In Vixen, Russ Meyer’s enormously successful and influential 1968 feature, a sexually liberated couple running a tourism resort in the Canadian wilderness welcome various visitors to their home, almost all of whom are seduced by the hyper-sexual Vixen. Vixen loves sex, with her husband, with a Canadian Mountie, with their guests, male or female, and even, shockingly, her own brother. There’s only one person she bluntly refuses to have sex with – her brother’s friend Niles, an African American Vietnam War deserter. Vixen is a racist and, between the racy romps in the bedroom, in the woods, by the river, in the shower, there’s a viciousness to the otherwise seemingly playful Vixen that’s very unpleasant.
The film concludes with a hijacked plane ride in which a Marxist IRA sympathiser promises Nile a better life free of racism in Cuba. When things go wrong, it’s Niles who helps Vixen and her pilot husband Tom to get out of the situation, and the film ends with a reconciliation between Niles and Vixen, leaving her and Tom to welcome the next lot of sexually frustrated guests to their home…
Vixen cost $71,000 to make and was one of the most successful films of its year, but it wasn’t until 1975 that Supervixen came along, a longer, more plot-driven mix of crime, seduction, revenge, and sexual freedom. Again, a huge success, leading to Beneath the Valley of the Ultravixens in which plot plays second fiddle to large-breasted hyper-sexual women taking every opportunity to seduce and sometimes even rape almost any man or, in one case, a fourteen-year-old boy that comes across them.
The first thing that surprises about this new Bluray/UHD release by Severin Films is an early credit stating that this excellent quality restoration has been done by MOMA – the Museum of Modern Art. That’s quite a lofty organisation to be handling what were once considered to be trashy softcore titillation features, once branded as ‘bosomacious melodramas.’ It suggests gravity, a credence to the films that might be similar to those of George Romero, whose zombie films were clearly a commentary on society, with more to say than met the eye.
And certainly, Meyer’s films must have had a refreshingly open view of female sexuality and freedom for their time. They clearly had things to say about racism, about America, about sex, and societal attitudes towards all of these things. You can see the way Meyer puts the strong, sexually powerful women in the positions normally occupied by men – it’s the women leading the sex, making the decisions, doing the seducing.
But does it work in a satisfying union of themes represented by a particular genre, as Romero’s zombie films did? No, not really. They just come across as amusing sex romps with some strangely tacked-on politics.
Extra features are given the top-notch treatment often reserved for much more prestigious films, so there’s a lot to choose from, and they’re excellent. Audio commentaries from Meyer himself, as well as some of the performers, documentaries about censorship and sexual attitudes of the times, there’s a huge amount to sink your teeth into here.
Whether or not you think the films themselves warrant such lavish treatment is another thing, but you could always just pop them on and enjoy the strangely naive yet somehow daring ample bare-breasted shenanigans on display.
RUSS MEYER’S VIXEN Trilogy is out now on 4K UHD and Blu-ray.
