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STHT: Russ Meyer
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STHT
Your guide to home viewing fun.
Today we have a special edition of ST Home Theatre, a look a the films and career of film maker Russ Meyer, who died a few days ago at the age of 82.
In the 1950’s the movie business was in a state of flux. The big studios had to divest themselves of the their lucrative theatre businesses, and TV was knocking down the number of people who went to the movies.
The American movie business fought back in two ways:
1. Without studio support theatre owners turned to many cheap independent films to fill out schedules. American International Pictures, with primary producer- director Roger Corman, made Z grade horror, teen action flicks and comedies. Many other small companies used cheapie American, Mexican, Italian, and Japanese imports to create double bills for drive ins and inner city theatres that were on hard times.
2. Studios made the screen bigger and made costly large productions that worked about 49% of the time. Many theatre owners, now on their own, found the risks of booking big studio epics, to expensive for chancy returns.
One guy decided to make a different kind of independent cheapie, and in doing so changed the movie industry, yet again.
Russ Meyer made “adult films” for mainstream theatres. Thanks to Meyer we added a new term to the movie making lexicon: Soft Core (porno) films.
By today’s standards most of these movies would probably get PG-13 or soft “R” ratings today. But these films were controversial back then, some drive ins were banned from running them because children could see them from passing vehicles. The local theatre in my town, an industrial suburb of Los Angeles, ran them on Tuesday nights only and could not display the posters in the lobby, for fear the kids would see the art work on the weekends.
Russ Meyers favorite leading lady (and later his wife) was busty Edy Williams.
My favorite memories of this bizarre couple (Meyer looked like Howard Hughes outfitted at K-Mart and Williams looked like a mid class hooker) were their appearances at the Academy Awards. Edy always looked like she was going to come out of her low cut gown and Meyer looked smashed. One year their entrance was marred by John Wayne entering the auditorium at the same time. So they got back into their car and went around the block and entered again.
His films were sleazy but never dirty enough to be banned, and always just acceptable enough to play in mainstream theatres.
In 1969 the MPAA created the Movie Rating System with the G M R X code. “X” meant studios could make adult films. United Artists made “Midnight Cowboy” as an “X” feature. 20th Century Fox, who four years earlier had made the highest grossing film of all time, “The Sound OF Music”, hired Russ Meyer to make “X” rated films.
He made the impossible to follow “Beyond The Valley OF The Dolls” for Fox, with a screenplay by Roger Ebert, starring Edy Williams. And followed it with an awful courtroom drama “The Seven Minutes” with Yvonne DeCarlo, Fox paid him off and Meyer made one other film, in 1979, “Beyond The Valley Of The Ultravixens”, again independently before retiring.
Meyer once said “I always had a tremendous interest in big tits”.
And “Nothing is obscene, if it’s done in bad taste”.
The titles alone tell you the all you need to know about Russ Meyer. Some of these films are available, some aren’t, and others are offered on VHS and DVD by dubious looking independent companies. Which is just the way Russ would have wanted it.
1959:
“The Immoral Mister Tease”
1961: “Eroticon”
1962: “Naked Girls of The Golden West”
1965:
“Mudhoney”
1965:
“Motor Psycho”
1965: “Fanny Hill”
1966: (A true classic in every way)
“Faster Pussycat Kill! Kill!”
1966: “Mondo Topless”
1967: “Common Law Cabin”
1968: (another classic) “Vixen”
1969: ” “Cherry, Harry, and Raquel”
1969:
“Beyond The Valley Of The Dolls”
1971: “The Seven Minutes”
1973:
“Supervixens”
1979: “Beneath The Valley of The Supervixens”
Rest in peace Russ, and if there is a heaven, I know your snuggled right between God’s giant knockers right now.
Join ST Next Friday for the ALL NEW! ST4 Play, featuring four great features!
Friday it’s “A Few Moments With Dead Celebrities”, and all next week it’s ST PREMIERE WEEK!
