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” For I am Superwoman, and you have spurned her!”

Article by Jim Batts, Dana Jung, and Tom Stockman

Russell Albion “Russ” Meyer was born in California in 1922 and spent WWII as a combat photographer. In 1953 Playboy magazine debuted and Meyer was one of its first centerfold photographers. Meyer had a knack, and a passion, for photographing gorgeous, busty women and felt that the gals in the nudist camp movies that were popular in the ’50s were far too plain-looking for his tastes. In 1959, Meyer scraped together $24,000 and made The Immoral Mr. Teas, a quaint, colorful, and cartoonish movie about a nerdy fellow whose life is constantly interrupted by beautiful large-breasted women in various stages of undress. There was no sex in Meyer’s film and he made no pretense of presenting nudity as a lifestyle choice, as did the nudist camp movies. It was a simple and honest film about...

AstroFlix is the only DVD sales and rental store in St. Louis that caters to the obsessive and elaborate subculture of fandom known as Cult Movies. Say you got an itch to watch Russ Meyer’s Mondo Topless. Netflix doesn’t carry it and you sure won’t find it at the Red Box. You can buy it from the manufacturer, but that will set you back too much hard-earned scratch. You can wistfully recall the days when there were video stores all over St. Louis, shops carrying all manner of sleazy eurohorror, kung fu flicks, anime, and softcore sex romps, but you know these establishments are all long-shuttered. Stepping into AstroFlix at 7215 Manchester Road in Maplewood is like hopping into a time machine and going back to the heyday of the independent video store. Russ Meyer has his own section in AstroFlix! So do the crazies at Troma Studios,...

The Russ Meyer Show Featuring Kitten Natividad takes place in St. Louis this Friday, June 15th at The Way Out Club. Details at the end of this article.

Article by Jim Batts, Dana Jung, and Tom Stockman

Russell Albion “Russ” Meyer was born in California in 1922 and spent WWII as a combat photographer. In 1953 Playboy magazine debuted and Meyer was one of its first centerfold photographers. Meyer had a knack, and a passion, for photographing gorgeous, busty women and felt that the gals in the nudist camp movies that were popular in the ’50s were far too plain-looking for his tastes. In 1959, Meyer scraped together $24,000 and made The Immoral Mr. Teas, a quaint, colorful, and cartoonish movie about a nerdy fellow whose life is constantly interrupted by beautiful large-breasted women in various stages of undress. There was no sex in Meyer’s film and he made no pretense of presenting nudity as a lifestyle choice,...

This article was originally posted in February of 2010 but is being reposted here with updates and to tie in to next week’s Wamg Top Ten Tuesday List “The Best of Russ Meyer”.

Mondo Topless (1966) is Russ Meyer’s send up of the swingin’ 60′s, a pseudo-documentary portrait of San Francisco, and most of all, a tribute to Meyer’s favorite subject; naked women! The 61-minute sort-of-documentary is sparse, even by Russ Meyer standards – just a rock soundtrack by The Aladdins accompanied by an overexuberant announcer who provides double entendre narration as stacked women dance about displaying their figures. Mondo Topless, which seems relatively wholesome now, was definitely a product of its time and requires historical perspective (and, despite the name of this column, it Is available on DVD).

With today’s endless cornucopia of internet porn, it’s hard to believe that less than 50 years ago, there was an...

Russ Meyer made cheap, grimy and oddly effective movies filled with violence and astoundingly buxom women. Consequently, he was an inspiration to, possibly even a hero for, multiple generations of filmmakers, musicians and artists who worked outside the lines. He was a gold standard, really, and films like Faster Pussycat! Kill! Kill!; Supervixens; Up! and many more were great pictures for both exploitation fans and kids looking for some weird thrills in the days before the internet provided instant access to every possible human fantasy object. (And, yes, he directed Beyond the Valley of the Dolls from Roger Ebert's screenplay.) Now David O. Russell might make a film about Russ Meyer, who died in 2004 at age 82. Deadline [1] says that Fox Searchlight is working on a deal to buy the director's pitch for a film, with a script by Merritt Johnson (co-writer, Temple Grandin, and writer of the in-development Lovelace...

