
films with their boyfriends or husbands,

442
00:29:33,870 --> 00:29:37,230
but he wanted to make a movie that would
be an easier sell for the men to get

443
00:29:37,230 --> 00:29:38,250
them to come along with them.

444
00:29:39,210 --> 00:29:43,790
Funnily enough, once Faster Pussycat
Kill Kill had its revival in the 90s,

445
00:29:43,790 --> 00:29:46,890
kind of shifted and that was the movie
with the strong female audience.

446
00:29:53,240 --> 00:29:57,000
Meyer was also always very, very cagey
about the use of prosthetics in this

447
00:29:57,000 --> 00:30:01,880
film. In the advocate interview, he
says, quote, Leonard Box has got a huge

448
00:30:01,880 --> 00:30:03,980
cock, and so does Bob McClain.

449
00:30:04,240 --> 00:30:07,960
We put a big white dildo on the black
chick with a Buck Rogers space belt that

450
00:30:07,960 --> 00:30:09,440
she carried around in a violin case.

451
00:30:09,940 --> 00:30:14,400
The giant wraith, we had like an 18
-inch member we put on him because he

452
00:30:14,400 --> 00:30:15,680
300 pounds to begin with.

453
00:30:16,260 --> 00:30:20,520
And in a clean breath, Meyer claims that
McClain had a, quote, limber member big

454
00:30:20,520 --> 00:30:21,940
as a fat baby's arm.

455
00:30:23,280 --> 00:30:26,840
At the end of the film, Sweet Little
Alice points out that it's supposedly 11

456
00:30:26,840 --> 00:30:31,740
inches, but if you look at Robert
McLean's two prior films, the 1970

457
00:30:31,740 --> 00:30:36,260
sexploitation film Barbara and that
aforementioned 1974 film A Very Natural

458
00:30:36,260 --> 00:30:40,740
Thing, both feature very prominent full
frontal male nudity, very easily

459
00:30:40,740 --> 00:30:41,740
disproving that.

460
00:30:42,920 --> 00:30:46,160
The prosthetics would make a
reappearance of Beneath the Valley of

461
00:30:46,160 --> 00:30:48,980
Vixens, but nowhere near to the extent
as they are here.

462
00:30:53,180 --> 00:30:57,520
Again, I think the video master that
people have been watching for the past

463
00:30:57,520 --> 00:31:01,080
years has really diminished the
effectiveness of this new little

464
00:31:01,780 --> 00:31:04,160
Or should I say, new big gimmick?

465
00:31:04,560 --> 00:31:09,240
In that interview from The Advocate,
Meyer talks about how proud he was of

466
00:31:09,240 --> 00:31:12,280
specific moment in the film which you
can't really see when you're watching

467
00:31:12,280 --> 00:31:13,280
old master.

468
00:31:13,340 --> 00:31:18,020
Quote, Leonard Box is about to pummel
Margot Winchester's own with this giant

469
00:31:18,020 --> 00:31:22,120
member. He turns to the right and then
to the left and all the women go,

470
00:31:23,679 --> 00:31:25,480
Ugh. Leonard Vox had a huge cock.

471
00:31:25,780 --> 00:31:30,280
I had an aide on the set, feminine, who
got him up at the right time so that

472
00:31:30,280 --> 00:31:32,500
when he turned, it was weathervane
-like.

473
00:31:33,540 --> 00:31:36,800
See what I mean about him trying to
downplay the use of prosthetics and

474
00:31:36,920 --> 00:31:41,560
you know, saying that he had a fluffer
on set? Which, again, this isn't a

475
00:31:41,560 --> 00:31:46,320
hardcore film. There would be no need
for actual erections or anything like

476
00:31:46,320 --> 00:31:51,220
that. But he's trying to sell this idea
and really, in this very canny way,

477
00:31:51,930 --> 00:31:56,270
try to get both the gay and female
audience out to see this film.

478
00:31:59,910 --> 00:32:04,110
I think one of the other things that's
interesting about this film is how it

479
00:32:04,110 --> 00:32:09,310
both reflects and also kind of predates
the whole CB radio craze that was

480
00:32:09,310 --> 00:32:11,070
beginning to hit America at the time.

481
00:32:11,590 --> 00:32:16,350
This was in part initiated by the
novelty country song Convoy by C .W.

482
00:32:16,510 --> 00:32:20,310
which was a fictional character created
by Bill Freeze and Chip Davis.

483
00:32:21,020 --> 00:32:24,740
which was released in November of 1975
and became a number one hit on both the

484
00:32:24,740 --> 00:32:26,300
country and the pop charts.

485
00:32:27,380 --> 00:32:31,100
Up was actually way ahead of the curve
here. Again, the film was shot in August

486
00:32:31,100 --> 00:32:34,100
of 1975, so it predates the actual song.

487
00:32:35,140 --> 00:32:39,060
Charles Napier, one of Meyer's closest
friends, who was the star -slash

488
00:32:39,060 --> 00:32:42,920
of Super Vixens, had actually been a
correspondent for the trucker magazine

489
00:32:42,920 --> 00:32:44,340
Overdrive for years.

490
00:32:45,100 --> 00:32:48,900
A lot of press says that he actually was
a trucker, but according to him, he

491
00:32:48,900 --> 00:32:53,060
just traveled the country doing stuff
for the magazine. He wasn't actually

492
00:32:53,060 --> 00:32:54,440
taking loads around the country.

493
00:32:56,120 --> 00:33:00,960
Hollywood didn't really start cashing in
on this little trend until 1977 with

494
00:33:00,960 --> 00:33:04,980
the release of Jonathan Demme's Citizens
Band, which starred Charles Napier,

495
00:33:05,280 --> 00:33:10,360
Smoking the Bandit, Breaker Breaker, the
hardcore film Breaker Beauties.

496
00:33:10,910 --> 00:33:14,750
And then it really peaked in 1978 with
the release of Sam Peckinpah's

497
00:33:14,750 --> 00:33:16,890
of the song Convoy.

498
00:33:17,890 --> 00:33:21,970
The only film to really predate Up was
the Mitchell Brothers' hardcore quickie

499
00:33:21,970 --> 00:33:26,990
CB Mamas, which was released in April of
1976, so about six months before Up.

500
00:33:27,170 --> 00:33:31,270
But after, you know, Meyer had publicly
made it known what the film was actually

501
00:33:31,270 --> 00:33:33,590
going to be about, so maybe they're
actually ripping him off.

502
00:33:34,540 --> 00:33:38,300
Up would later be reissued with a new
campaign in 1978 to play up this

503
00:33:38,300 --> 00:33:44,440
association. The film was kind of sort
of retitled Up Smokey, though if you

504
00:33:44,440 --> 00:33:50,660
at the admin, it says Russ Myers Up
starring Monty Bane as Smokey.

505
00:33:50,880 --> 00:33:54,680
The Up and the Smokey are in the same
font, right next to each other, so I

506
00:33:54,680 --> 00:33:58,960
tell if the title was supposed to be Up
Smokey or just Up starring Monty Bane as

507
00:33:58,960 --> 00:33:59,960
Smokey.

508
00:34:06,720 --> 00:34:11,659
Unlike Meyer's other later films, which
take place in an almost fantasy version

509
00:34:11,659 --> 00:34:16,120
of Small Town USA, the setting for Up is
actually, for the most part, very

510
00:34:16,120 --> 00:34:17,620
realistic and correct.

511
00:34:17,940 --> 00:34:19,940
Well, minus the castle.

512
00:34:20,639 --> 00:34:23,820
In an interview with the Boston Phoenix
during the Super Vixens press tour,

513
00:34:24,080 --> 00:34:27,520
Meyer said that his script always grew
out of the locations that he chose to

514
00:34:27,520 --> 00:34:28,600
center them around.

515
00:34:29,000 --> 00:34:33,320
He said, quote, I'm going to try some
more outrageous sex insofar as locations

516
00:34:33,320 --> 00:34:34,320
are concerned.

517
00:34:34,639 --> 00:34:35,900
I've never been in a raging waterfall.

518
00:34:36,340 --> 00:34:38,120
Or in the back of a police car, you
know.

519
00:34:38,400 --> 00:34:42,280
Or a cop stops a gal right in the middle
of town and she performs cunnilingus on

520
00:34:42,280 --> 00:34:43,719
him while he's writing out her ticket.

521
00:34:44,620 --> 00:34:47,420
Yeah, I don't know why he said
cunnilingus on him.

522
00:34:47,760 --> 00:34:50,440
There was a fic on that in the article.

523
00:34:52,420 --> 00:34:56,239
So, of course, Adolf Schwartz's castle
was not in California. It was actually

524
00:34:56,239 --> 00:35:00,060
the Neuschwanstein Castle in the
Bavarian Alps, which was built to be

525
00:35:00,060 --> 00:35:02,220
Ludwig II of Bavaria's private home.

526
00:35:02,840 --> 00:35:05,880
But he died before construction could
finish, so it opened to the public in

527
00:35:05,880 --> 00:35:10,100
1886. It was later used as the model for
the Sleeping Beauty Castle at

528
00:35:10,100 --> 00:35:11,100
Disneyland.

529
00:35:12,180 --> 00:35:15,920
Homer Johnson, early on in the film when
he's first introduced, says that he's

530
00:35:15,920 --> 00:35:19,020
the only trooper, quote, from
Garberville to Myers Flat.

531
00:35:19,420 --> 00:35:24,500
And the film actually is set and shot
literally between those two towns, in

532
00:35:24,500 --> 00:35:26,680
Miranda, Phillipsville, and Salmon
Creek.

533
00:35:27,320 --> 00:35:28,700
Consider this a warning.

534
00:35:28,920 --> 00:35:30,220
Let go, you greedy cunt!

535
00:35:33,710 --> 00:35:38,610
This was the exact same area in Northern
California, up by the Oregon border,

536
00:35:38,850 --> 00:35:41,850
where Meyer had shot Vixen almost a
decade earlier.

537
00:35:42,690 --> 00:35:47,190
That film was largely shot inside of a
farmhouse owned by Meyer's childhood

538
00:35:47,190 --> 00:35:48,530
friend, Wilford Bud Hughes.