Your guide to home viewing fun.
Today we have a special edition of ST Home Theatre, a look a the films and career of film maker Russ Meyer, who died a few days ago at the age of 82.
In the 1950’s the movie business was in a state of flux. The big studios had to divest themselves of the their lucrative theatre businesses, and TV was knocking down the number of people who went to the movies.
The American movie business fought back in two ways:
1. Without studio support theatre owners turned to many cheap independent films to fill out schedules. American International Pictures, with primary producer- director Roger Corman, made Z grade horror, teen action flicks and comedies. Many other small companies used cheapie American, Mexican, Italian, and Japanese imports to create double bills for drive ins and inner city theatres that were on hard times.
2. Studios made the screen bigger and made costly large productions that worked about 49% of the time. Many theatre owners, now on their own, found the risks of booking big studio epics, to expensive for chancy returns.
One guy decided to make a different kind of independent cheapie, and in doing so changed the movie industry, yet again.
Russ Meyer made “adult films” for mainstream theatres. Thanks to Meyer we added a new term to the movie making lexicon: Soft Core (porno) films.
By today’s standards most of these movies would probably get PG-13 or soft “R” ratings today. But these films were controversial back then, some drive ins were banned from running them because children could see them from passing vehicles. The local theatre in my town, an industrial suburb of Los Angeles, ran them on Tuesday nights only and could not display the posters in the lobby, for fear the kids would see the art work on the weekends.
Russ Meyers favorite leading lady (and later his wife) was busty Edy Williams.
My favorite memories of this bizarre couple (Meyer looked like Howard Hughes outfitted at K-Mart and Williams looked like a mid class hooker) were their appearances at the Academy Awards. Edy always looked like she was going to come out of her low cut gown and Meyer looked smashed. One year their entrance was marred by John Wayne entering the auditorium at the same time. So they got back into their car and went around the block and entered again.
His films were sleazy but never dirty enough to be banned, and always just acceptable enough to play in mainstream theatres.
In 1969 the MPAA created the Movie Rating System with the G M R X code. “X” meant studios could make adult films. United Artists made “Midnight Cowboy” as an “X” feature. 20th Century Fox, who four years earlier had made the highest grossing film of all time, “The Sound OF Music”, hired Russ Meyer to make “X” rated films.
He made the impossible to follow “Beyond The Valley OF The Dolls” for Fox, with a screenplay by Roger Ebert, starring Edy Williams. And followed it with an awful courtroom drama “The Seven Minutes” with Yvonne DeCarlo, Fox paid him off and Meyer made one other film, in 1979, “Beyond The Valley Of The Ultravixens”, again independently before retiring.
Meyer once said “I always had a tremendous interest in big tits”.
And “Nothing is obscene, if it’s done in bad taste”.
The titles alone tell you the all you need to know about Russ Meyer. Some of these films are available, some aren’t, and others are offered on VHS and DVD by dubious looking independent companies. Which is just the way Russ would have wanted it.
1959:
“The Immoral Mister Tease”
1961: “Eroticon”
1962: “Naked Girls of The Golden West”
1965:
“Mudhoney”
1965:
“Motor Psycho”
1965: “Fanny Hill”
1966: (A true classic in every way)
“Faster Pussycat Kill! Kill!”
1966: “Mondo Topless”
1967: “Common Law Cabin”
1968: (another classic) “Vixen”
1969: ” “Cherry, Harry, and Raquel”
1969:
“Beyond The Valley Of The Dolls”
1971: “The Seven Minutes”
1973:
“Supervixens”
1979: “Beneath The Valley of The Supervixens”
Rest in peace Russ, and if there is a heaven, I know your snuggled right between God’s giant knockers right now.
Join ST Next Friday for the ALL NEW! ST4 Play, featuring four great features!
Friday it’s “A Few Moments With Dead Celebrities”, and all next week it’s ST PREMIERE WEEK!
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