Russ Meyer's Up!

Most, if not all of writer/director Russ Meyer's films come with some kind of a necessary caveat for anyone who may not be super familiar with him; the usual polite heads-up about the kinds of subject matter Meyer dealt with and the ways in which he did so - Up! features sexual assault, and a violent, bloody finale, but is otherwise a tonally cartoonish farce - but even with that said, this is a deeply w-i-l-d film.

Up! opens with a consensual bi-sexual romp with "Adolph Schwartz" (obviously Hitler, played by Edward Schaaf) before he is non-consensually murdered by an unknown assailant. But the movie isn't really about that. It's mostly about Sweet Little Alice (Janet Wood), her beau Paul (Robert McLane), and the busty newcomer (no pun intended) in town, Margo Winchester (Raven De La Croix). And then every so often, we are treated to a framing device wherein a nude Kitten Natividad acts as the film's Greek chorus, spouting verbose monologues chock full of literary references (and written by Meyer's pal Roger Ebert), gently reminding us of the plot's trajectory. Meyer's Vixens trilogy (released by Severin and covered previously by me) runs the gamut from straight-ahead sex romp (Vixen) to violent cartoon (SuperVixens) to prototype porno-parody (Beneath the Valley of the Ultra-Vixens), all between the years 1968 & 1979. Up! kind of hits all three in just about 80 minutes. It is, at times, enough to make one's head spin.

Tonal whiplash aside, I really enjoyed Up! Meyer intended it to be something couples could enjoy together--the radio spot included in the special features even ends with a voice proclaiming "It's something for the ladies, too. You bet!" - so he filled it with everything he could possibly squeeze into one film (and, honestly, more): attractive people, cartoonish acting, the aforementioned murder plot, Alice's small-town business drama, the Greek chorus segments, an ax-vs-chainsaw finale, and of course lots of sex and Meyer's goofy sense of humor. Example: At one point, local cop Homer (Monty Bane) and his sex partner at the moment, Limehouse (Su Ling), both get electrocuted because she grabs an empty bulb socket mid-coitus. It's a lot, but it has a breathless enthusiasm that's kind of infectious.

Vital Disc Stats: The Blu-ray
Severin's single-disc release of Up! is on par with their typical Blu-ray packaging. The film's poster is framed by the Bosomania design Meyer came up with. Not much to write home about, but faithfully reproducing the original poster means we get some fun details like how the M and W in the "Starring Margo Winchester" (which is the character's name, btw) legend on the poster have been altered to resemble nude breasts, complete with nipples. Russ Meyer was, if nothing else, extremely on-brand.

The video quality overall is quite good, presented in 1080p high-definition, restored from the original camera negative. The colors are extremely well-balanced and bright without frying your retinas or outshining the natural splendor of the many outdoor segments. In contrast to his previous film Motorpsycho, Russ Meyer is utilizing a lot of wide landscape shots to showcase the beauty of his frequently nude actors in the beauty of nature. According to the interview with Raven De La Croix, Meyer would scream from his vantage point in the woods about the light beginning to wane, and that mental image just really tickles me. Now, I should mention that there is one segment that, for whatever reason, lacks the polish of all the others. For about one minute, when Alice & Paul go to the woods for some nookie, the footage is just not as cleaned up, adjusted, or stabilized as everything before and after. It's also a little blue-tinted for whatever reason. Again, this only lasts about a minute, then goes back to the high quality of the rest of the flick.

For the most part, the 2.0 mono mix, encoded in DTS-HD MA, sounds quite good, but as with that video hiccup I mentioned above, there were two instances (each just a few seconds) where the sound became oddly muffled. I have no idea why and there didn't seem to be any rhyme or reason to when it was happening. As with the video, other than those two brief moments, everything sounded great. There's a sequence for instance, between Homer and the Chesty Young Thing (Marianne Marks) in the backseat of his cruiser where in addition to the action, and the score, there’s also a radio in the front seat picking up passing truckers' conversations and while, sonically, that seems like it could be a mess, it was actually very well balanced.

The special features on this disc are on the slim side, especially compared to the Vixens trilogy Severin releases, but they're still enjoyable. Film historian Elizabeth Purchell, who also offers her thoughts in a commentary track on Severin's Motorpsycho disc, is very knowledgeable about Meyer's career and has a very engaging, conversational manner that really drew me in. The Raven De La Croix interview was very informative, and I loved the aforementioned radio spot, which mimics the scene with the CB radio mentioned above, with all the relevant trucker's slang. It's very cute.

• Audio Commentary - Film historian Elizabeth Purchell
• No Fairy Tale... This! - Interview with actress Raven De La Croix
• Radio Spot

Russ Meyer can be a bit of a tough pill to swallow for some; I get it. He plays fast and loose with the exploitation genre conventions of the day while simultaneously being somewhat constrained by them, and if you're not familiar with those tropes, it can be somewhat bewildering. I for one, never expected a cheesecake-y romp in a small logging town to open with the sodomy and then murder of one of history's greatest monsters, but now that I've had the opportunity to reckon with it a bit, I'm very glad it exists!

Beyond the novelty shock factor, Russ Meyer was an auteur. Severin has partnered with The Museum of Modern Art for some of these releases, and for good reason. Meyer captured moments of the culture; brief flashes of the zeitgeist, frequently while fighting against a rising tide of conservatism and censorship in the arts. He did so largely on his own, relying on the support of his casts and crews (two groups that frequently overlapped for Meyer). If anyone earned the right to make their crazy, horny, cartoonish "couples film", it's him. Recommended