Supervixens (1975)
The British Channel Five produced documentary about legendary Sexploitation master and lover of unfeasibly large breasts, Russ Meyer, is now available in six parts on YouTube. Enjoy… part 1 – 2 – 3 – 4 – 5 – 6
via Retrofap via PCL.
In his early career, Russ Meyer was a director of nudie films. His films were always more more ribaldry than pornography, and seem unusually focused on women with large breasts. His later films are almost entirely devoted to this vision; his discoveries include Kitten Natividad and Uschi Digard. He co-wrote Beyond the Valley of the Dolls with film critic Roger Ebert. Faster, Pussycat. . . Kill! Kill! is usually considered to be his greatest, or at least his most idiosyncratic, picture.
Interesting about the documentary are the people interviewed: John Landis, Dita Von Teese, the founder of Troma Films, Richard Kern, film critic and cultural historian Jack Sargeant, Kim Newman, Jim Morton (who contributed to Incredibly Strange Films (1986)) etc …
Update: I just watched the six part documentary and it was fun but well travelled territory. And everyone is going on how erotic his films are, and fun at the same time. I’ve found them strange … and decidedly unerotic.
No, what I am waiting for is a documentary based on Pete Tombs’s 1994 book Immoral Tales: Sex And Horror Cinema In Europe 1956-1984 which covers European exploitation cinema of the this era with profiles of Jess Franco, Jean Rollin, José Larraz, José Bénazéraf, Walerian Borowczyk and Alain Robbe-Grillet.
I’ve always considered Channel 4’s Eurotika series to tread the same territory as Pete Tombs’s quintessential book. Here’s the episode titles:
1. Virgins and Vampires
2. The Diabolical Mr. Franco
3. Blood and Black Lace: The Italian Horror
4. From Barcelona… To Tunbrige Wells
5. French Blue
6. Jose Benazeraf: A Life in Four Chapters
7. So Sweet, So Perverse
8. Strange Behaviour
9. Is There a Doctor in the House?
10. I Am a Nymphomaniac
11. Blood and Sand
12. The Blood Beast: The Films of Michael Reeves
Frustratingly, Alain Robbe-Grillet isn’t mentioned, nor is Borowczyk brought up all that much, but it’s very entertaining none-the-less. Maybe there will be some sort of mini-duc on Robbe-Grillet on the upcoming Koch Lorber disc of La Belle Captive, but since it’s Koch Lorber I’m not holding my breath…
Hi Mike,
Thanks for the suggestion, I knew I had overlooked something, I have a page on this documentary here. (I’ve just cleaned it up.)
I just checked your blog and you have some incredible reviews op there. Thanks so much. I liked your short fictions too. Strange we haven’t met before, or have we?
Cheers
Jan
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does anybody know where to find a good link to the Russ Meyer series? Isn’t BBC *public* television? Why are they shutting down YouTube?
i seem to have bumped into your site before lol …. yeh i love anythin on Russ Meyer, pity there arent more docos about him : (