Supervixens

Russ Meyer, like David Lynch or Alejandro Jodorowsky, creates his own world in his movies and invites you to visit. And while I may not want to LIVE there, I sure do like to visit! You either love Meyer or you don't, it's as simple as that. Most fans seem to regard either Faster Pussycat or Beyond The Valley Of The Dolls as his best movies. I worship them both but my particular favourite is Supervixens. This movie is like no other ever made, with it's surreal mix of buxom babes, humour, violence, car chases and dynamite that has to be seen to be believed! Charles Napier fans note that this is his definitive performance playing psycho cop Harry Sledge, which may or may not be a reprise of his role in Cherry, Harry and Raquel! I dunno. Other Meyer regulars pop up including Haji, Stuart Lancaster and the criminally underseen John Lazar(Z-Man). But the real find here is Shari Eubank in a duel role. She unfortunately only made one other movie after this, Chesty Anderson,USN (with Timothy Carey!). She will always be remembered by lovers of trash cinema everywhere.

You haven't lived until you've seen Supervixens!

Russ Meyer loves breasts, and he's a filmmaker, but it's mostly the breast thing. That doesn't mean that he's not good at what he does, which is making raucous comedies where there's a dumb, well-hung klutz (Charles Pitts, in thankfully his only significant point in his career as Clint Ramsey), the dual role of the schizo-girlfriend (SuperAngel) and later her re-incarnation as a gas station attendant (SuperVixen), and the enemy of the film, the diabolical, totally evil Harry Sledge (Charles Napier, a classic part in a long character actor career). Much of this is just silly, very silly, and strange, deranged, illogical, and probably would be seen on the surface as sexist. But looking past the fact that there are a lot of naked women who continually throw themselves at Clint, there is something more to Meyer's psychology here. It would probably be something of a big point had the film been used in Zizek's The Pervert's Guide to Cinema: it's like a classic farce- yet still a somewhat truthful farce- about male desire.

Take the fact that while Clint is on his 'journey'- running from the scene of a crime he didn't commit, which was the murder and burning down of the dig that SuperAngel was living in- he continually gets into situations where the women present want to desperately ride him till Tuesday...but then there's always another man. There's a fascinating push-and-pull (no pun intended...maybe a little) to how the men treat the women in the picture. Until Clint agrees to stay with SuperVixen and take care of the gas station does he finally seem to relax, as before with the guy in the car, the farmer, the motel owner, all had women as their next of kin or significant others that were persona non grata. Behind the hilarity that ensues as Clint gets practically raped in a hayloft by a German girl, or when a mute/deaf black chick tries to get Clint to have his way with her in a desert, there is subtext- desire is defined by property. By the time Clint gets to SuperVixen, and finds out her man ran out on her weeks ago, it's like they're suddenly whisked away to the Garden of Eden (rather, in Arizona, as is one of the funniest sections of the flick), as they run around naked in ecstasy. Freud would have a field-day.

But one must not forget the Harry Sledge character who, like Hopper in Blue Velvet or Bobby Peru in Wild at Heart, is as Zizek described a larger-than-life, absurdist figure of man's libido. Maybe it was subconscious or not, but there's a lot to do in Supervixens with the idea of potency, or impotency. Harry can't get it up, the truth of it, and it becomes a sudden turn to see Harry suddenly stomp SuperAngel (albeit, in one of the most illogical scenes I've ever seen in any movie, taunts him for five minutes while locked in a bathroom following a bad sexual experience) and burn the place down as a means of compensation, an inherent lack of drive leading to the demise of anyone around him. While this seems to go overboard in the last twenty minutes of the film, when he returns in and becomes an ultimate terror upon Clint and SuperVixen, there's probably more one could read into in terms of symbolism than your average Bunuel movie: the dynamite shooting out of a chute, the one stick next to SuperVixen's most private of private spots, and all raised to the level of delirium.

The more I thought about it after the movie ended, the more it seemed to make sense, the idea of the ID blown-up in, of all things, a Russ Meyer movie. But this will be moot to most viewers who are just looking for what it there in a Meyer movie- sex and craziness, usually at the same time. As the first of his films I've seen, it's already apparent how equally proficient and tacky he can be: he's a master at editing, and casts his actors like it's a slight step above Z-grade porn. Which, of course, adds to its hysterical attitude, as we see one of the worst male actors of the 20th century play off of girls who rarely have a dirty smile off of their faces (save for when they're taunting Sledge, or getting caught by their daddies or husbands). And because Meyer, in the Mel Brooks sense, rises below vulgarity, his picture works so well even as it shouldn't. It deserves to be shown in grindhouse theaters and be found in the dirty sections of video stores. That it's an unlikely classic to be found in either of those places is hard to deny.

Russ Meyer is a truly original American filmmaker of the highest caliber. His films are filled with lightning-speed edits, larger-than-life characters, delicious women, and over-the-top acting. His movies are shining examples of wonderful exploitation. They are by no means 'high-art' and should not be judged as such. Myer masterfully puts his unique vision on the screen in all of his films, and 'SuperVixens' is a shinning example of this...

This film starts off wonderfully, for it is incredibly entertaining and highly humorous (filled with VERY sexy women, large breasts, and lots of violence of course). It maintains a pretty rudimentary story-line, but that was never something that Meyer really pursued. He is more concerned with amusing characters, gorgeous women, and sweet violence, and this movie has plenty of that. Charles Napier gives one of his best performances ever here, as a psychotic, impotent, woman-killing cop. Shari Eubanks is dynamite and a vision to behold...

My only complaint about this film is that it loses a bit of momentum after its blazing beginning. If you are into Russ Meyer you have undoubtedly seen this film- if you haven't, you must! The transfer to DVD is of a very high quality- the sound and picture and crystal clear. If you have never seen any of Meyer's films, this as good a place to start as any...

After the brutal murder of his promiscuous wife, Clint (Charles Pitts) is forced to flee a small town… Harry (Charles Napier), a wicked look-alike who committed the killing, had little trouble to put the blame for the murder on Clint…

Clint falls into a number of adventures, getting caught in the act with the mail-order wife of a farmer, having a brief affair with a chesty black mute girl, and finally coming across a diner/gas station run by a lonely but beautiful woman who turns out to be a copy of his former wife… Clint stays on at the diner to help out the woman, and falls in love… The assassin, however, passes through, discovers Clint, kidnaps his new girlfriend, and tries to kill them both…

The women in "Supervixens" are buxom, attractive, and very intelligent, whereas the men are generally sex-crazed, vicious, and uncoordinated... Meyer usually bombards his audience with erotic images—big breasts, strong desire women, and simulated lovemaking—but here he gets carried away with several sadistic scenes that are real turn-offs...

I dont know why i liked this movie. It have some exaggerate moments but i felt that some womens were not ashame to take initiative and show their bodies and they are not ashame to talk about sex and i felt that this is completely not the same thing in society and i felt that the exaggerate moments pretty unconventionnal and pretty interesting in some ways.