Angels of Death Special Edition VI: FASTER PUSSYCAT! KILL! KILL!

Welcome to violence, wrapped up in the flesh of woman, a deep raspy voice grabs us right from the get-go with this terrifying forward, the soundwaves of his voice on the tape measured out for us in some macabre dance of manly depth. He mentions dancers in a go-go club and the music explodes. Three uninhibited dancers enflame male lust, while grooving out to wailing garage band grind on a tiny stage in darkened room. A crew of bloated middle-aged male faces crowd around in the audience, puffy with drink and desire, the kind of mugs not even a mother could love, frenzied with cigars and darkness, shouting: 'Go baby go! Go! Go!" The girls wail and rock in their bikini ensembles (no stripping), the music builds, the shouts intensify. Everything builds until it all explodes into sunshine with a maniacal laugh and the title credits come rolling up as the dance continues into a sunny race down the open American highway; the girls are out of that darkened cesspool, speeding forward into the wasteland (the open planes of the American Southwest - in this instance the areas in and around the Mojave Desert). Each woman is in her own little souped-up roadster, leap-frogging each other and blasting their way freer and freer. The theme by some garage outfit called the Bostweeds roars under them like a souped up engine: "Pussycat is living reckless / pussycat is riding high / if you think you can tame her / well, just you try!"

Already we're in love, we'd never dream of trying to tame any of them, or this film - all we can do is hang on. It's Faster Pussycat, Kill! Kill! a 1965 drive-in aimed by Russ Meyer, the master of movies featuring big-breasted, sexually voracious, tough-talking women burning through men with uninhibited carnality, and, hitherto this film, 'nudie cuties' and southern-fried gothics (like Mudhoney, and Lorna) made in pursuit of the long green accorded trash hits like Poor White Trash that had been playing the tail end of drive-ins for decades, and, also in 1965, Motor Psycho (a kind of The Searchers, but with bikers instead of Apaches). Pussycat was something else altogether-- there was no precedent for it, no antecedent. Cinema had never seen women like the three wild go-go dancing, off-road dragging thrill-seeking maniacs, nor would it, sadly, ever again, a few random female characters aside).

The threesome are now the stuff of grindhouse legend: Varla (the terrifying Tura Satana), the tough butch sadistic leader, in the black Porsche, who shouts her lines in a haughty monotone; Rosie (Haji), her right hand underling/lover, who speaks in a low-key Chico Marx accent; and the wild card/joker, Billie (Lori Williams), the curvy fun-loving sexually carnivorous blonde who tags along with this due for the wild kicks they provide. (Hell, we would too).  Wild stuff happens wherever they go. And besides, if Billie's antics get her into trouble with--say--go-go patrons stalking her, she can rely on Varla to beat the shit out of them.


There is never any mention of they're being in any gang. They have no matching jackets or tattoos, not even weapons; Varla doesn't even bust out her knife until the climax (Rosa carries it for her, like a nurse.) There is no posing or growling or trying to act tough for these three girls - they're the real deal. We learn this pretty early on, when--and some might say he deserved it for hitting her when she was already letting him walk away--she breaks a young All American boy Tommy's (Ray Barlow) entitled little neck.  For thrilled first time viewers we're in brand new territory. We have no idea what's going to happen, all we know is, any man who crosses them better watch out.

Susan Bernard worries she might be hogging all the oxygen.

