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Rating: Except for the documentary "Pandora Peaks" (2001), where Russ Meyer sets out to describe the climbable breasts of Miss Pandora, "Beneath the valley of the ultravixens" is the last film of the Great Independent, trained at the school of Horacio Alger and Playboy, and distinguished as a daring documentarian during the Second World War (some archival footage present in "Patton" is his holy handiwork). Not a testament, I wouldn't say, at least in the intentions of the American Director, also because he was too much of a lover of breasts to call for death, which occurred 25 years later.
Surely, if you regard it as a testament... it would be a nice gift every director should aspire to create: a joyful hymn to the pleasures of the flesh, a rhapsody of the rosy promontories of his buttery protagonists, whom Meyer occasionally 'blessedly' indulged with, and a good jab at the average American parvenu, aho!
Now that everyone here on DeBaser is 21 and knows their origins, I'll briefly summarize the story: we are guided by Meyer's Homer (the trusty actor Stuart Lancaster) through the wonders of the small American town...
We're talking about a young husband, Lamar (Ken Kerr), who wants to take a leap in quality and studies algebra for the exam that will take him far from being an employee at Sal's car scrapyard, an elephantine black woman overly lustful for him and his treacherous colleagues, whose blood is as colorful as their character (one of them looks just like Peter Lorre). Lavonia, the wife (Francesca Kitten Natividad), wants him to focus less on algebra and more on her hairy sweet spot.
Lavonia, a monumentally built, erotic, and wholesomely vulgar Hispanic woman with a comic-strip smile (thinking of Meyer brings to mind Li'l Abner), sometimes gets by with extramarital dalliances with bovine truckers, sometimes tries to entice her husband with "vibrant" immersions in Vaseline and voluptuous tit whispers. Always adorned with flouncy robelette akin to table cloths.
Lamar only succeeds in performing the act via the second channel, much to Lavonia's displeasure, who desires a more complete relationship and accuses Lamar of selfishness; they will seek help from radio preacher Eufala (Ann Marie), whose silicone in her breasts would probably make Pamela Anderson blush with anger. Through songs, hymns, baptisms, and thumpings, Lamar (escaped from a queeny dentist inflamed with passion for his virile beauty), liberated from the truck-driving ruffian, and having regained Lavonia (who, in various attempts to rekindle Lamar's libido, "disguises" herself as a teaser in a Mexican bar under the name of Lola Langousta) manages to recover their amorous and sexual harmony. All psalms (Gimme that ol'time religiooooon) shall end in glory in the usual desert with the graceful and peaceful figures happily basking in the warmth of their entwined flesh...
I know, I see from your looks that, those who've never seen a Meyer film, you'll find the story worse than one of Mariano Laurenti's films. But what makes Meyer's cinema great and differentiates it from the small-time crude Italian comedy is that Meyer, even with paltry budgets, is an author and competent. The frantic editing of scenes, the obsession with details, very very pop without trying to be, the sharp color contrasts, the very bodies of his hypertrophic and sunny buxom women, are unique pieces of cinematic vintage, highly valued.
Moreover, Meyer advances his viewpoints: on cinema, the world, and the U.S.A.. For him, cinema is a moldable object like clay, a cut-and-paste bric-a-brac meant to dazzle the pupils and hormones yet remains anchored to provincial reality. Which he finds ridiculous and petty but without condemnation: salvation is a pair of spread legs. Female figures are decidedly superior to males (and Meyer was neither a progressive nor a feminist). Their voluptuous, joyous, warm bodies are a representation of the "YES" to life, without worries or pursuits. Better to screw than to command.
For males, dropping their pants is more challenging; I recall how he depicted the conflict between the lust for power and sexual impotence in the figure of the policeman in "Supervixen" (played by Charles Napier, the chief of the Good Old Boys from blusbraders). And they're not bastards, they're kids: Lamar, the protagonist of "Supervixen", the one from "Up!" (guess Up what...) are confused, naive pretty boys, easy to fool. Without Superwomen they'd be in trouble or busy trying to earn a degree...
Super kaleidoscopic, sparkling, with a deserving tribute to Russ Meyer's Favorite Place: the desert, protagonist of many of his other films, those of the serious period (including the masterpiece "Faster pussycat kill!kill!"). A terrifying blank slate where man (the male) must reckon without defenses or 'butt covers.' Immortal is the opening scene: a blonde jaw-gumming, close-up of the face lit by a flashing glow. Playing the mythological pong, the ancient electronic game with two white bars and a single dot to act as the ball, slowly to death, console Odyssey.
Behind her, Martin Bormann (Meyer's fixed Nazi reference) plays a piano that turns out to be fake: it's a roll piano. The old Nazi strips and lies down in a coffin. The blonde (who is later the preacher Eufala Roop) shifts her eyes from the game and we discover that her monumental body is wrapped in a garment that looks like a bellbottom fishnet. Camera shot from below of the erotic dance, with mega-breasts casting shadows... oooh, damn.
Watch it!!!!
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