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| Credits |
Director: Russ Meyer
Starring:
Babette Bardot, Pat Barrington, Sin Lenee, Darlene Grey, Diane Young
Country: USA |
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You have to love 'mondo' movies! Titillation disguised as documentaries by directors looking for a quick buck and a cheap cluck! The most famous of these 'mondo' movies are usually the ones that feature acts of agony, scrotum squeezing, headshots, and corpses carried by care-givers who don't and made-up make-up effects made to evoke violent reactions from the viewer.
These ones are not the ones for me. I much prefer the ones featuring the fairer sex; the sexist symphonies of gorgeous gals, bountiful buxotics beaming in desert and deserted locales, revealing their gargantuan gifts to ol' Sol, who beams back with rapturous rays of lavish light, highlighting headlights and hairdos as they writhe and wriggle their way through faux intelligentsia, cinematic go-go dancing and strip-teasing … just the way we like it.
Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to the wonderful world, the electrifying earth, of Russ Meyer's Mondo Topless!!
Every fan of exploitation should have a basic knowledge of Russ Meyer: World War 2 combat photographer who couldn't get a break making 'legitimate' movies, who then moved into cheesecake photography for Playboy, and settled on making films, the way he, a self-confessed 'titman', wanted to see them. Over his career he made 23 films, the best known being John Waters' favorite film Faster, Pussycat! Kill! KILL!
Mondo Topless starts as a travelogue of San Francisco, where a nubile naked wonder drives us around town showing us not just the city sights, but a couple of hers as well!! The footage is narrated by John Furlong, a Meyer regular, who introduces the city and each of the well-endowed women as well. Over the next 60 minutes we are treated to the sights of 15 women, performing pulsating pastiches of gyrating go-go, irresistible writhing and thrilling thrusting. The film travels to Europe, visiting various strip joints around the world with accompanying footage of dancers from each country. Also as an added bonus, some stock footage of Lorna Maitland, star of Meyer's film 'Lorna', is also seen in random scenes, showing off her ample assets. The display of dynamic dames with dominating domes is not all the film is about though, each of these marvelously blessed misses has a lot to say about the troubles in their lives: the curse of curvaceousness, their opinions towards men who find them sexy or exciting, what they think of the problems in South America, and the threat of the Cuban missile crisis… Ok, so maybe they DON'T discuss some of those subjects, but at times during this review I was concentrating so much on the image, that I barely heard a word the women actually said!
Now rest assured this is no soft core or hard core pornography… no no no!! It is pure go-go, GO!!! This is low-priced kicks at their finest, and filmed by King Leer, the Fellini of the sex industry himself: Russ Meyer, you know these women are going to be filmed at obscure angles aimed to excite!! Not all of the footage in this flick was filmed for this flick; some of it comes from Meyer's 1963 Europe in the Raw feature, which was essentially the same film, but with only European performers in it. The surf guitar soundtrack is supplied by The Aladdins and is a classic example of its type, to be sure!!
Even though this was banned when it first was released in many countries, it is quite tame by todays 'pornographic standards'… which I guess is an oxymoron, but you, dear reader, know what I mean!!
I would just like to end this part of the review with a quote from Russ himself that sums this film up perfectly: 'Nothing is obscene providing it is done in bad taste.'
HELL YEAH!!! |
