Vixen!

A movie about Vixen (Erica Gavin) who has a Mountie husband who she loves...but she loves sex too! In the course of the movie she gets multiple men in bed--including her husband AND brother! Also there's a (tame) lesbian sequence.

This film put Russ Meyer on the map and was (I believe) the first critically acclaimed X rated film ever. It was a big hit when it came out. Unfortunately, it doesn't date well.

It is well-directed and Erica Gavin is just great (whatever happened to her), and it was VERY colorful...but by today's standards it's extremely tame. I'm surprised it has an NC-17 rating now--there's no hardcore sex and it only has topless females and no male nudity at all. Also it's (sadly) pretty dull and the addition of politics at the end was confusing (and pretty silly). It is worth catching though to see what was considered very shocking in 1968. Purportedly I saw the cut version (which has an R rating) but I've heard only a few seconds here and there are missing.

Meyer's next film "Beyond the Valley of the Dolls" is much better and dates VERY well. Catch that instead.

Russ Meyer's VIXEN was one of the first films to receive the newly-formed MPAA's X rating. There were stories that in some theatres, people would pay just to see the trailer for it then leave before the main feature(shades of THE PHANTOM MENACE!). Comparing it to other adult films of that era or even to some of Meyer's other films, VIXEN looks almost tame. Erica Gavin stars as a sexually voracious woman who lives in Canada with her bush pilot husband. During the course of the film, Gavin has sex with her husband, a Mountie (apparently they always get their WOMAN too), both members of a married couple that they guide through the Great White North and her own brother(!). Oddly enough, the only name I recognized from this movie was Harrison Page, the black friend of Vixen's brother. Page, like Gavin, also appeared in Meyer's BEYOND THE VALLEY OF THE DOLLS, but he also had a sitcom in the Seventies (LOVE THY NEIGHBOR . . . and no, it wasn't about wifeswapping!). As with Meyer's other work, there is no way you can watch this and keep a straight face . . . nor should you want to.

'Vixen!' is satirical softcore ride with the energy and mood of lighthearted sitcom. Only Russ Meyer is capable to fill all the quiet caps between almost unstoppable sex and nudity with sly satire and not always subtle, but every time warm humor that works. Beautiful camera-work and dynamic fast editing transform this seemingly trashy film into form of pure art (most of the modern directors/editors/cinematographers need to learn from Meyer's movies).

Erica Gavin stars as Vixen Palmer, the wife of Canadian bush pilot Tom (Garth Pillsbury). The man is often away from home, and Vixen, who is unable to control her appetite for sex, starts to feel bored quickly in the wilderness on Canada, so her misadventures and sexual manipulations begin. Even when Tom returns home together with a married couple to take them to a fishing trip, Vixen can't go without seducing them both. Non-stop sexual adventures continue until veering off into taboo territories of incest and racism until all this finds conclusion in the manner of creeping threat of communism.

'Vixen!' is not your typical guilty pleasure movie, it is genuinely (feel) good film without any guilt. Nudity and sex (that are tame compared today's standards), although, have always been driving force in Meyer's films, there is lot of hart and warm humor between bare skin. Even the nasty racial slur doesn't sound very awful thanks to the tongue in cheek handling of the subject matter and the satisfying ending.

The movie is like its main character - besides offering eye-candy and wildness, there are lot hidden in the deep underneath. Strangely charming movie with quirky but somehow likable characters with all their flaws.

Russ Meyer made movies that are unlike any others I can think of. Remembered as one of the pioneers of nudies and sex comedies, what isn't commented on as much as it should be is the sheer strangeness of his output. Never as flamboyantly bizarre as Jodorowsky, Argento or Lynch he nevertheless in his own way is as surreal as they come. 'Vixen!'s appeal may be mainly the promise of sex, that's a given, and the buxom Erica Gavin is unforgettable in the title role of a Canadian nympho who can't seem to keep her hands off any man, woman or even (in a fantastically strange erotic dance sequence) fish, but how does that explain the unexpected and jarring racial and political themes and speeches? What exactly was Meyer trying to achieve? Beats me. I've been a fan of his for years and I still can't explain him.

Erica Gavin (later in Meyer's classic 'Beyond The Valley Of The Dolls' and Demme's women in prison exploitation flick 'Caged Heat') may not be able to act for toffee, but watching this you can't keep your eyes of her. In between spewing racial epithets and taunts at her brother's draft dodger friend Niles (Harrison Page, also later of '..Dolls'), she screws her husband, a Mountie, a visiting couple, and even her own brother Jud, a hip biker type (Jon Evans). Vixen's loving husband Tom (Garth Pillsbury, 'Supervixens'), a freelance pilot, remains oblivious to her goings on and adores her. However before the end, Vixen, Tom and Niles world's will be turned upside down by the arrival of a mysterious Irishman O'Bannion (Michael Donovan O'Donnell), who has an agenda of his own.

'Vixen!' has to be seen to be believed! Another oddball classic from Russ Meyer.

I find it amazing nobody has yet commented on this film, which it's certainly impossible to ignore (just like any other Russ Meyer fare).

So I'm not going to comment either. I won't talk about how ignored Russ Meyer is as a genuine auteur or how misinterpreted his films are by the vast majority of critics. And I won't mention how I think Russ Meyer has a great talent for writing dialogue with deep, philosophical implications (though some people would never know it).

If I have one complaint, it's that the film (or filmette) is rather too short at only 70 mins US, 63 mins Deutschland. Those poor Germans had fully 10% of the movie slashed, and one wonders why; it was rated 18 or X anyway, and though the film has "adult themes" (in case you didn't notice) it's in no way "pornographic" (for that matter, neither is ANY Russ Meyer film, in my opinion).

The most entertaining aspect of the movie is undoubtedly the unique style of acting. Actually, I don't think the acting in this movie (or for that matter ANY Russ Meyer movie) is "bad". It's just self-consciously mannered in a style that immediately tells you, as soon as you switch on the TV, that you're watching a Russ Meyer movie. Russ worked hard (I'm sure) to coax such performances from his interesting casts. There is no other director I can think of whose work is so strongly styled that it's immediately identifiable as one of his films. When you watch a Russ Meyer film, you enter a parallel universe much stranger than reality.