539
00:35:49,410 --> 00:35:55,310
It's been said many times that the cabin
that was used for Homer's house in Up

540
00:35:55,310 --> 00:35:58,990
was that exact same farmhouse, but the
two look very, very different to me.

541
00:35:59,470 --> 00:36:05,770
I don't know if there was a renovation
that happened, but Bud Hughes does get a

542
00:36:05,770 --> 00:36:07,590
location manager credit for this film.

543
00:36:09,110 --> 00:36:13,110
Around the same time that Up was being
made, Vixen star Erica Gavin had begun

544
00:36:13,110 --> 00:36:17,550
making negative statements about Meyer
in the press, and I kind of wonder if

545
00:36:17,550 --> 00:36:23,550
this deliberate return back to Miranda,
California, to the scene, if you will,

546
00:36:23,750 --> 00:36:26,470
was his way of processing or confronting
that.

547
00:36:27,690 --> 00:36:32,630
Around this time, Gavin did an interview
with cult movies author Danny Perry for

548
00:36:32,630 --> 00:36:37,490
Velvet Light Trap magazine, which was
titled Erica Gavin from Vixen's

549
00:36:37,490 --> 00:36:38,490
Vindication.

550
00:36:38,830 --> 00:36:44,050
And in this interview, she said, quote,
I really think, if he reads this, he's

551
00:36:44,050 --> 00:36:47,550
going to freak, that the only reason
that Vixen made it was because of me.

552
00:36:48,270 --> 00:36:51,590
And, quote, Vixen is really a put -down
of women.

553
00:36:51,870 --> 00:36:55,730
It says that all women want is sex, that
they're never satisfied, and that

554
00:36:55,730 --> 00:36:56,870
they'll go anywhere to find it.

555
00:36:57,230 --> 00:37:01,230
It shows that women have no loyalty, no
sensitivity in sexual relationships.

556
00:37:03,150 --> 00:37:07,550
Erica Gavin has recently said that she
only made these comments because of the

557
00:37:07,550 --> 00:37:10,510
feminist movement was making her feel
guilty for her involvement in the film.

558
00:37:11,030 --> 00:37:15,150
She and Meyer later buried the hatchet
and reconnected and became friends

559
00:37:15,850 --> 00:37:20,310
So, you know, it's... Strangely, he
would just suddenly decide to come back

560
00:37:20,310 --> 00:37:24,790
this one location to make a whole other
film that is in some ways similar, but

561
00:37:24,790 --> 00:37:29,970
also very, very different. I mean, the
whole plot of Vixen hinges around the

562
00:37:29,970 --> 00:37:34,550
fact that the film is supposed to be
taking place in Canada, yet the whole

563
00:37:34,550 --> 00:37:38,130
of Up is that it specifically is taking
place in Miranda, California.

564
00:37:42,090 --> 00:37:46,650
Speaking of, much of the locations were
wrangled by Miranda's postmaster and so

565
00:37:46,650 --> 00:37:50,570
-called unofficial mayor, Wilbur and
Cluck, who got a supervising producer

566
00:37:50,570 --> 00:37:51,570
credit.

567
00:37:52,470 --> 00:37:57,110
Alice's Cafe in the film is now the
Avenue Cafe. It's still open and it's

568
00:37:57,110 --> 00:37:58,290
actually Bigfoot themed.

569
00:37:58,810 --> 00:38:01,810
This whole sequence that we've been
watching for the past couple of minutes

570
00:38:01,810 --> 00:38:07,590
Homer's encounter with the chesty young
thing outside of this filling station as

571
00:38:07,590 --> 00:38:08,910
Paul watches from the cafe.

572
00:38:09,610 --> 00:38:13,710
is maybe actually one of my favorites in
the entire film, because I think it is

573
00:38:13,710 --> 00:38:17,850
such a showcase for Meyer's expert use
of these real -life locations.

574
00:38:19,150 --> 00:38:23,730
Unlike Super Vixens, which was largely
shot in the desert of Arizona, or

575
00:38:23,730 --> 00:38:27,570
the Valley of the Ultra Vixens, which
was largely shot inside of his house,

576
00:38:27,570 --> 00:38:30,390
is a film that is all about kind of the
real world.

577
00:38:31,630 --> 00:38:36,860
You know, there was that quote, where
he's talking about how the screenplays

578
00:38:36,860 --> 00:38:39,380
kind of are generated by the locations.

579
00:38:39,760 --> 00:38:44,900
And you can kind of imagine him going on
a scouting trip to Miranda and seeing

580
00:38:44,900 --> 00:38:50,320
this cafe and seeing the repair shop
across the street and constructing it in

581
00:38:50,320 --> 00:38:52,320
his mind how this is all going to play
out.

582
00:38:52,720 --> 00:38:57,040
One of the taglines for this movie when
it was released was that it was Russ

583
00:38:57,040 --> 00:39:01,180
Meyer's personal fantasies. And you can
kind of get the idea that he's just

584
00:39:01,180 --> 00:39:04,880
like... coming up with this as he's
existing in these spaces.

585
00:39:05,640 --> 00:39:09,760
None of these are on set. This is all
real -world places.

586
00:39:09,980 --> 00:39:12,900
It's so different for him during this
era of his career.

587
00:39:13,380 --> 00:39:17,540
Actually, if you rewind back to that
extreme long shot that's at the

588
00:39:17,540 --> 00:39:22,080
of the sequence and then open up
Miranda, California in Google Maps, it

589
00:39:22,080 --> 00:39:24,460
remarkably still similar to how it looks
in the film.

590
00:39:26,640 --> 00:39:29,900
I'll get to it more in just a second,
but I kind of wonder if this whole film

591
00:39:29,900 --> 00:39:30,729
was almost...

592
00:39:30,730 --> 00:39:34,490
intended to be something of like a
tourist ad for Miranda, California.

593
00:39:35,090 --> 00:39:38,530
If you really listen to the dialogue,
all the characters are naming locations.

594
00:39:39,250 --> 00:39:42,090
There's a part later where Margot talks
about wanting to go to Salmon Creek.

595
00:39:42,410 --> 00:39:47,110
There's that line from Homer talking
about Garberville and Myers Slatt. This

596
00:39:47,110 --> 00:39:52,730
a film that is so specific to this one
little geographic location. It's not in

597
00:39:52,730 --> 00:39:55,390
this kind of nebulous fantasy world.

598
00:40:00,480 --> 00:40:05,460
Alice's Cafe 2, which we see later in
the film, was the Sawblade Tavern, the

599
00:40:05,460 --> 00:40:08,540
exterior, and the interior was a barn
somewhere else in the area.

600
00:40:09,360 --> 00:40:14,280
Both of these cafes were located down
the Avenue of the Giants, and outside

601
00:40:14,280 --> 00:40:18,880
Sawblade was the Giant of the Avenue,
which is an enormous chainsaw sculpture

602
00:40:18,880 --> 00:40:20,600
the tavern's proprietor, Mel Byrd.

603
00:40:21,120 --> 00:40:27,000
It was created in 1973, completely with
a chainsaw from one redwood log, and the

604
00:40:27,000 --> 00:40:31,340
sign on the base says, quote, A memorial
to the loggers, woodsmen, and pioneers

605
00:40:31,340 --> 00:40:33,360
who conquered this savage but peaceful
land.

606
00:40:34,240 --> 00:40:38,040
The Sawblade also had a logging museum
for his private collection of, like,

607
00:40:38,080 --> 00:40:39,800
ephemera and memorabilia.

608
00:40:40,680 --> 00:40:44,100
The Sawblade Tavern closed a long time
ago, but the building is still standing.

609
00:40:44,440 --> 00:40:48,360
The giant disappeared at some point, but
was replaced with a new statue pointing

610
00:40:48,360 --> 00:40:49,800
at the abandoned building.

611
00:40:54,210 --> 00:40:57,610
One wonders if the whole idea for the
cafe becoming so successful that they

612
00:40:57,610 --> 00:41:00,710
opened a second one was something that
was inspired by the locations.

613
00:41:00,930 --> 00:41:05,610
It's literally a five -minute drive from
the Avenue Cafe to the Sawblade Tavern.

614
00:41:06,910 --> 00:41:11,730
A lot of locals were used for these
scenes as extras, and I came across some

615
00:41:11,730 --> 00:41:16,190
anonymous comments and blog posts from
regional blogs, and I just want to read

616
00:41:16,190 --> 00:41:17,790
couple of these because I do think
they're kind of funny.

617
00:41:18,390 --> 00:41:22,670
Quote. After it was done, Russ gave the
Phillipsville Fire Department the

618
00:41:22,670 --> 00:41:23,790
premiere as a fundraiser.

619
00:41:24,070 --> 00:41:27,630
It happened at the Garberville Theater,
and I found myself behind several blue

620
00:41:27,630 --> 00:41:28,630
-haired elderly women.

621
00:41:29,010 --> 00:41:32,350
When the movie got going, I nearly died
of embarrassment, and the rest of the

622
00:41:32,350 --> 00:41:34,030
fire crew were shrinking in their seats.

623
00:41:34,510 --> 00:41:37,170
Hard to do when you're Neil Logan, our
chief at the time.

624
00:41:37,670 --> 00:41:41,030
The amazing thing is that no one walked
out, and Daryl Beasley howled with

625
00:41:41,030 --> 00:41:44,330
laughter down the front while his sweet
little wife, Ruth, cowered in horror.

626
00:41:44,790 --> 00:41:46,610
When it was over, we counted our money.

627
00:41:47,040 --> 00:41:49,120
rolled our eyes, and never talked about
it again.

628
00:41:49,980 --> 00:41:54,100
Someone else said, I supplied the
colored lights for the film because we

629
00:41:54,100 --> 00:41:57,260
only 115 -volt light bulbs in
Garberville at the time.

630
00:41:57,560 --> 00:41:59,200
They were in our big Christmas tree.

631
00:41:59,440 --> 00:42:01,640
We took them out and loaned them to the
movie company.

632
00:42:02,000 --> 00:42:04,920
It was all great fun for Garberville
until we got to see the movie.

633
00:42:05,580 --> 00:42:06,580
Oopsie!

634
00:42:06,880 --> 00:42:11,180
And it should be noted that the
Phillipsville Fire Department was

635
00:42:11,180 --> 00:42:14,880
next door to the Sawblade Tavern, so I'm
assuming that's...