The girls' destination is a Mohave flatland, replete with tire markers for boundaries, that car nuts like themselves use for racing and timing trials; truck tires are laid out as boundaries for a race track loop. It's the kind of place that is usually deserted for miles and miles in all directions and, well, if you've never been way out alone in the middle of a desert before, then you know how eerie and ominous it gets, how long you can go without seeing another living soul, and yet how far you can see in all directions. It feels dangerous; if a bunch of rapey bikers showed up, you'd have to rely on their kindness or your courage. It's an eerie feeling, how quickly the law and order of the country can be left far behind, and horrible crimes could occur on you and your friends right there in the open, for hours and hours, and no one would know - and even if you tried to escape, there's nowhere to hide, and even if you get in your car and drive away, they have miles and miles in which to catch up and run you off the road. We see this 'sudden lawlessness brought on by the assurance of distance in films by Peckinpah (Bring me the Head of Alfredo Garcia), Sergio Leone (Once Upon a Time in the West), George Miller (Mad Max, the Road Warrior), Wes Craven (The Hills Have Eyes), among others. There's a deeply troubled understanding that, even in a country with laws and police, if you go too far off road, into the wasteland, either to homestead or just to run some timing trials, you have to be ready to defend yourself, and you should never be dumb enough to let yourself be led to far away from your trailer or homestead leaving your children and/or hot wife unprotected so a bunch of guys on bikes (or horses) can just ride up and run riot while you're off chasing a decoy. And unless you're going to kill them yourself there's not a damned thing you can do about it all.

"you don't have to believe it --just act it."

Into this wasteland, LA's own Mojave, came the hot rods. Teenagers were souping up dad's hand-me down Studebakers and drag racing out there, taking advantage of there not being a cop for miles to drive like maniacs. It's a distinctly American, distinctly mid-60s, pre-summer of love / post-big studio system phenomenon, when southern California car culture was all the rage (ala American Graffiti) and drive-ins the perfect place to see violence, sex, and speed and submarine races while getting it on in the back seat. Don't forget too that the mid-60s marked the time when the bikini--long a staple of French beaches--finally gained acceptance in the States. It was new-ish, so just having the word 'bikini' in your title, could guarantee box office interest. This was coupling up with teenager mobility and customized hot rods, as seen in AIP pics from the same era, like Velvet Vampire with its flashy yellow dune buggy, or climactic car chase scenes in Dr. Goldfoot, Bikini Beach, etc. It was also the dawn of the transistor radio, so not only would we now the voluptuous young bodies in all their splendor on the beaches, but they could bring their garage band radio stations and dance the frug or whatever and hula hoop until the sun went down. Old duffers like Buster Keaton scrambled for fishing-related excuses to get out there and discreetly ogle.

Beach Blanket Bingo (1965) - Bonehead dates a Mermaid

But over away from the relative safety of AIP's beach movies and The Horror of Party Beach, was the adults-only tail end drive-in entree. A nice-looking All-American boy, a "safety-first Clyde"  and his groovy obedient chick come roaring up to where the girls are., 'the best measured strip of land around' for timing trials ("It felt fast.... real fast!" - what a tool). Were headed for trouble from the moment Tommy gets out and stretches a little too patriarchally before them, as if to say, I'm the only man here so naturally I'll be in charge starting now." His girlfriend Linda (Susan Bernard) comes out when Varla notes of his bomb "you could time that heap with an hourglass" ("did someone mention my figure," she says all cute. Then adds "shall I set up shop here, Tommy?" and already you can't wait to see him get roughed up). Soon squabbling and chicken runs will give way to something darker.

They race, he wipes out when Varla cuts a corner just to chicky run him out of control with a sadistic laugh. Humiliated, he comes running up after parking far away, like he's just been violated. Linda screams as if he's already dead.  Tommy's tiny enough the towering Satana could break him with her bare hands. So she does. It's still morning, presumably. Later, at the local gas station, they spot a a giant hulk of young man and his crippled father peeling away in a pick-up; the leering attendant mentions the pile of loot they're sitting on... Billie meanwhile is bowled clear away by the sex appeal of the hulk. They realize now where they'll be heading to unload the body and maybe even create a few more.

