The Glamour Camera of Russ Meyer, etc. Photographs, with text

Product Information

RM Films International, in Hollywood, California, offers the authentic, exclusive collection of Russ Meyer films, Regardless of what story we're involved with, Meyer provides us with sharp photography, heavy on color- contrast and clarity and makes a film that is low on continuity, questionable in its intentions, but surprisingly bright and fun to look at. Film historian and Meyer biographer Jimmy McDonough posits that Russ Meyer's usage of physically and sexually overwhelming female characters places him in his own separate genre. [19] He argues that despite portraying women as sex objects, Meyer nonetheless depicts them as more powerful than men and is therefore an inadvertent feminist filmmaker. Pandora Peaks" is easily among the worst films I have seen in quite a while, if not the worst. First of all, this is not 26 minutes long as it states here, but roughly 71. Maybe there is a shorter version I don't know of, but I doubt it. Anyway, it's the last directorial effort from filmmaker Russ Meyer before his death and he also wrote the script and co-narrated this one. I have not seen any of his earlier works I think, but looking at how he is a fairly well-respected filmmaker, I guess he had really lost it at this point.

Russell Albion Meyer (March 21, 1922 – September 18, 2004) 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. HEAVENLY BODIES! is basically a dull documentary on the art of photography that gets dreary at times,as the scientific style description of the various used cameras and the nude scenes with the nude models are pretty much the only things that this film has going for it. With Gaby Martone(THE MERMAIDS OF TIBURON,HOLLYWOOD'S WORLD OF FLESH),Althea Currier(LORNA,THE GIRLS ON F STREET),Monica Liljistrand(THE IMMORAL MR. TEAS),Princess Livingston(MUDHONEY,WILD GALS OF THE NAKED WEST),and Rochelle Kennedy(SKYSCRAPERS AND BRASSIERES) amongst the featured nude models. Russ was a Combat Cameraman with the 166th Signal Corp in WWII and a well known Playboy glamour photographer in the 1950s and 1960s.Despite hardcore pornographic films overtaking Meyer's softcore market share, he retired from filmmaking in the late 1970s a very wealthy man. [16] He made a one-off return to filmmaking in 2001 to direct Russ Meyer's Pandora Peaks, featuring the nude glamour model of the same name. Around the same time, he also participated in Voluptuous Vixens II, a made-for-video softcore production by Playboy. Frasier, David K. (1998). Russ Meyer: The Life and Films :A Biography and A Comprehensive, Illustrated, and Annotated Filmography and Bibliography. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland & Co. ISBN 0-7864-0472-8. In many of Meyer's films, women eventually defeat men, winning sexual fulfillment as their reward, e.g., Super Vixen ( Supervixens), Margo Winchester ( Up!) and Lavonia Shedd ( Beneath the Valley of the Ultra-Vixens). [17] Even in the 1950s and 1960s, his films were sometimes centered on a woman's need and struggle for sexual satisfaction ( Lorna, Good Morning and... Goodbye! and Beneath the Valley of the Ultra-Vixens). [17] Additionally, Russ Meyer's female characters were often allowed to express anger and violence towards men ( Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! and Supervixens). [19]

He followed it with Finders Keepers, Lovers Weepers! (1969), and Cherry, Harry & Raquel! (1970), which utilized long montages of the California landscape (replete with anti- marijuana voiceovers) and Uschi Digard dancing in the desert as the film's "lost soul." These plot devices were necessitated after lead actress Linda Ashton left the shoot early, forcing Meyer to compensate for 20 minutes of unshot footage. [10] Meyer (left) and Roger Ebert in 1970 20th Century Fox: Beyond the Valley of the Dolls and The Seven Minutes [ edit ] He followed this with three other similar films, and would call this his " Gothic" period: Mudhoney (1965), Motorpsycho (1965) and Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! (1965). Since Russ Meyer’s death in 2004 RM Films International has been owned and operated by the Russ Meyer Charitable Trust and is a Those years were very confusing to me", said Meyer. "But instead of rushing off and throwing myself out the window, I was able to psychoanalyze myself and discern what was best for me. I looked myself square in the face and realized I couldn't do everything." [15] Woods, Paul A. (2004). The Very Breast of Russ Meyer. London: Plexus Publishing. ISBN 0-85965-309-9.Greene, Doyle (2004). Lips Hips Tits Power: The Films Of Russ Meyer. Persistence of Vision, Volume 4. New York: Creation Books. ISBN 1-84068-095-4. it's nice to watch but i wish it was more an actual movie. Pandora is indeed one of the most stunning women in the world(long since retired and sadly reduced breast-wise) and she was at her peak(sic) about the time Russ shot her. Shame they didn't take it further as perhaps then Russ would've gone out with a BANG! instead of a fizzle. Yes, there is little presence of a story, and many of the brave souls who will seek out this film are likely to dislike it and write off the entire project as a muddle. You're, in a way, correct. Pandora Peaks, through all its weirdness and inanity, is almost too easy of a target when put in a critical perspective. And yet, Meyer does what he wants with the project, ,molding it and forming it anarchically, forgoing convention and instated formula. The film is, in many ways, a fine send off to a bold filmmaker, and a strong showcase for its titular character, with an emphasis on "tit."