636
00:42:15,240 --> 00:42:19,760
Some firefighters who were in that scene
near the end of the film and the gang

637
00:42:19,760 --> 00:42:20,760
rapes.

638
00:42:22,980 --> 00:42:28,100
Other parts of the film were shot noon
in Georgia.

639
00:42:28,320 --> 00:42:32,460
I think this is probably where the Harry
the Nimrod death of Adolf Schwartz

640
00:42:32,460 --> 00:42:33,359
scene was shot.

641
00:42:33,360 --> 00:42:37,160
In one interview, Meyer talked about how
they had to go down to Georgia to find

642
00:42:37,160 --> 00:42:39,060
that piranha that they used in the film.

643
00:42:39,300 --> 00:42:42,210
He said, quote, We found one down at
noon in Georgia.

644
00:42:42,470 --> 00:42:45,230
We found some on the west coast earlier,
but they weren't hungry.

645
00:42:45,510 --> 00:42:47,710
We only got this one to eat by
stratagem.

646
00:42:47,950 --> 00:42:50,030
I don't know what's wrong with piranhas
these days.

647
00:42:51,210 --> 00:42:54,770
For what it's worth, I think this trip
to Georgia is likely the inspiration for

648
00:42:54,770 --> 00:42:57,170
the character names in Beneath the
Valley of the Ultravixens.

649
00:42:57,850 --> 00:43:03,770
The names like Zebulon, Flavonia,
Flovilla, these are actually the names

650
00:43:03,770 --> 00:43:04,770
cities in Georgia.

651
00:43:06,010 --> 00:43:07,010
Not bad.

652
00:43:09,340 --> 00:43:13,640
As with Supervixens before it, Up is
very heavily referential of Meyer's past

653
00:43:13,640 --> 00:43:17,960
work. And of course there's a few direct
lines of dialogue that get repeated in

654
00:43:17,960 --> 00:43:18,960
this film.

655
00:43:19,120 --> 00:43:23,720
Paul repeats Ashley St. Ives' line from
Beyond the Valley of the Dolls, I'd like

656
00:43:23,720 --> 00:43:27,160
to strap you on sometime, to Margot,
which is something that she said that

657
00:43:27,160 --> 00:43:28,160
used before.

658
00:43:28,200 --> 00:43:31,520
And of course near the end of the film,
sweet little Alice repeats Superwoman's

659
00:43:31,520 --> 00:43:33,900
prepare to taste the black sperm of my
vengeance line.

660
00:43:35,000 --> 00:43:39,420
And of course... Vixen's wireframe bed
also makes a brief appearance at the end

661
00:43:39,420 --> 00:43:40,420
of the film.

662
00:43:40,600 --> 00:43:44,420
But beyond all that, I think the film
really does have a striking similarity

663
00:43:44,420 --> 00:43:48,980
Meyer's earlier Cherry, Harry, and
Raquel, which was his follow -up to

664
00:43:49,020 --> 00:43:54,760
It's ostensibly a drama about marijuana
smuggling in a border town, but it's

665
00:43:54,760 --> 00:43:58,640
actually mostly about the bisexual
girlfriend of a sheriff, Harry, who's

666
00:43:58,640 --> 00:44:03,460
by Charles Napier, who is attracted to
another woman, much to his disapproval.

667
00:44:04,110 --> 00:44:08,690
The advertising for that film played up
the bisexuality. The tagline was Cherry,

668
00:44:08,890 --> 00:44:14,470
Harry, and Raquel, dot, dot, dot, menage
a trois, exclamation point, despite

669
00:44:14,470 --> 00:44:16,050
never actually featuring a menage a
trois.

670
00:44:17,230 --> 00:44:21,170
Up, to me, in some ways feels like an
update of that film for the more

671
00:44:21,170 --> 00:44:25,930
permissive 70s, with both Paul and sweet
little Alice openly making it with

672
00:44:25,930 --> 00:44:30,430
people of the same and other gender in a
seemingly happy open relationship that

673
00:44:30,430 --> 00:44:33,050
we find out at the end actually isn't so
happy.

674
00:44:35,080 --> 00:44:37,220
Cherry, Harry, and Raquel had a tortured
production.

675
00:44:38,000 --> 00:44:41,740
Linda Ashton, who played Harry's
girlfriend Cherry, actually walked off

676
00:44:41,900 --> 00:44:45,260
forcing Meyer to have to rewrite the
film and then salvage it during post

677
00:44:45,260 --> 00:44:46,260
-production.

678
00:44:46,500 --> 00:44:50,860
His solution was to bring in Ushi Digard
as a new character named Sol, who

679
00:44:50,860 --> 00:44:53,040
appears in a series of non -sequitur
inserts.

680
00:44:53,560 --> 00:44:57,900
She does things like jumping up and down
on a bed in the nude, or pouring milk

681
00:44:57,900 --> 00:45:03,980
in her cleavage, or, you know, just...
being a telephone operator on a railroad

682
00:45:03,980 --> 00:45:05,280
track in the middle of the desert.

683
00:45:06,080 --> 00:45:10,020
In a way, I think this kind of echoes
and presages the addition of the Greek

684
00:45:10,020 --> 00:45:11,140
chorus to Up.

685
00:45:11,980 --> 00:45:16,320
Much like how Zygarde became one of
Meyer's closest associates after

686
00:45:16,320 --> 00:45:19,600
in that film, to the extent that she's
actually credited as an associate

687
00:45:19,600 --> 00:45:23,700
producer on this one, this film would
also mark Meyer's introduction to Kitten

688
00:45:23,700 --> 00:45:24,700
at TV Dad.

689
00:45:28,010 --> 00:45:31,130
And that gets us to the cast of the
film.

690
00:45:31,950 --> 00:45:36,110
One other notable thing about this film
is that, aside from some cameos from

691
00:45:36,110 --> 00:45:40,690
friends and crew like Fred Owens, this
is an entirely new cast for Meyer, which

692
00:45:40,690 --> 00:45:45,190
is the first time he had done that in,
you know, I think actually since

693
00:45:45,190 --> 00:45:46,190
Black Snake.

694
00:45:46,870 --> 00:45:49,950
In that interview with the Daily Trojan
that I referenced earlier, he said,

695
00:45:50,030 --> 00:45:52,070
quote, It's like being with another
broad.

696
00:45:52,810 --> 00:45:55,910
You need new people to work with all the
time because you've explored every

697
00:45:55,910 --> 00:45:58,490
crack and every crevice of a woman's
body with the camera.

698
00:45:58,910 --> 00:46:01,130
There's no reason I should use that same
woman again.

699
00:46:01,630 --> 00:46:04,870
I don't want to sound corny, but it's a
little like a love affair with the

700
00:46:04,870 --> 00:46:09,410
camera. You discover, intrude, expose,
unwrap, and investigate.

701
00:46:09,930 --> 00:46:13,470
If you're turned on yourself, then it's
going to affect a pretty large mass of

702
00:46:13,470 --> 00:46:14,470
your audience.

703
00:46:17,230 --> 00:46:22,040
Unlike supervixens or ultra -vixens, The
cast of this film isn't largely drawn

704
00:46:22,040 --> 00:46:25,260
from the sex film world or from Meyer's
own stock company.

705
00:46:25,940 --> 00:46:30,160
While no one here broke out and became a
named star, most did go on to have

706
00:46:30,160 --> 00:46:32,260
careers in the genre and TV film world.

707
00:46:32,680 --> 00:46:37,220
And most have, well, at least at the
time that I'm recording this, have never

708
00:46:37,220 --> 00:46:40,860
publicly spoken about their work on the
film. So let's run through some of the

709
00:46:40,860 --> 00:46:42,160
cast to the best that I can.

710
00:46:44,650 --> 00:46:48,410
We have Raven Delacroix as Margo
Winchester, who was the eldest of eight

711
00:46:48,410 --> 00:46:49,710
children and grew up in the Bronx.

712
00:46:50,170 --> 00:46:55,090
She's someone who has a truly insane,
incredible, unbelievable life story,

713
00:46:55,290 --> 00:46:59,230
including breaking into a prison once to
hook up with her biker lover.

714
00:47:00,370 --> 00:47:04,510
She was discovered by talent scout
Samantha Mansour, who was working for

715
00:47:04,510 --> 00:47:09,190
Poi III from Vox while eating a spinach
salad with a friend at Joe Allen's in

716
00:47:09,190 --> 00:47:10,190
West Hollywood.

717
00:47:11,820 --> 00:47:15,320
And at the time, she was a receptionist
for Far Out Productions, which was home

718
00:47:15,320 --> 00:47:16,320
to the band War.

719
00:47:16,520 --> 00:47:21,320
If you go back to the scene in Adolph
Schwartz's Botet Simmer, you will

720
00:47:21,320 --> 00:47:25,880
see that close -up of the War album
cover, which I think is a cheeky bit of

721
00:47:25,880 --> 00:47:26,880
product placement.

722
00:47:27,600 --> 00:47:32,600
Raven has said that Meyer told her that
he had seen some 400 women for the part

723
00:47:32,600 --> 00:47:35,340
and basically wanted her on the spot.

724
00:47:35,780 --> 00:47:39,520
And he actually didn't ask her to strip
nude before casting her.

725
00:47:40,190 --> 00:47:44,150
Which in many ways I think is a good
thing and shows Russ Meyer as, like, a

726
00:47:44,150 --> 00:47:45,450
pretty decent person.

727
00:47:46,330 --> 00:47:50,050
But at the same time was something that
gave her kind of some worry because she

728
00:47:50,050 --> 00:47:54,010
had that rose tattoo, which she got as a
birthday gift for her second husband,

729
00:47:54,110 --> 00:47:57,990
and was worried that it was going to
affect her participation in the film.

730
00:47:58,810 --> 00:48:02,670
Instead, Meyer fell in love with it and
wrote new dialogue and really, really

731
00:48:02,670 --> 00:48:05,130
fixates on it really hard later on.

732
00:48:06,310 --> 00:48:09,570
Raven later went on to have bit parts
over the next couple of years, but

733
00:48:09,570 --> 00:48:11,370
focused on her touring burlesque show.

