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"Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to violence." Russ Meyer lights the fuse with a monumental overture, his go-go stompers gyrate on a piggish spotlight until it can hold them no longer, they spill cackling into the desert. Kabuki dominatrix (Tura Satana), Mediterranean lesbian (Haji) and motor-hipped blonde (Lori Williams), cutting quite the Lichtenstein swath in the eternal pursuit of kicks. Speeding and sneering, karate-chopping and treasure-hunting, snapping a jock's spine and kidnapping his bikini-bunny girlfriend (Susan Bernard), the pastimes of a "rapacious new breed." The rampage leads to the dilapidated ranch lorded over by a vengeful coot (Stuart Lancaster) with wheelchair and shotgun, the soft-brained scion (Dennis Busch) lifts weights and cowers from roaring choo-choos. "And here is where our screenplay starts to unfold..." The lay of the land, as the saying goes, eighty minutes of pure libidinous raging. America the bountiful is a leather amazon in a tiny automobile, the attendant at the gas station has nozzle in hand but fumbles with the cap on her hood. Battle of the sexes and sexes of the battle, "a lot of smoke up your chimney," psychotic cheesecake to fill the sandy void. Appetites laid bare at the lunch table, a bit of To Catch a Thief banter ("Breast or thigh, darlin'?") points up the satirical debasement of Fifties coyness into Sixties bluntness. (Desperate Hours invasions and Kazan sweat are similarly liquidated.) Canted jukebox, diagonal locomotive, upturned cleavage—inflamed montage makes them all dance. The cream of Meyer, depraved patriarchy and unruly feminism locked in mutual obliteration, a long way from Griffith (The Female of the Species). Plowing through like a bulging truck is the iconic Satana, her outfits as ridiculously unequipped to accommodate her figure as society is to contain her seething energy. "You've got a weird sense of humor." "Try again, I get funnier." With Paul Trinka, Ray Barlow, and Michael Finn. In black and white.
--- Fernando F. Croce |