Pandora Peaks

Your response to Russ Meyer's Pandora Peaks will depend on your tolerance to reused footage, large breasts, rapid-fire editing, and crystal-clear photography used over and over and over again for seventy-one minutes. Keep in mind, this style rarely results in a specific point and discussion of themes housed in the film can definitely be initiated but only to a questionable reward.

My tolerance for this specific material proved rather high because, by the credits, I enjoyed Meyer's swan song, which would send off decades of risqué exploitation pictures that emphasized on the female body and the gloriousness of large breasts. Appropriately, Pandora Peaks focuses on the titular porn star who was incredibly top-heavy with a HHH bust measurement and an incredibly toned figure. The film largely spends its time follows Peaks around as she dresses and undresses, usually in public, and wears outrageously tight outfits that only go on to emphasize her voluptuous figure. During Peaks' scenes, she narrates and discusses her early years, largely spent hiding her unusually large figure thanks to her Christian-Conservative parents before embracing her body and her form later in her years as a stripper and a porn actress.

Peaks is a pretty attractive force, thanks to her beautiful blonde hair, dashing figure, confidence in appearance and position, sensual voice, and, of course, her assets. We get a lifetime's worth of scenes of her having fun with her assets and dressing and undressing for our pleasure. In one scene, she is dressed in loose-fitting blue costume, resembling a cheerleader, as she strips and discusses her work as a dancer at the Marcus Street Cinema. Through nostalgia and its ability to arouse, the scene clicks very well.

Spliced in with the frequent shots of Peaks are shots of places such as Mojave, Palm Desert, Germany, and Berlin, concocting what looks to be a travelogue narrated by Russ Meyer. Other clips from Meyer's older films such as Beyond the Valley of the Dolls and Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!, and shots of another big-breasted model named Tundi. This creates a strangely disjointed "story," that sometimes nauseatingly jumps between Peaks' autobiographical detailing of her life and Meyer's pseudo- travelogue chapter, creating what seems to be an intentionally uneven mash-up of focuses.

However, Peaks' story - which commands a good 60% of the film - is an intriguing one and one of sustainable interest. We get the impression that she is undercutting Meyer's lax approach to this particular project by using this potential-vehicle as an opportunity to allow her personal story to be heard and sincerity on her behalf to prevail. Through her efforts to do this, Peaks becomes likable and more than a big-breasted enigma. Few would be able to erect a personality while the camera's fixation seems to constantly be on your oversized assets.

Regardless of what story we're involved with, Meyer provides us with sharp photography, heavy on color- contrast and clarity and makes a film that is low on continuity, questionable in its intentions, but surprisingly bright and fun to look at.

Yes, there is little presence of a story, and many of the brave souls who will seek out this film are likely to dislike it and write off the entire project as a muddle. You're, in a way, correct. Pandora Peaks, through all its weirdness and inanity, is almost too easy of a target when put in a critical perspective. And yet, Meyer does what he wants with the project, ,molding it and forming it anarchically, forgoing convention and instated formula. The film is, in many ways, a fine send off to a bold filmmaker, and a strong showcase for its titular character, with an emphasis on "tit."

Starring: Pandora Peaks. Directed by: Russ Meyer.

Russ Meyer returns to film-making for the first time in twenty years with this documentary about mega-busty stripper/nude model Pandora Peaks. It follows a similar basic template to Meyer's earlier stripper documentary Mondo Topless (1966), although with a focus far more squarely on one girl, despite appearances from other models, including Candy Samples. It's typified by lots of sexy routines from Peaks accompanied by biographical voice-over material. There's also quite a lot of (lame) humour.

With this film Meyer essentially achieves what I had always thought was impossible in that he makes large breasts kind of boring. Don't get me wrong, I find Ms Peaks very attractive and the idea of watching her strip through a series of routines sounds like a pretty good idea to me. But the problem is, that in order to make that kind of stuff work you really need to keep things simple and just point the camera and watch but Meyer being Meyer he is simply unable to do such a thing and can't help but use his usual rapid fire editing style, which works so very well in is idiosyncratic narrative films but which is so useless in a film that should essentially just be soft-core erotica and nothing more. So what we end up with is the worst of both worlds with a series of well shot scenes with Pandora Peaks edited so frantically you can't really enjoy them properly. Meaning that, you are left with the film as a documentary but it's hardly riveting stuff on that front and, in any case, is offset by an alarming amount of annoying humour which brings things down a peg or two further still.

I am a fan of Meyer's work but he always achieves his best results when working with an actual story. When he doesn't have one, his style can grate a bit and here is no different. Pandora Peaks is gorgeous of course but it's a pity Meyer didn't provide her with something better suited to his talents as a film-maker. She deserved better from him.

There's actually not much to tell about this movie and definitely nothing to spoil. There was no plot, just sequences after sequences where Pandora Peaks gets undressed and dressed again while some music is playing in the background. But, if you wanna see Pandora Peaks naked (you can see every inch of her body in this one) or you're just a die-hard-fan of Russ Meyer stuff (although this one is very different than his real movies), this is the one for you. Otherwise, avoid this one.

I would give it 2 out of 10, and in Russ-Meyer-o'-meter 4 out of 10 (even though this one can't really be compared with his other stuff).

Pandora Peaks (2001)

* 1/2 (out of 4)

Russ Meyer "documentary" about Pandora Peaks and her triple-H breasts. The German woman's breasts keep this from a BOMB rating but I guess those breasts are the point to this movie. There's no real story and no real documentary, although Meyer talks about various California cities in between all the nude shots. After a while it just gets tiresome. I've heard this is unlike any other Meyer movie and I certainly hope that's true.

Leave this one alone and check out some of the director's classic titles.

This documentary was written, produced, and directed by Russ Meyer (1922-2004). Filmed over a period of time in the early nineties, it was released in 2001, when Pandora Peaks was at the peak of her popularity. This turned out to be the final film of Russ Meyer, who was admittedly past his prime when this was made. There is no storyline, but there is narration provided by Mr. Meyer himself. The footage of Pandora, who is breathtakingly beautiful, is well worth the price of the DVD. Considering how few films she appeared in before retiring, this much footage of Pandora is a rarity. As if that weren't enough, this documentary also includes footage of the legendary Candy Samples. Forget the deeper meaning displayed in Russ Meyer's earlier classic films, and enjoy the eye candy on display in this documentary.