734
00:48:11,930 --> 00:48:16,970
Her next major film role was in Jim
Wynorski's The Lost Empire in 1984,

735
00:48:16,970 --> 00:48:21,470
she was the associate producer, costume
designer, animal handler, and did her

736
00:48:21,470 --> 00:48:22,470
own stunts for.

737
00:48:25,390 --> 00:48:29,950
I talked about him a little bit before,
but you also have Robert McClane as

738
00:48:29,950 --> 00:48:34,610
Paul, who for me is perhaps the most
notable actor in this film.

739
00:48:35,150 --> 00:48:39,670
He was someone who came up in the off
-off -Broadway theater scene in New

740
00:48:39,890 --> 00:48:44,470
He had a very prominent nude role
starring as The Creature in Andy

741
00:48:44,470 --> 00:48:49,070
1972 play Cocteau, which did receive
coverage in After Dark magazine.

742
00:48:49,750 --> 00:48:56,530
A few years earlier, he made his film
debut in Walter Burns' 1970 truly

743
00:48:56,530 --> 00:49:01,450
underground sexploitation film Barbara,
which was an adaptation of a notorious

744
00:49:01,450 --> 00:49:06,520
and frankly really, really gross novel
by Frank Newman that was published by

745
00:49:06,520 --> 00:49:07,520
Grove Press.

746
00:49:07,940 --> 00:49:12,700
Barbara is a film that was lost for
decades. It was barely released. It was

747
00:49:12,700 --> 00:49:17,240
released really on the cusp of kind of
the beginning of hardcore, and by the

748
00:49:17,240 --> 00:49:22,580
time it came out in the, I believe, fall
of 1970, there was just truly no market

749
00:49:22,580 --> 00:49:24,180
for it, and no one wanted it.

750
00:49:24,760 --> 00:49:25,760
And it's funny.

751
00:49:26,860 --> 00:49:30,420
You know, thinking about it now, I think
it does have a lot of similarities to

752
00:49:30,420 --> 00:49:32,520
Up, especially its depictions of sex.

753
00:49:33,220 --> 00:49:37,780
Barbara is a film that features
basically every conceivable kind of sex.

754
00:49:37,780 --> 00:49:40,620
straight sex, gay sex, lesbian sex.

755
00:49:41,220 --> 00:49:46,400
There's a scene where a guy gets fucked
by a dog.

756
00:49:47,120 --> 00:49:52,620
There's... Truly, truly deranged stuff
in that. And it's the same kind of

757
00:49:52,620 --> 00:49:58,060
strange mechanical sexual gymnastics
that you see all throughout this film.

758
00:49:58,820 --> 00:50:03,640
Barbara was lost for decades. It never
had a home video release. It was barely

759
00:50:03,640 --> 00:50:07,940
released to begin with until Vinegar
Syndrome found it and restored it and re

760
00:50:07,940 --> 00:50:09,340
-released it in 2023.

761
00:50:10,080 --> 00:50:14,380
So now you can now see Barbara and I
think it's worth checking out.

762
00:50:15,140 --> 00:50:19,450
The year after Barbara was released,
Robert McClane would make an appearance

763
00:50:19,450 --> 00:50:23,990
adult film Legends of Vincent's
homoerotic road trip movie Blue Summer,

764
00:50:23,990 --> 00:50:27,930
few years later start opposite one of
the leads of that movie in Christopher

765
00:50:27,930 --> 00:50:29,590
Pariseau Larkin's A Very Natural Thing.

766
00:50:30,270 --> 00:50:33,810
Again, this is a landmark film that has
sadly largely been forgotten.

767
00:50:34,230 --> 00:50:39,150
It is one of the very first gay
independent films. It was nationally

768
00:50:39,150 --> 00:50:40,250
through New Line Cinema.

769
00:50:40,650 --> 00:50:46,450
It is a film that I think has not gotten
a fair shake, much like Rothmeier's Up.

770
00:50:46,920 --> 00:50:48,780
And I think it's a film that really
holds up well.

771
00:50:49,440 --> 00:50:54,580
He'd moved to L .A. in 1975 to pursue
acting full -time and actually did do an

772
00:50:54,580 --> 00:50:58,800
interview with The Advocate, I believe
one issue before they ran that Ross

773
00:50:58,800 --> 00:51:03,360
interview. And he said, quote, Since
it's risky to play a homosexual, people

774
00:51:03,360 --> 00:51:06,920
suggested that my first film, after A
Very Natural Thing, should be of a

775
00:51:06,920 --> 00:51:10,740
heterosexual. So the next picture I do,
it turns out to be a Ross Meyer film.

776
00:51:11,100 --> 00:51:12,780
How heterosexual can you get?

777
00:51:14,000 --> 00:51:15,420
Russ is now a cult figure.

778
00:51:15,930 --> 00:51:18,090
They have Meyer retrospectives at
Harvard and Yale.

779
00:51:18,710 --> 00:51:21,870
Working with him was the best work
experience I've ever had in my life

780
00:51:21,870 --> 00:51:24,370
he has the relaxation of a man who has
made many films.

781
00:51:24,730 --> 00:51:26,530
He has a real consideration for actors.

782
00:51:26,770 --> 00:51:27,950
He understands them.

783
00:51:28,790 --> 00:51:33,890
And in talking about that opening scene
with Adolf Schwartz, he said, quote, I

784
00:51:33,890 --> 00:51:36,010
was very concerned about the other
actors' skin.

785
00:51:39,050 --> 00:51:43,370
His film acting career sadly flatlined
after Up, so he moved to Vermont to get

786
00:51:43,370 --> 00:51:47,790
degree in psychiatric social work at
Goddard College before moving back in

787
00:51:48,030 --> 00:51:50,790
where he began working in different
roles at a number of organizations.

788
00:51:51,390 --> 00:51:53,650
He was a marriage and family counselor
at a hospital.

789
00:51:54,010 --> 00:51:55,810
He worked at a substance abuse facility.

790
00:51:56,150 --> 00:51:59,510
He finally became a staff worker at the
AIDS Project of Los Angeles.

791
00:52:00,170 --> 00:52:03,070
During this time, he also became heavily
involved in the city's queer theater

792
00:52:03,070 --> 00:52:07,910
scene, forming a queer theater workshop
in 1982 for, quote, fun.

793
00:52:08,430 --> 00:52:12,630
profit, self -exploration, meeting
people at an affordable price.

794
00:52:13,530 --> 00:52:18,230
That same year, he premiered Mask and On
My Way to Where I Am, which was an

795
00:52:18,230 --> 00:52:22,230
autobiographical play in which he plays
an older version of himself watching an

796
00:52:22,230 --> 00:52:23,770
actor playing him at 21.

797
00:52:24,770 --> 00:52:28,830
In 1985, he started a volunteer program
to drive HIV and AIDS patients to

798
00:52:28,830 --> 00:52:32,710
appointments and errands and
participated in the landmark Gay Men's

799
00:52:32,710 --> 00:52:33,710
at UCLA.

800
00:52:34,430 --> 00:52:38,390
He presented a paper entitled The Artist
in HIV Infection at the International

801
00:52:38,390 --> 00:52:43,370
AIDS Conference in Amsterdam in 1991,
before sadly passing away the following

802
00:52:43,370 --> 00:52:44,370
year.

803
00:52:47,950 --> 00:52:51,170
We then have Kit Natividad as the Greek
chorus.

804
00:52:51,510 --> 00:52:53,990
She was born in Mexico, the eldest of
nine children.

805
00:52:54,270 --> 00:52:58,630
Her family moved to Texas when she was
10, later moved to Los Angeles and had a

806
00:52:58,630 --> 00:53:02,210
spate of jobs, including as a house
cleaner for Stella Stevens, before

807
00:53:02,210 --> 00:53:03,210
a go -go dancer.

808
00:53:03,820 --> 00:53:07,940
She was extremely successful at this,
eventually winning the Miss Nude

809
00:53:07,940 --> 00:53:09,040
pageant in 1974.

810
00:53:10,300 --> 00:53:14,240
And here's how she met Meyer, in her own
words, from her great burlesque

811
00:53:14,240 --> 00:53:19,960
exposition bio, quote, I had a
girlfriend named Sherry Eubanks, a star

812
00:53:19,960 --> 00:53:22,000
Russ Meyer's greatest hits, Super
Vixens.

813
00:53:22,620 --> 00:53:26,800
Sherry and I worked at the Classic Cat
on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood, and

814
00:53:26,800 --> 00:53:30,520
told Russ that because of my big tits, I
would be a great Russ Meyer girl.

815
00:53:31,200 --> 00:53:34,400
As it happened, he was looking for a
girl to narrate his new film Up.

816
00:53:35,060 --> 00:53:38,480
When we met at the club, I found him
quite attractive and turned on the charm

817
00:53:38,480 --> 00:53:40,100
full tilt, landing me the part.

818
00:53:41,280 --> 00:53:45,160
Though Russ Meyer films are typically
tangled in story, Up was perhaps his

819
00:53:45,160 --> 00:53:46,160
weirdest film.

820
00:53:46,180 --> 00:53:49,120
I'll skip over the plot, which had
something to do with Hitler's daughter

821
00:53:49,120 --> 00:53:52,660
sadomasochism. The film starts with me
perched in a tree, nude.

822
00:53:52,940 --> 00:53:56,620
A dubbed voice announces me as the
film's guide, the incarnation of the

823
00:53:57,120 --> 00:54:00,480
cutting back to me every 10 minutes,
often with close -ups on my breasts and

824
00:54:00,480 --> 00:54:03,220
other parts of my anatomy so I could
explain what was going on.

825
00:54:03,740 --> 00:54:07,740
Russ was very tough on me, and after the
endless takes, I was exhausted and

826
00:54:07,740 --> 00:54:08,740
sometimes in tears.

827
00:54:09,100 --> 00:54:12,480
But when I realized that his
perfectionism brought out qualities I

828
00:54:12,480 --> 00:54:14,520
had, I learned to trust his directions.

829
00:54:15,280 --> 00:54:19,080
Released in October 1976, Up was not as
successful as Super Vixens.

830
00:54:19,460 --> 00:54:23,400
Six months into filming, I left George
and moved in with Russ, embarking on an

831
00:54:23,400 --> 00:54:24,940
affair that lasted 12 years.