With each trip to the well, my cup to fill, I come away with no admiration for what may well be the Big Sleep of 60s drive-in exploitation - a favorite that makes me feel just a little cooler every time I watch it, no matter how many times that is. I know I'm not alone in cherishing this film, one my all-time favorite movies. I love it so much I almost hate to talk about it even here. Luminaries of the trash arts like John Waters (who first turned me onto it through his book Shock Value), and feminist film critics like B. Ruby Rich alike, recognize its genius and can convey it more cogently perhaps. I can only vouch from my dozens of viewings that, as Waters says, "it ages like fine wine." Even now, elements are coming out in that bouquet. From the sound mixing to the framing, the gutsy brawling saxophone of club jazz combo score -- always somewhere between a tough TV cop show and a strip club, and editing, everything is surprisingly professional and opened up -- there's no canned audio dubs; as in John Waters, there's nothing primitive in its execution. Sure they shout all their lines when outdoors, to make sure they're heard - but they never sound muffled and sloppy, like they would in, say, an Al Adamson movie, or all canned and overdubbed, like in a Doris Wishman (or combo, like HG Lewis) and -oh! oh! What delicious lines! Jackie Moran's gonzo script roars by like half beatnik version  of Ben Hecht and half punch-drunk George Axelrod. You can feel and hear the air between the actors and the cars, the voices, that blowsy wailing saxophone it's Hollywood studio level professional. The acting may be flat, mostly (only Haji and Stuart Lancaster seem born for this weird style of dialogue, almost like Samuel Jackson was born for Tarantino's), but the dialogue is hilarious so it works perfectly.

Haji as the right hand woman / lover of the tough gang deb leader Varla, is someone I never really paid much attention to her before, being too enthralled by the statuesque curves of Lori Williams, and the evil of Tura Satana. But then, Marx Brothers fans like myself don't really appreciate Chico Marx, either --he's not as anarchic as Harpo or as intellectual as Groucho -- but as he holds it all together, his presence makes them 'the brothers', the way Haji makes it a girl gang even with just three people. It's Haji's Rosie who defines what they are and aren't, who never seems too be hamming, but deadpan cool - and always in that weird accent. She sticks with Varla, but she's also very aware of the danger they're in, that this time she may have gone too far. She's not as freaked out as Billie, but she's also clearly got some kind of moral conscience. And she makes the best use of any line she's thrown. While Tura and Lori both shout their lines like they're yelling over a lawn mower. Haji purrs, low, almost halfway to herself, comments like "his car's okay.... only the color needs changing.. ..like maybe yellow?" and my favorite line of all, when Linda offers them a soft drink. "Soft drink, she asks?" notes Rosie, incredulously, "we don't a-like nothing soft --Everything we touch is hard."


But while Rosie is to be fathomed for her middle child subtlety, Varla is one of the most amazing and badass characters in all of exploitation cinema, a force to be reckoned with. Tura Satana's a giant, beautiful in a weird almost alien way - half-Japanese yet towering, pale skin dark hair fierce eyes, flattish face, a sneer that seems to melt into the fourth dimension. We wouldn't see a smile that scary again until the alien smiles down a Harry Dean Stanton in the Nostromo docking bay. Yet Tura is never not all woman, even belting out hammy jujitsu moves or swinging her head around in a crazy kamikaze driving style - it's clear early on she'll go to any lengths to get her fierce kicks. We never learn why she's such a crazy bitch, but who cares? She doesn't seem to have got that way by suffering past male abuse, but just by being a true Woman, stripped of all phony decency.


Then there's Lori Williams' Rosie, who gets all the best lines and looks the sexiest in her white go-go buts and hip-hugging white shorts. Her lust after 'the Vegetable' the brain damaged body builder who the old man (Stuart Lancaster) uses like, as he puts it, "a piece of mutton", is truly hilarious ("I don't know what you're training for, but as far as I'm concerned, you're ready." What Williams lacks in subtlety she more than makes up for in giddy oomph. When she's getting drunk at lunch with Stuart Lancaster (as 'the Old Man') she sounds like she really is drinking (there ain't iced tea in that Cutty Sark bottle), noting it's "it's been known to be passin' out time." With Varla out back seducing Kirk to get the loot location and Varla jealously spying, and the Vegetable taking Stuart up to his room for a nap, it's time for Linda to make a dash for it, but this is still the desert, and walking anywhere on foot without a day-long head start, you just wont outrun a jeep, especially if driven by a pro like Varla.


For those who aren't familiar with it (and it can become hard to track down since the Meyer estate keeps the rights notoriously close to the vest) Pussycat is slightly easier to find than the rest of his films (aside from the studio-made Beyond the Valley of the Dolls) though they're sold on the Russ Meyer website, the DVDs aren't the best - they look like merely remastered from old tapes rather than source prints. So why someone like Arrow doesn't do a deal with them is a lingering mystery. I hear there's been a Blu-ray thing in the works for years now, but who knows why it's taking forever? (Apparently the original negatives are long lost and video masters are all that are left, which is too horrible to contemplate).


The film's been compared in more ways than one to Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and indeed there's a kind of bent similarity but it's one with a feminist throttle all the way open, for the buzzing isn't Leatherface's chainsaw but Varla's wheels driving a car against 'the Vegetable' smashing him against the wall until he's a crinkled mess. They'll have to send him away "from a lot of things" and we imagine suddenly that Carmen Sternwood would be a great candidate for this gang, to take Billie's place, as would Claudia Jennings from Truck Stop Women (1974). Well, we can't have everything, unless we want to make a movie ourselves. I'm not trying to put any ideas into anyone's heads, but it seems to me a badass girl gang crashing a lot of different genres would be just the thing. A lot of folks have tried and they end up being the usual overwrought nonsense with one too many well-scrubbed thugs locking girls in trunks, strippers with sun-damaged silicone lugging bags of cash in and out of hotel lobbies, sunglassed douchebags smirking into rearview mirrors, abusive backstory, flashy meaningless over-editing, in other words missing the whole point. The only film of late I can see even coming close is the 2010 low budget Aussie pic, El Monstro Del Mar (which is kind of like the Faster Pussycats vs. the Sea Monster).


BEFORE AND AFTER (THE MEYER CANON):

Faster is so good it's natural to want to explore more Meyer films. Alas, while the quality of the filmmaking is always superb, the films aren't well restored -- the negatives may have been lost over time, with Meyer's iconoclastic insistence on handling all the video recording and distribution leading to a current state of stasis as far as Blu-rays, restoration, etc. Even so, there's no film quite as perfect as Pussycat in the Meyer canon. Changes in distributor demand led Russ from black-and-white to color for the rest of his films. Off-road mayhem changes to bedroom farce, and his earlier backwoods lustful Erskine on the Half-shell insanity tempered down into historical epics (Blacksnake) and generally insane softcore farmer's daughter style rutting (Up!, Beneath the Valley of the UltraVixens)

These days I have a whole new appreciation for Haji's Rosie, The co-star of Motor Psycho, her gorgeous breasts ever hanging out of a torn blouse as she bounces around in Rocco's truck through the desert on their quest for vengeance.

Even his vehicular homicide film from the same year (1965) wasn't in the same league as Faster - by keeping the bad guys men, it becomes a 'roughie,' part of a short rape/revenge trend in mid-60s exploitation. Now it's notable mainly for a chance to see Haji in a more prominent role, as an aid to bereaved vengeance seeking vet played by Alex Rocco (!) Motor Psycho chronicles a trio of rapey male bikers who happen across a lot of gorgeous ladies lolling around in revealing outfits, guarded only by their furious middle-aged husbands. After they gang has left enough destruction in their wake, Haji and veterinarian and Alex Rocco take revenge, but for my money it's too little too late. Plus, there's a very uncomfortable feeling afoot, with a deep encouraging of the Mulveyan male sadistic gaze as well as the Studlar masochistic spectator position, as our eyes all but molest these gorgeous women, and then must watch in horror as the bikers act on our eye's desires, almost like they're our own monster of the Id (from Forbidden Planet). Very Clockwork Orange in that respect - as all our libidinal leering comes back to haunt us. We'd never get that uncomfortable today, when Hollywood films sexual assaults in such a way as to leave us feeling personally violated, traumatized, but never uncomfortably complicit through our own ogling desires

we may not approve of their methods- Motor Psycho

From thenceforth the style changed. Drive-ins no longer wanted black-and-white, so- Meyer moved into color and relaxing censorship let him drift ever closer into hardcore. One film of his I do have, SuperVixens (1975) has scenes like the one with mail order bride Uschi Digard running around the farm naked but for feathers in her hair and waving ears of Indian corn outstretched as if auditioning for some X-rated margarine box cover, while Stuart Lancaster naked but for a chicken over his groin runs in an intersecting direction - breaking up a montage of them screwing in all sorts of farm locations, enough material if the shots were dragged out as long as they'd be in lesser hands, to make some shaggy farmer's wife story as Uschi doesn't get enough from Stu (I'd love to read his thoughts on all this - he's a fine, grounded actor whose gravitas imbues the second half of Faster Pussycat with such relief pitcher oomph, and who also appears in nearly every other Meyer film, as well as other sexploiters like Mantis in Lace --for a balding old dude with a cigarette voice, he gets around). Everywhere he goes 'Super'-sized glamazons throw themselves at him and he seldom wants to reciprocate, either trying to fight them off and arousing the ire of their kinky boyfriends (who like to watch, like John LaZar) or angering the farmer or hotelier into chasing thim with a shotgun. Violence explodes from the wild cartoon fury of nymphomaniacal Super Lorna (who takes an axe to her man's car in a jealous rage and then is later killed in the bathtub by Charles Napier as the investigating cop after she taunts him for not getting it up). This becomes the norm for Meyer, when death is just a joke that leaves a bad taste in the mouth, an extension of sexual frenzy wherein everyone loses- all the girls in Motor Psycho wind up dead or traumatized. And even in Meyer's big budget Beneath the Valley of the Dolls two women get a pistol shoved in their mouths for being lesbians. You can call that homophobic, or misogynist (I do), but more than that, it's misandric, viewing men as a bunch of easily bested slobs chasing cleavage over any cliff handy and resorting to violence like a temper tantrum.

Uschi Digard in SUPER VIXENS - the Mail order Milk Maid Fantasy cranked to cartoonish extremes enough to make Jayne Mansfield blush; (but we see the problem with color film vs. black and white as far as preservation - it's all muddy, especially without the negatives to strike a restored print from for  a good DVD or Blu-ray

Our hero is very rude not to indulge the weird come-ons of Super Cherry while her boyfriend (John Lazar) watches excitedly from the driver's seat.

It's violence but the wrong kind, not the badass liberated gangland karate of Varla, but a kind of extension of pent up sexual madness -- it's not 'constructive' as a machination for kicks as is the violence is in Faster Pussycat. We don't 'feel' the violence in Pussycat. We're not meant to share Linda's frustrated terror at the macabre luncheon ("she's a sick girl, pops"), or Tommy's  humiliation after the race around the track. We're meant to view this pair of clean-cut normies with a kind of savage's eye; their small world has been enlarged, their sense of middle class entitlement blown clear and loose, by this experience. We're not rooting for them and it's liberating. We wouldn't be in a similar position until Alberto Di Iglesia's Perdita Durango (Aka Dance with the Devil), a film a highly recommend


TOO FAST FOR SEX

One of the unusual aspects too of  Faster -- there is no sex in it whatsoever, yet there's implied lesbian pair bonding and -- in the house of the three men, some implied rape/abductions done by the Vegetable with the Old Man as instigator/spectator (revenge for a past slight done - when he crippled himself rescuing a girl off the tracks, who didn't even stop to see if he was all right but just caught the next train). According to interview, Haji didn't even know she was playing a lesbian until the shoot was almost over, but that's okay- this is 1965, after all, that they don't wear it on their sleeve is quite realistic for its time. We wouldn't really think of it if not for Billie's pronouncement that 'I can turn myself on a dozen different ways while you only got one channel, and your channel is busy tuning in outside," adding "you really should be AM and FM... you one channel chicks are a drag." There's a moment where Varla tells Billie, "Rosie and I are going to take a walk..." and somehow we imagine there might have been a softcore lesbian moment if this was 1969 instead of 65, or if Meyer had time, and the girls were down. But who cares in the end? There's no time for such stillness.