Up! | |
---|---|
Directed by | Russ Meyer |
Written by | Russ Meyer (as "B Callum") |
Based on | an original idea by Russ Meyer Anthony-James Ryan (as "Jim Ryan") Roger Ebert (as "Reinhold Timme") |
Produced by | Russ Meyer |
Starring | Raven De La Croix Robert McLane Kitten Natividad Monty Bane |
Cinematography | Russ Meyer |
Edited by | Russ Meyer |
Music by | William Loose Paul Ruhland |
Distributed by | RM Films International |
Release date |
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Running time | 80 minutes |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Up! is a 1976 soft core sex comedy film directed by Russ Meyer and starring Raven De La Croix, Robert McLane, Kitten Natividad, and Monty Bane.
This section contains content that is written like an advertisement .(November 2020) |
The Greek Chorus, who appears nude except for long black boots, opens the film and appears between scenes throughout the film to provide narration, plot details, and updates.
A man named Adolf Schwartz, Adolf Hitler in hiding, is living in a Bavarian-style castle in northern California. After an orgy in the dungeon with three women (The Headsperson, The Ethiopian Chef, Limehouse) and a man (Paul), he is murdered when someone places a ravenous piranha fish in his bathtub.
Some time later, Margo Winchester hitchhikes to the nearby town of Miranda and is spotted by local Sheriff Homer Johnson. Homer tries to make advances, but Margo rejects him flirtatiously. After that, she is picked up by Leonard Box, a known troublemaker and son of a sawmill owner. An argument breaks out between the two, and Leonard subdues and rapes an unconscious Margo, who regains consciousness and kills him in retaliation. Homer witnesses this, but covers up the incident because Leonard's loaded father could put Margo in jail forever, and so Homer uses the incident to his leverage. Margo sleeps with him, starting a relationship that would turn out to be mutually unfaithful.
Homer helps Margo get a job at the local diner, Alice's. It is owned by Alice who is married to Paul, who was sexually servicing Schwartz. Alice also likes women, depicted earlier in the movie. Paul is similarly unfaithful: he was interested in Limehouse, and after Margo finishes work and goes for a swim at the Salmon Creek, he comes after her. While Margo undresses besides the stream, Paul does the same before approaching her, and they have sex. Homer, who had stopped a woman earlier for a traffic violation and let her go after a blowjob, is in bed with a Native American woman named Pocohontas and shoves her out of the house when he hears Margo's van approaching, after she and Paul finished their date. Still nude, she enters the house, seemingly ready for a second round with Homer, who's under the shower to clean himself up. He scalds himself with hot water by accident. Margo comments on his red penis that he must have made it with an Indian!
Margo later performs a strip show at a bar, which triggers the reaction of lumberjack Rafe, who rapes her. The other guests join in, and they flee when Homer arrives on the scene. Rafe and Homer fight, and both men end up killing each other.
Margo stops by a phone booth, revealing that she is an undercover cop sent to investigate the crime. She takes a shower, during which she is suddenly attacked by figure in black. After running into the forest, it is revealed that her attacker is Alice. Alice reveals that she is Adolf's murderer and also his daughter. She murdered Adolf out of jealousy that he was sleeping with Paul, and plans to do the same to Margo. After fighting in the creek, Alice and Margo reconcile, and Alice leads Margo to a bed frame in the middle of the forest. Suddenly, Paul appears and shoots Alice out of revenge for Adolf, whom he loved. Margo disarms Paul and apprehends the two.
In the early 1970s, Russ Meyer made two flops in a row, The Seven Minutes and Black Snake, before returning to his older style with Supervixens. He said, ""I'm back to big bosoms, square jaws, lotsa action and the most sensational sex you ever saw. I'm back to what I do best - erotic, comedic sex, sex, sex - and I'll never stray again." [1]
Supervixens was a hit, and Meyer said afterwards, "I plan to stick to what I know works and make one X picture after the next and be even more outrageous with sex and keep pushing the boundaries further and further." [1]
"Sure, it appeals to prurient interest," said Meyer. "Why not appeal to prurient interest?" [2]
The film starred Kitten Natividad, who Meyer would become romantically involved with. Natividad later said she "loved" making the film. She was comfortable with the nudity, "but what was uncomfortable was when he would direct me and I had all these big, big lines and he would say, "don't blink" and I was facing the sun and my eyes would get dry... It was uncomfortable making it because I sat on trees that had ants crawling up my ass." [3]
The movie took place and was filmed in and about a small cabin on Salmon Creek near Miranda in Northern California at the summer cabin of Wilfred Bud Kues, [4] listed as part of the movies' production team and a life-long friend of Russ Meyer, having met at the Alameda Naval Air Station during World War II, and mentioned in Russ' tremendous three-volume life story. Bud's 1953 International pick-up and the appearance in the film of the actual town of Miranda Postmaster William Bill Klute [5] were quite real, and still are memories of the older residents of the small Humbolt County town of Miranda.
