TSPDT

Key Production Country: USA
Key Genres: Comedy, Sexploitation, Adult, Dark Comedy, Drama, Erotic Film, Comedy Drama, Thriller, Parody, Crime, Action-Adventure
Key Collaborators: Haji (Leading Character Actress), Michel Levesque (Production Designer), Garth Pillsbury (Character Actor), Roger Ebert (Screenwriter), Erica Gavin (Leading Character Actress), Henry Rowland (Leading Character Actor), Kitten Natividad (Leading Character Actress), John LaZar (Leading Character Actor), Charles Napier (Leading Character Actor), William Loose (Composer), Paul Sawtell (Composer), Bert Shefter (Composer)

"He was a freelance photographer who shot Playboy centrefolds before starting to make softcore porn films in the late 1950s. His The Immoral Mr Teas (1959) was the first such film to show a large profit. Meyer moved toward the Hollywood establishment in his work for 20th Century-Fox, for whom he produced and directed Beyond the Valley of the Dolls (1970) and The Seven Minutes (1971). The creation of distribution systems - such as drive-ins, college theatres and independent repertory houses - which would show Meyer's films paved the way for the work of directors such as Romero, Waters, Craven, Cronenberg and Lynch. " - The Movie Book, 1999

"With a legacy rivaling Roger Corman’s, Meyer burst onto the film scene in the 1960s, establishing himself as a B-movie maestro with a penchant for big action and even bigger…well…you know. He would eventually garner wide acclaim for cheeky comedies like Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! and Beneath the Valley of the Dolls, the latter of which was scripted by renowned film critic Roger Ebert." - Harrison Richlin (IndieWire, 2024)

"His reputation is based on films like Vixen!, which cleared $6 million profit and made him 'acceptable' in Hollywood as a creator of glossy, tantalizing porn which seldom delivers quite as much as it promises. Filmed with carefully staged glimpses of nudity within a minimal and irrelevant plot and laced with self-deprecating humour and occasional tongue-in-cheek intellectualism, Meyer's films enjoy a considerable cult status as well as having commercial appeal." - The Illustrated Who's Who of the Cinema, 1983

"A one-man film industry, Meyer wrote, directed, produced and edited some 23 features, starting with his censor-baiting debut The Immoral Mr Teas in 1959 and continuing through to 1979's Beneath the Valley of the Ultra-Vixens. Fans fondly remember such cult 1960s offerings as Mudhoney, Vixen and Faster Pussycat! Kill! Kill! No one could ever mistake a Meyer film as the work of anyone else. Initially shot for the drive-in market, his movies featured cartoonish plots containing rambunctious dollops of sex and violence, and showcasing imposing, full-breasted women. Defending his work against accusations of sexism, Meyer described these heroines as "take-charge women, the type of women I like"." - Xan Brooks (The Guardian, 2004)

"Sleaze merchant or misunderstood artist? Glorified pornographer or directorial genius? Such questions have haunted Russ Meyer throughout his career. But regardless of the debates and critical misperceptions surrounding the man’s work, his place in cinema history is secure, and with four of his films a part of the Museum of Modern Art’s permanent collection, it cannot be denied that Russ Meyer’s corpus forms an indelible part of America’s cultural landscape." - Steven Schneider (International Dictionary of Films and Filmmakers, 2000)

"What Meyer’s films also have is an uncommonly high level of artistry. In professional filmmaking circles, Meyer is known as the one creative director in the sexploitation field. His competitors churn out slipshod low-budget films exploiting the nudity of their actresses (who usually look hideous enough to inspire cries of “put it on!”). But Meyer budgets his films at around $70,000 — or 10 times the usual level — and rehearses his cast for a month before shooting." - Roger Ebert

"I don't pretend to be some kind of sensitive artist. Give me a movie where a car crashes into a building and the driver gets stabbed by a bosomy blonde, who gets carried away by a dwarf musician. Films should run like express trains!" - Russ Meyer