Vixen!

Vixen! (1968)

*** (out of 4)

Vixen Palmer (Erica Gavin) is the wife of a bush pilot in Canada and when he's out of town she undresses and does anyone she can get her hands on. Vixen's sexual charms turns on her brother who she will have sex with without an issue but she refuses to sleep with any black man as she feels they are dirty animals. Yes, this is Russ Meyer's take on racism mixed in with everything the cult director is known for. If you're afraid of sex and nudity then you might as well skip this film because we see the beautiful Vixen taking on various men, her brother and even a woman. Needless to say, Gavin has very big breast and Meyer isn't afraid to show them at any chance he gets. Gavin's beauty certainly shines through and I also felt she gave a pretty good performance as she's able to handle Meyer's dialogue and deliver all the goods. Harrison Page is also very good as the black guy Vixen is constantly throwing racial slurs at. It's rather strange how Meyer deals with the racism because he clearly gives the message off that it's wrong but the first half of the film tries and gets comedy from the subject as Vixen throws out all sorts of watermelon jokes as well as other slurs. At the end of the film is when the comedy stops and Meyer pours on the drama about racism in general as well as the Vietnam war. It's rather amazing at how he can make you laugh for half the film and then turn on a dime and deliver a message but he pulls it off. The film runs 70-minutes, which is the right running time to get everything covered and in the end the cult director manages another fine film if you can handle his type of movie.

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.

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 love this film. So many Meyer fans seem to undervalue it and I don't understand why. I prefer the early films and find the bigger more farcical movies harder to take, so I guess as usual it's all about horses and courses. Nobody can deny, though, the masterful camera-work and editing. The scenes in the woods, the 'rape' and the glorious helicopter ride are so well shot that one is always wishing he could have harnessed these skills to more cinematic effect. The racial taunting surprises now and must have divided audiences at the time (some probably shouting along with them - how times have changed) and similarly the references to Vietnam and communism, whilst now of socio/historic interest must have been far more directly involving. Ms Gavin does well as do the rest of the cast and if she has trouble with her facial expressions once or twice (particularly during the girl on girl scene) there is not much wrong with her breasts, even if she and Meyer thought them a bit small! Very enjoyable and lacking the campy aspect of later output.

The print I saw was in terrible condition, with several minutes eliminated by jumping and scratching and the colour a uniform washed-out pink. On the bright side, this added an even more surreal layer to Meyer's already fairly radical editing style. Anyway, a lot of it, although entertaining enough, is pretty basic stuff of Gavin pouting and staring and flaunting herself and jumping on every man in sight with an infectious shameless pleasure. It gets radical when she seduces her own brother in the shower, with little moral hesitation (at that point she's already gone through another woman, a Canadian mountie and a couple more guys). The most intriguing aspect is embodied by the black character whom she relentlessly and openly taunts; he then falls in with the IRA guy and...well, see for yourself. The juxtaposition of nudie exploitation with such open rabble-rousing politics is fairly startling just as an idea, but Meyer pushes it so far that the woman goes beyond mere feistiness and carefreeness into a systematic challenger of all niceties and convention - she calls the black guy every racist epiphet, but her lack of bull ultimately opens his eyes.