Meyer said he found "there was a lot of objection to the violence" in the film. "I always felt that they would take it in the manner I presented it. That if a man got a double-bitted axe buried in his chest, he could still wrench it out, run 100 yards and kill a giant with a chainsaw. But they just took it very seriously. So what I've done is to kind of ape the violence that I've had before, and it seems to get a good reaction." [6]
Meyer said the film cost almost as much as Ultravixens "simply because I had to do so many inserts and so forth. The cost of additional shooting can be very substantial. You have to consider the escalation of lab costs." [6]
Meyer later said he was "not particularly" pleased with the film. "At the time I was fairly pleased, but I see a lot of reasons why it was not as successful as Supervixen is." [6]
Russell Albion Meyer was an American film director, producer, screenwriter, cinematographer, and editor. He is known primarily for writing and directing a series of successful sexploitation films that featured campy humor, sly satire and large-breasted women, such as Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!. Meyer often named Beyond the Valley of the Dolls (1970) as his definitive work.
As a paraphilia, breast fetishism is a sexual interest that focuses exclusively on the female breasts, and is a type of partialism. The term breast fetishism is also used in the non-paraphilic sense, to refer to cultural attention to female breasts and the sexuality they represent.
Tura Satana was a Japanese American actress, vedette, and exotic dancer. From 13 film and television credits, some of her work includes the exploitation film Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! (1965), and the science fiction horror film The Astro-Zombies (1968).
Uschi Digard is the stage name of a softcore pornographic actress and pin-up model active between 1968 and 1982. Born in Europe, she was said to be aged thirty-two in 1977 and sixty in 2006, but her date of birth is not known. She emigrated to the United States in 1968 and settled in California. She is remembered particularly for her work with Russ Meyer.
Supervixens is a 1975 American film directed by American filmmaker Russ Meyer. The cast features Meyer regulars Charles Napier, Uschi Digard, and Haji. The film also features Shari Eubank in one of her only two film roles and Christy Hartburg in her only film role.
Haji was a Canadian-born actress of British and Filipino descent, and a former exotic dancer known for her role in Russ Meyer's 1965 cult classic Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!. She made significant contributions to her roles by introducing elements of psychedelia and witchcraft as well as writing most of her own dialogue.
Shari Eubank is a retired American actress, best known for her starring role in the Russ Meyer film Supervixens.
Cherry, Harry & Raquel! is a 1969 American action exploitation film produced and directed by American film director Russ Meyer.
Francesca Isabel Natividad, known professionally as Kitten Natividad, was a Mexican-American film actress and exotic dancer. She was noted for her 44-inch bust, and appearances in cult films made by her ex-partner, director Russ Meyer.
Author! Author! is a 1982 American autobiographical film directed by Arthur Hiller, written by Israel Horovitz and starring Al Pacino.
Who Killed Bambi? was to be the first film featuring the punk rock band the Sex Pistols, and was due to be released in 1978. Russ Meyer and then Jonathan Kaplan were due to direct from a script by Roger Ebert and Pistols' manager Malcolm McLaren.
Beneath the Valley of the Ultra-Vixens is a 1979 satirical sexploitation film directed by American film-maker Russ Meyer and written by Roger Ebert and Meyer. It stars Kitten Natividad and Ann Marie with a cameo by Uschi Digard.
"Supervixen" is an alternative rock song written and performed by alternative rock band Garbage and is the opening track on their self-titled debut studio album (1995). The song was titled after Russ Meyer's 1975 sexploitation film Supervixens but was influenced by Pier Paolo Pasolini's period horror art film Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom, which had been playing on a monitor above the soundboard at Smart Studios when the band were working on it.
Vixen! is a 1968 American drama film and satiric softcore sexploitation film directed by Russ Meyer and starring Erica Gavin. It was the first film to be given an X rating for its sex scenes, and was a breakthrough success for Meyer. The film was developed from a script by Meyer and Anthony James Ryan.
Lorna is a 1964 independent film starring Lorna Maitland, produced and directed by Russ Meyer. It was written in four days by James Griffith, who played the preacher in the film.
John LaZar is an American actor of both stage and screen, best remembered for his lead role as Ronnie 'Z-man' Barzell in the Russ Meyer film Beyond the Valley of the Dolls (1970), co-written by Meyer and Roger Ebert.
Black Snake is a 1973 American film directed by Russ Meyer and starring Anouska Hempel, David Warbeck, Percy Herbert and Thomas Baptiste. It was Meyer's return to self-financed projects, following the end of his brief deal at 20th Century Fox. Meyer's only attempt at the Blaxploitation genre, it was filmed in Panavision and was shot on location in Barbados. It was such a box office bomb that a film named Foxy starring Edy Williams, which Meyer wanted to follow this film, was not made.
Stuart Gage Lancaster was an American actor known for roles in Russ Meyer films.
The Seven Minutes is a 1971 American drama movie directed and produced by Russ Meyer. The movie was based on the 1969 novel of the same name by Irving Wallace.
Sex in film, the presentation of aspects of sexuality in film, specially human sexuality, has been controversial since the development of the medium. Films which display or suggest sexual behavior have been criticized by religious groups or have been banned or censored by governments, although attitudes have changed much along the years and a more permissive social environment has developed in certain parts of the world, notably in Europe, North America, Australia and New Zealand. In countries with a film rating system, films which contain explicit sex scenes typically receive a restricted classification. Nudity in film may be regarded as sexual or as non-sexual.