832
00:54:27,440 --> 00:54:30,600
As I said earlier, the Greek chorus was
something that was not in the film's

833
00:54:30,600 --> 00:54:31,600
original screenplay.

834
00:54:31,920 --> 00:54:34,780
Meyer didn't have the idea until he was
already editing the film.

835
00:54:36,220 --> 00:54:39,060
Kitten would eventually go on to become
the star of Beneath the Valley of the

836
00:54:39,060 --> 00:54:43,220
Ultra Vixens, playing the double role of
Livonia Shed and her alter ego, Lola

837
00:54:43,220 --> 00:54:44,220
Langusta.

838
00:54:44,480 --> 00:54:48,740
While she was dubbed in the film, though
Meyer in the press kind of denied this,

839
00:54:48,940 --> 00:54:53,100
she did take lessons to remove her
accent for Ultra Vixens, and then said

840
00:54:53,100 --> 00:54:54,100
it never came back.

841
00:54:58,250 --> 00:55:02,430
Then we have Monty Bane as Homer
Johnson, who would go on to become a

842
00:55:02,430 --> 00:55:07,150
prolific character actor, often playing
cops, most notably in Nick Garris'

843
00:55:07,290 --> 00:55:11,670
Sleepwalkers, in which he gets stabbed
to death with an ear of corn, and Janet

844
00:55:11,670 --> 00:55:16,550
Wood as sweet little Alice, who has also
had a long career in film and TV, most

845
00:55:16,550 --> 00:55:21,190
notably making appearances in films like
Fangs, a .k .a. Holy Wednesday, and The

846
00:55:21,190 --> 00:55:25,170
Centerfold Girls before this film, and
then appearing in the lost queer film

847
00:55:25,170 --> 00:55:26,990
Mafia on the Bounty after.

848
00:55:28,110 --> 00:55:31,650
He only has one scene in the film, but I
think he's also someone who's kind of

849
00:55:31,650 --> 00:55:35,970
fascinating to me, and that's Larry
Dean, who plays Leonard Fox, who was

850
00:55:35,970 --> 00:55:40,190
Texas, grew up in Idaho, sang gospel
before switching to country and moving

851
00:55:40,190 --> 00:55:43,370
Los Angeles, where he founded his band,
Larry Dean and the Shooters.

852
00:55:43,830 --> 00:55:47,670
Though accredited anywhere in the film
or in the press materials, the two

853
00:55:47,670 --> 00:55:51,710
original songs featured throughout the
film are actually by him, and these are,

854
00:55:51,850 --> 00:55:56,650
as far as I can remember, the only two
original songs in any of the later Meyer

855
00:55:56,650 --> 00:55:57,650
films.

856
00:55:59,220 --> 00:56:03,460
Unfortunately, the film had no mention
anywhere on his now -defunct website,

857
00:56:03,460 --> 00:56:06,300
apparently he was kind of shocked when
he saw the final product.

858
00:56:07,600 --> 00:56:10,800
He later moved to Nashville and became a
staff songwriter for a country music

859
00:56:10,800 --> 00:56:15,280
publishing company and actually began
recording in the late 1980s,

860
00:56:15,280 --> 00:56:18,420
songs to Deep Impact, Blue Desert, and
Drowning Mona.

861
00:56:20,520 --> 00:56:25,480
The only other major character is Bob
Schott, who plays Rafe, who is having

862
00:56:25,480 --> 00:56:26,480
his...

863
00:56:27,250 --> 00:56:31,910
centerpiece scene here, who's also a
very prolific character actor, mostly in

864
00:56:31,910 --> 00:56:36,590
action films, appearing in Gymkhana,
Force 5, and Serio 8's Santiago's Future

865
00:56:36,590 --> 00:56:37,590
Hunters.

866
00:56:41,290 --> 00:56:45,110
Though they get very, very little screen
time and only at the beginning of the

867
00:56:45,110 --> 00:56:49,070
film, the three other people that we see
in Adolf Schwartz's dungeon, the

868
00:56:49,070 --> 00:56:53,370
Ethiopian chef, Limehouse, and the
headsperson, are also, I think, very

869
00:56:53,370 --> 00:56:54,370
fascinating.

870
00:56:54,720 --> 00:56:58,840
As the Ethiopian chef, we have Elaine
Collins, a .k .a. Georgia Jackson, who

871
00:56:58,840 --> 00:57:03,140
only appeared in a handful of films. I
would say Deep Jaws is probably the

872
00:57:03,140 --> 00:57:06,300
closest thing to Up, but was a very
prolific cheesecake model.

873
00:57:06,840 --> 00:57:10,860
She did at least one photo set with
Candy Samples, who appears in this film

874
00:57:10,860 --> 00:57:15,040
the head person under the name Mary
Gavin, a name that she'd been using on

875
00:57:15,040 --> 00:57:16,040
off for some time.

876
00:57:16,700 --> 00:57:20,840
As kind of a side note, Russ Meyer made
a cameo appearance in Bob Finn's 1984

877
00:57:20,840 --> 00:57:22,520
film All the Way In.

878
00:57:22,960 --> 00:57:27,160
which was a candy samples vehicle that
was widely billed as being her very

879
00:57:27,160 --> 00:57:28,160
hardcore film.

880
00:57:28,300 --> 00:57:31,840
This would probably be the closest that
Russ Meyer ever actually got to being

881
00:57:31,840 --> 00:57:32,840
involved in hardcore.

882
00:57:33,820 --> 00:57:38,300
In kind of a perverse twist, that same
year also saw the release of a hardcore

883
00:57:38,300 --> 00:57:43,140
film called Lady Lust, which was a
vehicle for Russ Meyer's ex -wife and

884
00:57:43,140 --> 00:57:45,500
the Violets of Dolls and Seven Minutes
star Edie Williams.

885
00:57:46,560 --> 00:57:51,520
It was very widely advertised as being
her first hardcore film, but she doesn't

886
00:57:51,520 --> 00:57:52,560
actually have sex in it.

887
00:57:53,759 --> 00:57:58,640
And then the third person from this trio
is Sue Lane, who plays Limehouse, who,

888
00:57:58,780 --> 00:58:01,440
much like Elaine Collins, was a very
popular still model.

889
00:58:02,380 --> 00:58:07,540
She did do a bunch of interviews for
porno magazines, but the interviews are

890
00:58:07,540 --> 00:58:11,280
over -the -top and kind of insane that
it's hard to tell if they're actually

891
00:58:11,280 --> 00:58:15,420
real or if they're just kind of the so
-called redeeming social value.

892
00:58:16,020 --> 00:58:20,780
In her own words, she says that she's,
quote, A mysterious oriental woman who

893
00:58:20,780 --> 00:58:24,680
lives on a crocodile -infested island
and makes love on clean beaches and

894
00:58:24,680 --> 00:58:25,680
waters.

895
00:58:27,600 --> 00:58:34,300
So, let's dive into the actual release
of the film.

896
00:58:35,040 --> 00:58:40,360
Up was originally set for release in
late spring 1976, according to the back

897
00:58:40,360 --> 00:58:43,960
a press book put together for a re
-release of many of Meyer's older films.

898
00:58:44,280 --> 00:58:47,940
This was part of what he called his
modular mix -and -match principle.

899
00:58:48,670 --> 00:58:53,390
which meant that he was offering films
like Super Vixens, Vixen, Cherry, Harry,

900
00:58:53,490 --> 00:58:59,070
and Raquel, and Finders, Keepers,
Lovers, Weepers, renamed FKLW, as

901
00:58:59,070 --> 00:59:00,870
interchangeable options for double
bills.

902
00:59:01,970 --> 00:59:05,690
As a bit of a side note, I will say that
I think part of Meyer's genius is his

903
00:59:05,690 --> 00:59:08,270
canny understanding of marketing and
film exploitation.

904
00:59:09,450 --> 00:59:13,430
He was willing to go as far as
completely retitling his films to build

905
00:59:13,430 --> 00:59:14,430
campaigns around them.

906
00:59:15,120 --> 00:59:20,320
I don't think people realize that
Mudhoney was originally released as Rope

907
00:59:20,320 --> 00:59:25,420
Flesh, or Common Law Cabin was
originally released as How Much Loving

908
00:59:25,420 --> 00:59:26,420
Normal Couple Need?

909
00:59:26,940 --> 00:59:31,720
And then, of course, there's the never
-ending saga of Black Snake becoming

910
00:59:31,720 --> 00:59:36,120
Sweet Susie, becoming Rossmeyer's
slaves, becoming the Devil's Mistress,

911
00:59:36,120 --> 00:59:37,120
of Doom.

912
00:59:37,260 --> 00:59:40,000
And that Duchess of Doom campaign is
actually really funny.

913
00:59:40,500 --> 00:59:44,020
taking a photo of Ushi Daigard,
originally meant for that Cherry Harry

914
00:59:44,020 --> 00:59:47,660
Raquel reissue, and superimposing a
skull on top of her face.

915
00:59:48,000 --> 00:59:51,580
She has nothing to do with the movie,
but her image is being used to promote

916
00:59:52,980 --> 00:59:58,420
The back of that press book that
announces the spring 1976 release of Up

917
00:59:58,420 --> 01:00:02,900
gives a little bit of a hint that I
love, which says, quote, dot, dot, dot,

918
01:00:02,900 --> 01:00:06,940
this time Ol' Russ has got something big
for the ladies, too, with three

919
01:00:06,940 --> 01:00:07,940
exclamation points.

920
01:00:12,360 --> 01:00:17,680
While most film press books were three
to four pages, the one for Up was a full

921
01:00:17,680 --> 01:00:18,740
11 pages.

922
01:00:19,220 --> 01:00:24,240
It includes a frankly insane amount of
different ad maps with no fewer than 10

923
01:00:24,240 --> 01:00:27,200
different taglines. So I'm just going to
go ahead and read them out.

924
01:00:27,880 --> 01:00:30,180
If you don't see Up, you'll feel down.

925
01:00:30,860 --> 01:00:33,820
There's always something big about a
Russ Meyer movie.

926
01:00:34,700 --> 01:00:36,640
Assault with a deadly bosom.

927
01:00:37,340 --> 01:00:41,420
Two -timers, cop, joints, and wild, wild
women.

928
01:00:42,140 --> 01:00:44,000
It's a cop movie.

929
01:00:44,680 --> 01:00:47,160
It's a honey bucket of sex.

930
01:00:47,780 --> 01:00:52,100
Laugh your cheeks off, and then the less
risque, laugh your buns off.

931
01:00:52,760 --> 01:00:56,840
It's a sex whack from Hollywood and your
old bosom buddy.

932
01:00:57,160 --> 01:01:00,400
And Homer, just don't lift anything
heavy.

933
01:01:01,340 --> 01:01:04,640
The ad math also included a smattering
of pull quotes, including one that

934
01:01:04,640 --> 01:01:08,800
garnered some press attention, which
was, quote, Meyer's first bang -up

935
01:01:09,080 --> 01:01:10,540
Martin Borman, Divite.

936
01:01:11,440 --> 01:01:16,360
There was actually an item in Variety
about this, because this ad ran in the

937
01:01:16,360 --> 01:01:20,060
York Times for one day before being
pulled, but continued running in the

938
01:01:20,060 --> 01:01:23,260
News and Post for however many weeks
that the film was in release.

939
01:01:24,320 --> 01:01:27,820
As I mentioned way back at the beginning
of this commentary, one of the ad mats

940
01:01:27,820 --> 01:01:32,200
for Beneath the Valley at the Ultra
Vixens features a photo of Meyer as

941
01:01:32,200 --> 01:01:36,020
Callum, the writer of Russ Meyer's op,
with a pull quote.

942
01:01:40,970 --> 01:01:44,930
The press book for Up also includes
little cut -out ranger hats that could

943
01:01:44,930 --> 01:01:48,870
placed over the penis shape in the
film's logo if the local newspaper

944
01:01:49,170 --> 01:01:53,190
And looking through many, many ads for
this film in newspapers, it seems that a

945
01:01:53,190 --> 01:01:54,370
lot of them actually did.

946
01:01:55,070 --> 01:01:59,710
Meyer had actually previously done this
for Supervixens and would go on to do so

947
01:01:59,710 --> 01:02:00,710
with Ultravixens.

948
01:02:04,090 --> 01:02:07,150
As with Supervixens, Meyer had a unique
way of releasing the film.

949
01:02:07,690 --> 01:02:11,930
He self -distributed through his
company, Signal 166, which was named

950
01:02:11,930 --> 01:02:12,788
army company.

951
01:02:12,790 --> 01:02:16,650
But rather than go direct to exhibitors,
he sub -licensed the film to various

952
01:02:16,650 --> 01:02:19,990
regional distributors, while also
touring the country and doing press.

953
01:02:21,150 --> 01:02:25,290
He pre -booked about $400 ,000 in
guarantees from theaters before the film

954
01:02:25,290 --> 01:02:29,530
ever actually released, but spent $52
,000 on pre -opening and opening week

955
01:02:29,530 --> 01:02:30,810
advertising in New York alone.

956
01:02:31,530 --> 01:02:35,830
He and Raven embarked on a three -month
tour of 35 cities around the country,

957
01:02:36,440 --> 01:02:40,220
with Raven specifically there to speak
to women's groups and go on TV and radio

958
01:02:40,220 --> 01:02:42,340
shows to defend the film from feminists.

959
01:02:43,200 --> 01:02:47,860
This tour began in Houston and Dallas,
where the film opened on October 8,

960
01:02:48,300 --> 01:02:53,760
and continued to Chicago, Washington, D
.C., Philadelphia, and New York, where

961
01:02:53,760 --> 01:02:55,840
the film opened in six theaters on
October 27.

962
01:02:57,400 --> 01:03:01,280
At the time, Maryland was the only state
in the country that has an active film

963
01:03:01,280 --> 01:03:04,020
censorship board, and the film was
banned.

964
01:03:04,700 --> 01:03:09,180
I can't find any record of it ever
playing there theatrically, and Ultra

965
01:03:09,180 --> 01:03:12,960
didn't come there until 1982, so a full
three years after its initial release.

966
01:03:14,560 --> 01:03:18,480
Funnily enough, Super Vixens, which I
think in many ways is kind of a rougher

967
01:03:18,480 --> 01:03:23,480
movie than Up, did not get banned, did
not have any cuts, was totally fine.

968
01:03:27,660 --> 01:03:32,100
This film got pretty mixed reviews as
you would probably expect for a film

969
01:03:32,100 --> 01:03:37,080
this. A lot of the criticism had to do
with the violence, not even the sexual

970
01:03:37,080 --> 01:03:40,560
violence, but the actual violence in the
scene that we're watching right now.

971
01:03:41,220 --> 01:03:44,460
One thing that Russ Meyer always liked
to bring up in interviews around this

972
01:03:44,460 --> 01:03:49,660
time was Judas Christ from New York
Magazine's response to the film, and I'm

973
01:03:49,660 --> 01:03:50,880
just going to go ahead and read this
real quick.

974
01:03:51,700 --> 01:03:55,560
Quote, Judas Christ ran out of the
screening room, screaming her head off

975
01:03:55,560 --> 01:03:57,140
showing of Up, and you know what?

976
01:03:57,360 --> 01:03:59,260
That was great because I really touched
her.

977
01:03:59,640 --> 01:04:03,000
grabbed her, and I think she behaved in
a very unprofessional way.

978
01:04:03,580 --> 01:04:07,660
She's supposed to be an objective film
critic, but the point is, I impressed

979
01:04:07,660 --> 01:04:08,660
her.

980
01:04:09,780 --> 01:04:13,720
Meyer, from that 1980 film comment
interview with Ed Lowry and Louis Black,

981
01:04:13,880 --> 01:04:17,840
said, quote, I found that in the picture
up, there was a lot of objection to the

982
01:04:17,840 --> 01:04:20,920
violence. I always felt that they would
take it in the manner that I presented

983
01:04:20,920 --> 01:04:25,680
it, that if a man got a double -bitted
axe buried in his chest, he could still

984
01:04:25,680 --> 01:04:28,820
wrench it out, run 100 yards, and kill a
giant with a chainsaw.

985
01:04:29,450 --> 01:04:31,090
But they just took it very seriously.

986
01:04:31,430 --> 01:04:35,090
So what I've done is to kind of ape the
violence that I've had before and it

987
01:04:35,090 --> 01:04:36,170
seems to get a good reaction.

988
01:04:40,250 --> 01:04:46,630
Again, I can understand the
uncomfortableness of the sexual violence

989
01:04:46,630 --> 01:04:50,150
film, but I don't understand the
objection to the gore.

990
01:04:50,430 --> 01:04:53,210
It's so cartoonish. It's so silly.

991
01:04:53,590 --> 01:04:56,850
It feels like something out of an actual
cartoon strip.

992
01:04:57,440 --> 01:05:00,680
I think the way that I described this
film to someone fairly recently was that

993
01:05:00,680 --> 01:05:03,660
it's kind of like a Tijuana Bible
version of a little Abner comic.

994
01:05:04,260 --> 01:05:07,880
And I think that fits this theme that
we're watching right here, which is what

995
01:05:07,880 --> 01:05:09,360
all the controversy was surrounding.

996
01:05:10,500 --> 01:05:17,020
Wraith almost kind of resembles that
famous pornographic cartoon from the

997
01:05:17,020 --> 01:05:18,800
Ever Ready, Hard On, and Buried
Treasure.

998
01:05:19,360 --> 01:05:23,500
It's so goofy, it's so silly, and it's,
I think, very playful.

999
01:05:23,760 --> 01:05:26,360
And, you know, it's...

1000
01:05:28,120 --> 01:05:32,040
Unfortunate, because I think Supervixens
is the movie that has the most

1001
01:05:32,040 --> 01:05:34,520
uncomfortable violence in the entire
Russ Meyer oeuvre.

1002
01:05:35,080 --> 01:05:40,000
That film has this very, very lengthy
sequence in which Charles Napier's

1003
01:05:40,000 --> 01:05:46,640
character Harry, who is this sexually
impotent evil cop, basically, you know,

1004
01:05:46,640 --> 01:05:52,180
physically and sexually assaults the
main character played by Sherry Eubanks

1005
01:05:52,180 --> 01:05:55,780
over the course of like 10 to 15
minutes. And it's just...

1006
01:05:56,330 --> 01:06:03,130
brutal violence it's so so nasty and so
mean spirited and again

1007
01:06:03,130 --> 01:06:06,470
i think he's doing that on purpose
you're supposed to feel uncomfortable

1008
01:06:06,470 --> 01:06:12,030
it the violence in this film to me is
playful it's silly the sexual violence

1009
01:06:12,030 --> 01:06:15,690
uncomfortable but it's also not being
eroticized much like the violence in

1010
01:06:15,690 --> 01:06:18,110
vixen isn't really being eroticized

1011
01:06:22,410 --> 01:06:27,970
Up was released as Super Up and The
Delirious Erotic Adventures of Special

1012
01:06:27,970 --> 01:06:31,270
Margot in Italy, where it was initially
refused certification.

1013
01:06:31,970 --> 01:06:36,950
It was also released as Megavixens in
Germany and France, and was actually a

1014
01:06:36,950 --> 01:06:39,150
huge box office hit in Germany.

1015
01:06:39,590 --> 01:06:40,590
Go figure.

1016
01:06:40,710 --> 01:06:42,230
Kind of makes sense, I guess.

1017
01:06:43,910 --> 01:06:49,870
As the film was rolling out... Russ
Meyer and Roger Ebert continued working

1018
01:06:49,870 --> 01:06:53,110
the sequel to Beyond the Valley of the
Dolls that they've been wanting to make

1019
01:06:53,110 --> 01:06:54,110
for years.

1020
01:06:54,570 --> 01:06:58,570
The script that they'd written went
through a whole series of titles,

1021
01:06:58,570 --> 01:07:04,350
Son of Beyond, Beyond Beyond, Escape
from the Beyond, and my favorite, Russ

1022
01:07:04,350 --> 01:07:05,670
Meyer's Beyond Taste.

1023
01:07:06,470 --> 01:07:11,020
According to a 1974 piece by Roger
Ebert, quote, Its characters will

1024
01:07:11,020 --> 01:07:15,160
dimly disguised versions of famous
millionaires and pop singers, as well as

1025
01:07:15,160 --> 01:07:16,700
Adolf Hitler and a certain Dr.

1026
01:07:16,920 --> 01:07:20,740
Pretorius, who has a scheme for assuring
eternal life through regular injections

1027
01:07:20,740 --> 01:07:23,580
of liquid from the pituitary glands of
female beavers.

1028
01:07:26,180 --> 01:07:29,880
They shopped it around at 20th Century
Fox and AIP, but neither wanted to be

1029
01:07:29,880 --> 01:07:32,840
involved, and it wound up being too
expensive for Meyer to do himself.

1030
01:07:35,980 --> 01:07:39,720
By the beginning of the following year,
Meyer was already on to his next film.

1031
01:07:40,360 --> 01:07:44,100
The first draft of what would become
Beneath the Valley of the Ultra -Vixens

1032
01:07:44,100 --> 01:07:49,460
dated January 1977 and is credited to
Holly Martins, which was Roger Ebert

1033
01:07:49,460 --> 01:07:54,320
taking the name of Joseph Cotton's
character from The Third Man, and Meyer

1034
01:07:54,420 --> 01:07:55,420
Callum.

1035
01:07:55,700 --> 01:08:01,720
That script had revisions through June
20, 1977, and it was... To the best of

1036
01:08:01,720 --> 01:08:05,980
knowledge, first publicized in that
February 1977 advocate interview that

1037
01:08:05,980 --> 01:08:09,660
been quoting from throughout this
commentary, where it was revealed to be

1038
01:08:09,660 --> 01:08:11,760
Beyond the Valley of the Vixen.

1039
01:08:12,820 --> 01:08:17,680
Meyer described it as, quote, Everybody

1040
01:08:17,680 --> 01:08:24,600
has their chance of straightening him
out until finally, at the end,

1041
01:08:24,660 --> 01:08:28,620
after he overcomes the powerful Gus, the
truck driver who's been satisfying his

1042
01:08:28,620 --> 01:08:31,970
wife, He straightens himself out and can
screw in the conventional way.

1043
01:08:32,529 --> 01:08:37,029
I think it's a good idea. I get a little
religion in there. You know, evangelist

1044
01:08:37,029 --> 01:08:37,908
saving souls.

1045
01:08:37,910 --> 01:08:38,910
I have Junkyard Sal.

1046
01:08:39,210 --> 01:08:42,390
I have an Edgar Buchanan type who's a
dentist and a marriage counselor.

1047
01:08:42,689 --> 01:08:44,930
It's southern, really deep south.

1048
01:08:46,290 --> 01:08:50,970
Ultra Vixens wouldn't be released until
the beginning of 1979 because something

1049
01:08:50,970 --> 01:08:52,010
else came up first.

1050
01:08:52,470 --> 01:08:57,609
Myers' long -awaited return to 20th
Century Fox with what was to be the Sex

1051
01:08:57,609 --> 01:08:58,609
Pistols movie.

1052
01:08:58,880 --> 01:09:03,420
titled at different times as Anarchy in
the UK or Who Killed Bambi?

1053
01:09:09,319 --> 01:09:15,520
The film was kind of the brainchild of
Malcolm McLaren, who was famously the

1054
01:09:15,520 --> 01:09:19,880
mastermind of the Sex Pistols, or at
least that's what he wanted you to

1055
01:09:20,899 --> 01:09:23,960
Russ Meyer actually was not his first
choice for a filmmaker.

1056
01:09:24,300 --> 01:09:29,899
He initially approached Peter Cook, one
half of the comedy duo Derek and Clive

1057
01:09:29,899 --> 01:09:34,340
with Dudley Moore, who then passed it on
to Don Boyd, director of East of

1058
01:09:34,340 --> 01:09:38,340
Elephant Rock, who then wound up passing
when Malcolm McLaren wouldn't give him

1059
01:09:38,340 --> 01:09:39,439
complete creative control.

1060
01:09:40,380 --> 01:09:43,000
McLaren then approached Ken Loach and
Stephen Frears.

1061
01:09:43,420 --> 01:09:47,160
They both passed on it, and eventually
they struck on the idea of bringing in

1062
01:09:47,160 --> 01:09:51,439
Russ Meyer, because the band were fans
of Beyond the Valley of the Dolls, and

1063
01:09:51,439 --> 01:09:53,620
because McLaren had some connections at
Fox.

1064
01:09:55,480 --> 01:10:01,420
In a way, the film was to be something
of a gender -swapped version of Beyond

1065
01:10:01,420 --> 01:10:05,700
the Valley of the Dolls. One character
was to be an aging rock star named MJ,

1066
01:10:06,000 --> 01:10:10,580
clearly a play on Mick Jagger, who rides
around the countryside killing deer and

1067
01:10:10,580 --> 01:10:12,000
dumping them on people's doorsteps.

1068
01:10:12,520 --> 01:10:14,420
shocking and traumatizing and young
girl.

1069
01:10:14,920 --> 01:10:19,500
At the end of the film, she would shoot
and kill Johnny Rotten, dressed as MJ

1070
01:10:19,500 --> 01:10:23,340
during a Sex Pistols concert, taking
revenge for killing Bambi.

1071
01:10:26,980 --> 01:10:30,820
Essentially, Russ Meyer was using the
Sex Pistols to make a Russ Meyer movie,

1072
01:10:31,100 --> 01:10:35,380
and Malcolm McLaren was using Russ Meyer
to make a Sex Pistols movie, and the

1073
01:10:35,380 --> 01:10:37,700
two visions never completely messed
together.

1074
01:10:38,400 --> 01:10:40,140
Roger Ebert twisted...

1075
01:10:40,920 --> 01:10:44,960
mclaren's original concept in the movie
and pumped up the sex and violence in a

1076
01:10:44,960 --> 01:10:49,920
really really extreme way which scared
mclaren especially as he was trying to

1077
01:10:49,920 --> 01:10:55,480
get the band signed and get their album
released both in the u .s and the uk the

1078
01:10:55,480 --> 01:10:59,900
production was a nightmare i can't
really get into it in the last 10

1079
01:10:59,900 --> 01:11:04,460
this film but things were so far along
that the cast had been hired the sets

1080
01:11:04,460 --> 01:11:06,620
been built the shooting schedule was
locked

1081
01:11:07,660 --> 01:11:11,660
And Meyer and the crew went up to Wales
for three days of shooting, which

1082
01:11:11,660 --> 01:11:13,900
included the titular death of Bambi.

1083
01:11:14,240 --> 01:11:18,400
And this footage led to something of a
war of the words between Meyer and the

1084
01:11:18,400 --> 01:11:21,420
director of the film that would
eventually come out, the great rock and

1085
01:11:21,420 --> 01:11:25,000
swindle, Julian Temple, that played out
in the pages of Variety.

1086
01:11:27,580 --> 01:11:31,080
Temple's film had nothing in common with
Who Killed Bambi, but there is one

1087
01:11:31,080 --> 01:11:33,720
very, very Russ Meyer element in it.

1088
01:11:34,100 --> 01:11:36,120
An appearance by Martin Borman himself.

1089
01:11:36,720 --> 01:11:40,700
not played by Henry Rolland, but by
James Jeter, during the sequence in

1090
01:11:40,700 --> 01:11:45,040
Pistols guitarist Steve Jones goes to
Brazil to visit notorious great train

1091
01:11:45,040 --> 01:11:46,740
robbery fugitive Ronnie Biggs.

1092
01:11:47,300 --> 01:11:51,300
Martin Borman is actually depicted as
playing bass during the musical sequence

1093
01:11:51,300 --> 01:11:54,900
for the song No One is Innocent, a punk
prayer by Ronnie Biggs.

1094
01:11:55,400 --> 01:12:01,300
Roger Ebert both posted a very detailed
account of the making of the film and a

1095
01:12:01,300 --> 01:12:03,920
draft of the screenplay on his blog
about...

1096
01:12:04,220 --> 01:12:08,860
decade or 15 years ago, and it's highly,
highly, highly recommended reading.

1097
01:12:09,000 --> 01:12:12,620
It's very, very entertaining, and it's a
really interesting what -if.

1098
01:12:15,700 --> 01:12:22,700
With that project in ruins, Meyer then
returned to Beneath the Valley of the

1099
01:12:22,700 --> 01:12:27,280
Ultra -Vixens, and to me, in a way, that
film feels like something of a retreat.

1100
01:12:27,500 --> 01:12:31,940
You know, it's back to the deserts of
small -town America of super -vixens,

1101
01:12:31,940 --> 01:12:33,440
with the anal obsession of Up.

1102
01:12:33,960 --> 01:12:36,720
but in a very strictly heterosexual
context.

1103
01:12:38,040 --> 01:12:42,800
The major difference between that film
and Up is the complete absence of hard

1104
01:12:42,800 --> 01:12:46,440
violence, something that Meyer took to
heart after all the criticisms that he

1105
01:12:46,440 --> 01:12:48,060
received for Supervixens and Up.

1106
01:12:48,560 --> 01:12:52,720
In the press, he said that he loved
violence, but he was too greedy, so he

1107
01:12:52,720 --> 01:12:54,480
going to do it strictly for commercial
reasons.

1108
01:12:55,560 --> 01:13:00,530
The initial press ad for the film from
Variety states, Warning, this film does

1109
01:13:00,530 --> 01:13:06,270
not portray eye gougings, chainsaw
massacres, beatings, axing, knifings,

1110
01:13:06,470 --> 01:13:11,390
shootings, stomping, nor any other type
of nasty, unsavory violence, but rather

1111
01:13:11,390 --> 01:13:15,370
blithesomely protuberant, beautiful
women and block -headed, muscular men.

1112
01:13:16,010 --> 01:13:20,410
Together, performing incredible, laugh
-provoking, tasteful, inventive, gravity

1113
01:13:20,410 --> 01:13:25,350
-defying, mind -boggling, sinew -rending
variations on the best and only game in

1114
01:13:25,350 --> 01:13:29,750
any town. And it's funnier than Little
Abner, Flash Gordon, and The Peanuts.

1115
01:13:29,750 --> 01:13:30,870
together. Period.

1116
01:13:31,370 --> 01:13:32,730
Ladies, bring your husband.

1117
01:13:32,950 --> 01:13:35,870
Men, bring your wife. Or someone with a
sense of humor.

