OK, I admit it. Before sitting down to watch "Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!" I had never seen a Russ Meyer film. And somehow, knowing this, I have still never felt it was a serious blank spot in my personal film history.
Growing up in Southern California, where I voraciously read the movie pages of the L.A. Times, I was aware of the stir Meyer caused in the film community with the unexpected success of his early "nudie flicks" - "The Immoral Mr. Teas" (1958), "Eve and the Handyman" (1961), "Motor Psycho" (1965), etc. - which exploited women at a time when movies in general were still quite chaste.Yet, even with the later knowledge that Pulitzer Prize-winning film critic Roger Ebert had scripted two of Meyer's films, "Beyond the Valley of the Dolls" and "Beneath the Valley of the Ultra-vixens" (and apparently others for which he is uncredited), they were not really a temptation.
Now, after sitting through "Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!" any latent desire to see his other films has completely disappeared.
In fact, putting this black-and-white 1966 effort back in movie theaters around the country seems like little more than an attention-getting gimmick for Meyer, who hasn't made a movie in 25 years. This despite the film being hailed by some national critics as a milestone, the highlight of Meyer's career.
In truth, "Pussycat" is so ridiculously bad, one can only wonder what his other, lesser pictures are like.
We're talking Ed Wood territory here.
But is it so bad it's good? The late-night party crowd might have some fun with it, but this is hardly a date movie.
"Pussycat" stars three of Meyer's buxom "discoveries" - Tura Satana, Haji and Lori Williams - as hot-headed go-go dancers who like to race their sports cars around the California desert. That is when they aren't distracted by shouting at each other . . . or the occasional wrestling match.
When a race-car couple (Ray Barlow, Susan Bernard) happens upon this trio, Satana and the young man get into an altercation - and she kills him with a lethal karate chop. So, they toss the body in a car-trunk, kidnap his girl-friend (who wears a bikini and screams constantly) and hit the road.
Later, they happen upon a desert ranch where a wheelchair-bound old man (Stuart Lancaster) and his two goofy sons (Paul Trinka, Dennis Busch) supposedly have a huge stash of cash. The women plot to kill the old man and steal the money, after they have their way with the sons.
Meyer keeps his camera low to the ground to enhance his already enhanced stars and keeps the plot moving with quick-cut editing. But the shoestring production values are so weak, the story is so lame and the acting is so bad that there's no mistaking this "Pussycat" for anything but what it is - a turkey.
"Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!" is quite tentative in the nudity department, though there is plenty of cleavage. The film is not rated but might get an R for violence (though it is nowhere close to most modern R-rated films). There are also a few profanities.