"Filmmaker/poet/aesthete-of-all-trades Jørgen Leth (perhaps best known in the states for collaborating with Lars von Trier on The Five Obstructions) here assembles over a decade of his intimate studies of women," writes the Av Club's Noel Murray, "some of whom were girlfriends, and some of whom were actresses he hired to re-enact one particular scene from an old love affair. His stated purpose is to 'frame the erotic,' by showing all different kinds of women in circumstances both sexual and casual.... This is an odd but beautiful movie, reminiscent in some ways of R Crumb's Art & Beauty (and, sure, Russ Meyer's Mondo Topless)."

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Bizarre horror The Human Centipede may be shocking audiences everywhere but, as Nick explains, mondo cinema has been doing the same thing since the 60s...

In a week that sees the release of the much talked about The Human Centipede, it seems only right that I talk about the weirder side of World Cinema. After-all, it is a fact I have mentioned several times over the last ten weeks. It is the unknown that draws us to seek out different cultures' cinema, and more often than not, it is the less salubrious unknown which intrigues and interests, or otherwise repulses.

Not long ago, I discussed shock tactics in cinema and I can only reiterate those points again. Shocking scenes make people talk about a film and, over time, can even shape perception of an entire culture's cinema. But while the odd scene here and there, or even a shocking premise,...

Year: 2009

Directors: Jordan Harris & Andrew Shrader

Writers: Jordan Harris & Andrew Shrader

IMDb: link

Trailer: link

Review by: The Crystal Ferret

Rating: 8.5 out of 10

There are reviews branded from the start with some karmic curse, I got the print of Fever night in January, we are in June, it went through ten rewrites, 6 screenings and a total system crash. When it happens with a romcom or something light and cheerful, it is a series of coincidences, but what can we call such a succession of avatars when it comes to a movie dealing with the Beast, the Horned One, the good old Satan? Is it retribution? Or the wrath of an angry God at how good this movie is?

Let’s place our protagonists, there’s Terry, Elliot and Warren. Terry loves Elliot. Warren loves Terry and Elliot. Elliot loves Elliot. He used to love Terry. And when Warren decides to...

Last Friday marked the birthday of Hugh Hefner, the founder of Playboy. A men's magazine which, as you know, everyone reads only for the articles.

In honor of Hef's birthday, noted film critic Roger Ebert tweeted an excellent photo from his archives: Hefner hanging out with Russ Meyer, Dolly Read and Cynthia Myers on the set of "Beyond the Valley of the Dolls." Meyer was one of the early photographers for Playboy, though he eventually made a name for himself in film with his campy sensibilities and proclivity for casting voluptuous women (see: "Beyond the Valley of the Dolls," "Mondo Topless"). Meyer was once contracted by recently deceased Sex Pistols manager Malcolm McLaren to direct a film for the Pistols to star in. The director asked Roger Ebert to write the script; the result -- titled "Who Killed Bambi?" -- went unproduced, though the UK punk band did go on...

Mondo Topless (1966) is Russ Meyer’s send up of the swingin’ 60’s, a pseudo-documentary portrait of San Francisco, and most of all, a tribute to Meyer’s favorite subject; naked women! The 61-minute sort-of-documentary is sparse, even by Russ Meyer standards – just a rock soundtrack by The Aladdins accompanied by an overexuberant announcer who provides double entendre narration as stacked women dance about displaying their figures. Mondo Topless, which seems relatively wholesome now, was definitely a product of its time and requires historical perspective (and, despite the name of this column, it Is available on DVD).

With today’s endless cornucopia of internet porn, it’s hard to believe that less than 50 years ago, there was an entire industry based on a glimpse at women’s breasts. In the 1950s, when healthy male movie fans wanted to see females naked on-screen, their only choice were ‘nudist camp movies’ – a genre...