1118
01:13:36,130 --> 01:13:40,910
And that wound up being Meyer's final
film until the release of Pandora Peak

1119
01:13:40,910 --> 01:13:43,230
2000, just a few years before his death.

1120
01:13:44,270 --> 01:13:48,690
As with Black Snake and Foxy before it,
Beneath the Valley of the Ultra Vixens

1121
01:13:48,690 --> 01:13:53,270
ends with a teaser for a film called The
Jaws of Vixen, which eventually morphed

1122
01:13:53,270 --> 01:13:58,430
into his 12 -plus hour Brust of
Rossmeyer, which he at one time

1123
01:13:58,430 --> 01:14:03,230
press as being an exploration of the,
quote, incongruity of juxtaposing

1124
01:14:03,230 --> 01:14:04,230
and sex.

1125
01:14:06,730 --> 01:14:13,420
By the time he eventually abandoned the
project in the 90s, It had

1126
01:14:13,420 --> 01:14:19,500
grown to be some 20 to 30 plus hours
long, in a way becoming the exploitation

1127
01:14:19,500 --> 01:14:25,500
version of experimental filmmaker
Gregory J. Markopoulos' Inianos, which

1128
01:14:25,500 --> 01:14:32,180
80 hour long recontextualized re -edit
of that filmmaker's entire filmography.

1129
01:14:33,120 --> 01:14:37,420
Along the way, Meyer had so many other
projects that were announced but never

1130
01:14:37,420 --> 01:14:41,920
happened. The Jaws of Vixen turned into
The Jaws of Lorna, which turned into...

1131
01:14:42,200 --> 01:14:46,640
Blixen, Vixen, and Harry, which turned
into the Bra of God, which turned into

1132
01:14:46,640 --> 01:14:47,640
all these other things.

1133
01:14:49,940 --> 01:14:55,020
And while I, as a fan, wish that all
these projects did happen, that Who

1134
01:14:55,020 --> 01:14:59,600
Bambi was made, that the Jaws of Vixen
and the Jaws of Lorna and Blitzen,

1135
01:14:59,600 --> 01:15:03,880
and Harry, and especially the Breast of
Brassmire, you know, came to completion

1136
01:15:03,880 --> 01:15:09,880
and were released, there is something so
satisfying and so perfect

1137
01:15:09,880 --> 01:15:11,660
about the arc.

1138
01:15:12,140 --> 01:15:13,140
of Meyer's career.

1139
01:15:13,580 --> 01:15:16,560
You know, after a film like Beneath the
Valley of the Ultra Vixens, where

1140
01:15:16,560 --> 01:15:17,700
exactly do you go?

1141
01:15:19,780 --> 01:15:24,940
As we get to the last couple of minutes
of the film, I guess just to wrap up, I

1142
01:15:24,940 --> 01:15:28,920
do think it is a shame that this film
has been overshadowed by Super Vixens

1143
01:15:28,920 --> 01:15:31,220
Beneath the Valley of the Ultra Vixens
over the years.

1144
01:15:32,060 --> 01:15:36,260
I can see why people find this film more
appealing, but to me, this is the most

1145
01:15:36,260 --> 01:15:38,840
visually and narratively distinct of the
three.

1146
01:15:39,520 --> 01:15:44,260
It is just bursting with so many ideas,
and it's so beautifully shot in a way

1147
01:15:44,260 --> 01:15:45,800
that his other films aren't.

1148
01:15:46,040 --> 01:15:50,880
I think Super Vixens and Ultra Vixens
are both very similar stylistically and

1149
01:15:50,880 --> 01:15:56,780
aesthetically, but this one, it's
completely different than any of his

1150
01:15:56,780 --> 01:16:00,980
films. Even Vixen, which of course it
kind of echoes in sharing the same

1151
01:16:00,980 --> 01:16:05,260
locations, is mostly a film that's shot
inside, whereas this film is almost

1152
01:16:05,260 --> 01:16:06,260
entirely outdoors.

1153
01:16:07,260 --> 01:16:11,440
I was kind of joking earlier about the
film being kind of a tourist commercial

1154
01:16:11,440 --> 01:16:15,580
for Miranda, California, but I think
there is maybe a little bit of truth to

1155
01:16:15,580 --> 01:16:22,100
that. It is almost Edenic, especially
compared to the courtrooms,

1156
01:16:22,100 --> 01:16:27,700
the slave plantations in the desert that
fill his other films from the 1970s.

1157
01:16:28,880 --> 01:16:32,780
It's also a film that reflects the time
in which it was made in a way that none

1158
01:16:32,780 --> 01:16:34,440
of his other films from this period do.

1159
01:16:35,240 --> 01:16:38,740
As I've said throughout the commentary,
I think one of Meyer's greatest talents

1160
01:16:38,740 --> 01:16:40,740
was his shrewd sense of marketing and
exploitation.

1161
01:16:41,720 --> 01:16:46,360
Like, say, not including any graphic
violence and ultra -vixens as a response

1162
01:16:46,360 --> 01:16:47,360
this film.

1163
01:16:47,520 --> 01:16:52,280
And I'm sure that these elements that I
find fascinating, like the seedy radio

1164
01:16:52,280 --> 01:16:56,280
fad, or the queer element, or the full
-frontal male nudity...

1165
01:16:56,680 --> 01:17:00,880
or even Gwendolyn's love of quote
-unquote marital aids and the SM gear

1166
01:17:00,880 --> 01:17:04,540
the headsperson were inserted into the
narrative strictly for maximizing

1167
01:17:04,540 --> 01:17:08,120
commercial appeal, they give it a really
incredible historical value.

1168
01:17:12,100 --> 01:17:18,920
This is one of the very few
sexploitation films of any era to so

1169
01:17:18,920 --> 01:17:20,760
integrate the entire spectrum of
sexuality.

1170
01:17:21,440 --> 01:17:22,440
Gay sex.

1171
01:17:22,700 --> 01:17:26,600
lesbian sex, straight sex, and I think
for Russ Meyer to do that was remarkably

1172
01:17:26,600 --> 01:17:30,420
brave. And I do think that the negative
reaction that the film often gets is

1173
01:17:30,420 --> 01:17:33,940
because it doesn't gel with his largely
very heterosexual target demo.

1174
01:17:34,420 --> 01:17:38,500
Though of course he's always had a big
gay fan base, including filmmaker John

1175
01:17:38,500 --> 01:17:39,500
Waters.

1176
01:17:43,420 --> 01:17:47,500
As I said at the top two, I think one
thing that really makes this film stand

1177
01:17:47,500 --> 01:17:51,200
out is that it is his tightest film
since Cherry, Harry, and Raquel.

1178
01:17:51,520 --> 01:17:53,700
At 80 minutes, it just flies by.

1179
01:17:54,500 --> 01:17:58,200
In one later interview about The Breath
of Russ Meyer, he describes his cutting

1180
01:17:58,200 --> 01:18:03,000
for that film as being so rapid -fire
that it'll either, to paraphrase, give

1181
01:18:03,000 --> 01:18:04,440
a hard -on or give you nightmares.

1182
01:18:04,880 --> 01:18:07,300
And I think in a way that also applies
to this film.

1183
01:18:07,900 --> 01:18:11,420
As someone who has some experience with
physical film editing, I can't even

1184
01:18:11,420 --> 01:18:15,460
begin to imagine how long it must have
taken to edit something like this.

1185
01:18:16,260 --> 01:18:19,180
Especially in the second epilogue that
we're going to be seeing in about a

1186
01:18:19,180 --> 01:18:23,380
minute or two, which is probably one of
the more frenzied montages of his entire

1187
01:18:23,380 --> 01:18:27,900
filmography, and which I think I should
note, according to his memoir, A Clean

1188
01:18:27,900 --> 01:18:32,740
Breath, does feature Kit Natividad
actually having an on -screen orgasm.

1189
01:18:33,180 --> 01:18:37,360
courtesy of Ken Care, his assistant on
this film, who would go on to become the

1190
01:18:37,360 --> 01:18:39,720
star of Beneath the Valley of the Ultra
Vixens.

1191
01:18:40,300 --> 01:18:45,860
So this is the closest Meyer probably
ever got to actual hardcore, even if you

1192
01:18:45,860 --> 01:18:46,880
don't actually see anything.

1193
01:18:49,380 --> 01:18:53,080
The plot of Up is supremely strange, but
that's what I find so appealing about

1194
01:18:53,080 --> 01:18:57,440
it. Unlike Super and Ultra Vixens, which
are very vignette -driven and kind of

1195
01:18:57,440 --> 01:19:01,530
aimless, The way that this is so tightly
wound together is kind of hypnotizing,

1196
01:19:01,630 --> 01:19:06,790
and the numerous sex scenes, probably
the most of any of Meyer's films, are so

1197
01:19:06,790 --> 01:19:10,050
beautifully shot that I think it's
actually secretly his sweetest film.

1198
01:19:10,670 --> 01:19:13,190
Which is maybe something that's a little
weird to say about a movie that

1199
01:19:13,190 --> 01:19:17,250
features axings, chainsaw attacks, and
two sexual assault scenes.

1200
01:19:25,900 --> 01:19:28,640
It's really exciting to me that this
film is now going to be seen in a more

1201
01:19:28,640 --> 01:19:30,480
proper way for the first time in 40
years.

1202
01:19:30,860 --> 01:19:34,260
I do think there's something really
special about it, and I'm curious to see

1203
01:19:34,260 --> 01:19:37,060
or how it will be re -evaluated after
all of these years.

1204
01:19:38,700 --> 01:19:40,800
I think that kind of wraps it all up for
me.

1205
01:19:41,620 --> 01:19:42,640
I'm Elizabeth Purcell.

1206
01:19:43,100 --> 01:19:46,880
film historian, programmer, and
filmmaker, and I hope you found this

1207
01:19:46,880 --> 01:19:48,540
track to be informative and
entertaining.

1208
01:19:49,260 --> 01:19:54,020
Also, just so you know, I've been
sitting naked high atop a tree this

1209
01:19:54,020 --> 01:19:55,020
time.

1210
01:19:56,780 --> 01:19:59,900
Schmuck! I gave you orders never to play
that record again!

1211
01:20:00,500 --> 01:20:01,500
Jawohl, Martin.