Faster Pussycat...Kill! Kill!
By Chris Hyde
April 11, 2005
Russ Meyer made two masterpieces during his film career. This is one of ‘em.
The films of the late Russ Meyer are generally famous for their top-heavy starlets and offbeat tone, as the low budget director mainly made his mark with material of a risqué nature. Personally, I’ve always had a tough time keeping much of the cinema of the filmmaker straight, as all of his work more or less blends into one big movie in my mind. This is in some ways the result of the way I took so many of them in — at a 24 hour all-night massive mammary marathon at the Boston Film Festival during the '80s. (Though in reality the slog turned out to be even longer than a day — the geniuses programming the thing neglected to add up the run times of the 17 movies they got and we ended up sitting there for 30 hours or so).
But I don’t honestly think that it was simply the viewing of all this stuff in the course of one night that has resulted in my inability to remember what’s what in the Meyer canon — the fact is, for all their positive attributes, these films as a whole just don’t really rise too far from standard. Sure, they usually have their good points — the ample assets always on display, the technical skills of the auteur who made them, and their lowbrow entertainment value for three — but in general I’ll admit that many of these movies just don’t thrill me all that much. However, there are undoubtedly two of Meyers’ pictures that do stand out and must be regarded as true classics: his studio film Beyond the Valley of the Dolls (co-written by Roger Ebert and famously quoted in Austin Powers) and one of the great American movies of the 1960s, Faster Pussycat…Kill! Kill!
This latter movie concerns the exploits of a trio of hotrodding strippers out looking for kicks in the desert. Led by the savage Varla (played with an animal ferocity by half-Japanese half-Apache actress Tura Satana), this triumvirate of trouble also includes a feisty Latino in love with the boss lady (Meyer regular Haji) and a blonde free spirit named Billie (Lori Williams). While revving their motors on the flats one day, they encounter milquetoast car clubber Tommy (Ray Barlow) and his bubbly sidekick Linda (future Playboy model Sue Bernard), leading to some fast-paced racing action that ends up with poor Tommy getting his back broke by the karate chopping Varla.
After this violent confrontation, the girl gang bundles up the shocked girlfriend and sets off into the Mojave. They eventually come upon a broken down ranch populated by a bitter, wheelchair bound old man (Stuart Lancaster) and his two sons: the brawny but braindead muscleman known only as The Vegetable (Dennis Busch) and a more bookish and sensitive type named Kirk (Paul Trinka). The rest of the film plays out the scheming machinations of each group against the other with the kidnapped girl and some filthy lucre as the spoils. The ultimate outcome of the plot is hardly the main attraction of this brilliantly shot black and white ode to the violent side of women, however — instead it’s the larger than life nature of the proceedings and the constant hilarity of the over-the-top dialogue that drives this exploitation gem.
During his life, Meyer was a complete control freak about his movies and their release into other forms; the result was that they have not always been as available to the home viewer as one might like. To this point, only a few of his films have made it to DVD at all and neither of his two greatest outings has yet been seen in digital form in his native country. Just recently, however, the UK outfit Arrow films has put out a whole slew of Meyer’s movies in Region 2 PAL editions, at least allowing those with access to a region free player the chance to see many of his works including this greatest of them all in a bonus laden edition.
First up, here’s the bad news: this new DVD of Faster Pussycat…Kill! Kill! apparently uses the same elements previously used as transfers for the video versions. What this means is that we’ll still have to wait for the definitive version of the film to be struck, as the print quality here is quite simply not the greatest. It’s a passable looking 4:3 full frame version of the movie, but there’s certainly some print damage and on my player the film at times had a slightly jerky quality to its image. I’m not at all sure what the original aspect ratio for the motion picture was either, though nothing looks very cropped here to these eyes save a bit of the credits — but it’s been some years since I saw the film on a theater screen for comparison.
There’s no sense dwelling on the negative (no pun intended) for this release, though, as the extras make the DVD well worth an import anyhow. One bonus included is an audio commentary by Russ Meyer himself, which originally appeared on the laser disc version of the film. This track is a bit of a mixed bag — it’s great when the filmmaker tells anecdotes from the shoot or his career, but when he switches into describing-what’s-on-the-screen mode it can be bit of a chore to listen to. The newly recorded commentary that’s featured here is of far greater interest as it was made by the three women whose presence drives the film’s success. Somewhat fittingly, the track is slightly dominated by the still powerful presence of Tura Satana, but both Haji and Lori Williams chime in quite often and the Blue Underground moderator does a great job steering the discussion and keeping it focused.
In addition to the two commentary tracks comes a brand new 25 minute featurette titled “Go Pussycat Go” that interviews the three principal actresses as well as Sue Bernard and goes into further detail on the movie’s production. There’s some crossover between the reminiscences in this documentary and the aforementioned commentary track (the footage of Satana, Haji and Williams was seemingly shot on the same day the audio was recorded) but there’s plenty of unique material and it’s just great to see all of the female members of the cast talk about their experiences. It’s most amusing to hear Bernard and Williams describe how they were actually scared of Tura Satana on set, and the whole narrative piece is well made and informative.
Closing out this new release is a passel load of trailers for other Meyer films, allowing a brief glimpse at a fair number of his other works for the uninitiated. But if you’re going to start in on the oeuvre of this semi-notorious director, then you may as well begin at the top, and it sure doesn’t get much better than the current film under discussion. Through a combination of sharp-eyed helmsmanship, an overblown screenplay filled with crackling dialogue, lots of stunningly gorgeous cinematography and the alluring presences and high quality dramatic performances of the great trio of actresses who make it all fly, Faster Pussycat…Kill! Kill! separates itself from the pack and demonstrates why it is one of the best pieces of celluloid exploitation of all time. While this new UK disc doesn’t yet completely satisfy the purist devotee in me (only a clean transfer struck from the original elements is going to do that), given the wonderful additional material packaged on this DVD, it’ll sure do for the time being.
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