Vixen!

1968 gone wild!

Today I decided it was time to return to our kiny roots so it's time to meet boobs master Russ Meyer and his legendary movies. Today it is very difficult to find a movie connoisseur asking who Mr. Russ Meyer is- genius, pervert, visionary, sleazeball, lunatic, exploiter of carnal desires, grass-roots statesman, slick entrepreneur or all of the above?

Of all of his films I've seen, this has to be the one I'd class as THE definitive Russ Meyer movie (yes, I know about Faster Pussycat, Kill, Kill & Mudhoney). Not his most outrageous, not his most well-made, not his most offensive, but this one has just about everything in it that sums up the entire body of work of the film-making giant that was Russ Meyer.

There's a storyline that holds all of Russ's obsessions together, sort of. A very happily married couple in Canada, Tom & Vixen, run a type of getaway lodge. Tom's a pilot & is away a lot of the time, leaving Vixen very lonely & itching for just about anything that will get her motors running. When Tom's back, she still needs non-stop lovin' 24 hours a day, even though she loves him, & he's the one who can do more for her than anyone else in the world. She's just way too much for one man.

Shagging in the woods.

Watery sex.

Vixen's first victims are an uptight young couple - bored husband & sexy, frustrated wife. She nails both of them, & they leave happier in their marriage than ever. Er, moral of the story? Then she's off to find new prey. Hanging around the lodge are two bikers - her younger brother, Judd, & his Negro friend Niles, a draft-dodging fugitive from the US . Vixen's only dialogue with them is sleazy, teasing come-on lines to her brother, & racist abuse to Niles. Eventually, she seduces her brother, but completely freaks out when he brings Niles in for seconds. Incest, fine, but inter-racial relations? That's where Vixen draws the line.

Needless to say, this is not your average tit-flick.

Meanwhile, dear old pilot Tom has found an expensive charter, a ridiculously stereotyped Irishman called O'Bannion, complete with green suit, peaked cap & a full red beard. He's supposed to go to San Francisco, but instead convinces Niles to help him hijack the plane & head to Cuba. Vixen manages to come out of this twisted tale somewhat redeemed & ready for more action than ever.

Redhead gives good head.

Are my tits too big for ya?

Utterly wrong on so many levels, but there's a weird charm about this film that's hard to resist. The characters are so hard to sympathise with in any way, you don't bother judging them & just enjoy watching their idiotic exploits with a type of voyeuristic, morbid fascination.

For anyone yet to experience the cinema of Russ Meyer, this is the perfect film to start with. If you don't like it, don't go any further. If you do, though, then you've taken your first step into a larger world. Besides, this movie made history because it is one of the first films to receive the newly-formed MPAA's X rating. 

Look into my asshole?

But hell, what da hell is an X rated movie ma' nigga'? 

the X rating originally referred to a non-trademarked rating that indicated a film contained content that was not suitable for children, such as extreme violence, and thus was for adults only. When the MPAA film rating system began on November 1, 1968 in the U.S., the X rating was given to a film by the MPAA if submitted to them or, due to its non-trademarked status, it could be self-applied to a film by a distributor who knew beforehand that their film contained content unsuitable for minors. 

In the late 1960s to mid-1980s, several mainstream films were released with an X rating such as Midnight Cowboy, A Clockwork Orange, Fritz the Cat, Last Tango in Paris and The Evil Dead. Because the X rating was not trademarked, anybody could apply it to their films, including pornographers, which many began to do in the 1970s. As pornography began to become chic and more legally tolerated, pornographers placed an X rating on their films to emphasize the adult nature of them. Some even started using multiple X's (i.e. XX, XXX, etc.) to give the impression that their film contained more graphic sexual content than the simple X rating. In some cases, the X ratings were applied by reviewers or film scholars, e.g. William Rotsler, who wrote "The XXX-rating means hard-core, the XX-rating is for simulation, and an X-rating is for comparatively cool films." 

Erica Gavin, the star of the film.

Anyways, 1968's Vixen, may not harm and/or offend any post 90's decade viewer since the sexual revolution it depicts has been graphically improved by other films from later decades, redefining the "shocking film" concept and taking it to new levels of the unbearable. 

Overall, Vixen provides an hour and half of B class entertainment, where the lead role isn't an academy award winning actor but an astonishing big boobs Erica Gavin who happens to debut in the big screen with this Russ Meyer early gem. Of course, this film and everything Russ Meyer related, was made for connoisseurs of the exploitation genre, not for average viewers.

Enjoy it with a glass of cold beer. This movie definitely tastes better having a glass of belgian beer Gulden Draak and maybe reprising your favorite scenes later with your girlfriend and/or wife.

Here's the movie trailer, which features a foreword that makes undestanding the storyline even easier: