Review #1,338: 'Mudhoney' (1965)

Russ Meyer's keen eye for satire is in full swing in Mudhoney, one of the cult filmmaker's best films, as he explores the extremities on both sides of a topic he spent most of his career pondering and exploiting. Set in the one-horse town of Spooner, Missouri during the Great Depression, its inhabitants seem to spend their time between either a farm owned by kind and respectable old man Lute Wade (Stuart Lancaster) and the local brothel ran by a toothless, moonshine-brewing madame who "ain't turned a trick in fifteen years." Mudhoney bears comparison with Meyer's Lorna, made just the year before, in the way it explores themes of sexuality in an unconventional, and perhaps controversial, manner. Both films also starred Meyer favourite Lorna Maitland.

While making the journey from Michigan to California in search of work, drifter and ex-jailbird Calif McKinney (John Furlong) is approached by Eula (Rena Horten), a buxom deaf-mute girl who takes an immediate liking to the handsome young man. It is suggested Calif travels to Wade's farm to seek out a job, and seeing the ex-con's genuine desire to turn his life around, the old man employs him as an extra hand to help out around the place. Calif also meets Wade's niece Hannah (Antoinette Cristiani) and almost instantly falls in love with her. Hannah is beautiful and kind, but also emotionally beaten down by her monstrous husband and town drunk Sidney Brenshaw (Hal Hopper), who fills his time at the local brothel swigging corn-liquor, when he isn't harassing the town's female occupants with his lecherous behaviour.

Sidney is central to the film's concerns. Dressed in a dirty old suit and cowboy hat, licking his thin lips as he arrives home drunk to rape his poor wife, he is borderline comical in his monstrosity, and Hopper is fantastic in the role. His two stomping grounds - the dingy brothel and the farm he calls home - are two sides of the same coin. One represents sexual freedom, a place a man can get his rocks off without fear of judgement, and the other a breeding ground for violence, born out of Sidney's lust to gratify all of his sexual desires and prove his manhood. The town, which has little to no law and order, shows the risks of unchecked human behaviour. It ends with a lynching, and although there's no suggestion of racial tension, Mudhoney captures how resentment and anger can grow out of loneliness, resentment and sheer boredom, where one angry word from a man in a position of authority can quickly turn into a lynch mob. It's perhaps Meyer's most interesting work and, thanks mainly to Hopper, one of his most entertaining.


Directed by: Russ Meyer
Starring: Hal Hopper, Antoinette Cristiani, John Furlong, Princess Livingston, Stuart Lancaster, Rena Horten, Lorna Maitland
Country: USA

Rating: ****

Tom Gillespie

Review #551: 'Lorna' (1964)

After spending the first few years of his career on traditional 'nudie cuties', director Russ Meyer made his first foray into 'real' film-making with 1964's Lorna, written by and starring James Griffith. Though his colourful visuals and sense of humour were evident in the likes of The Immoral Mr. Teas (1959) and Eve and the Handyman (1961), these films were still very much confined to being nothing more than a peep show. With Lorna, Meyer resorted to black-and-white photography, but whether this was for budgetary reasons or stylistic choice, I don't know. But the decision to shoot this way gives the film more gravitas, and the attention is moved away from the big-breasts and onto the story and script, giving birth to the auteur that is now so revered.

Beginning with the rape of a girl named Ruthie (Althea Currier), the two men responsible, Luther (Hal Hopper) and Jonah (Doc Scortt), travel to work and pick up Jim (James Rucker) on the way. Jim is married to the beautiful Lorna (Lorna Maitland), who is sexually unsatisfied by the nice-guy Jim. Luther  proceeds to tease Jim about Lorna at work, while an escaped convict (Mark Bradley) forces himself onto Lorna. Lorna is extremely turned on, and invites the convict back to the house where she feeds and washes him. Clearly, it's not the most complex of plots, but we are in familiar Meyer territory with square-jawed men, put-upon women, and a funky jazz score.

One of the most familiar traits of a Meyer film is the narrator. Commonly, the role of the narrator in his films was to play the traditional man, one that obeyed the values and traditions of the 1950's American. The idea of sexual repression was clearly something that amused Meyer, and in Lorna, he employs James Griffith to play 'the Man of God', who is littered throughout the film addressing the audience directly to camera and questioning their moral fibre. He introduces the film, and this leads to one of the best moments in the films. He stands in the middle of a wide desert road, allowing the camera to glide past him and forward into the unknown as the jazz score kicks in. It's a lovely little touch, and a clear indication that this isn't simple another nudie-cutie.

This is far from his best work, with Lorna being relatively subdued in comparison to his more wilder visions such as Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! (1965) and especially Beyond the Valley of the Dolls (1970), and Lorna's pandering to the violent convict may seem rather chauvinistic in comparison to the majority of Meyer's output, where the female was quite often the dominant sex. But this was only the beginning of a now widely-celebrated career, so Meyer was still very much honing his craft. His sense of humour is unmistakable however, and one of the standout scenes has the despicable Luther writing and performing a song about Lorna's adultery to Jonah. It's played out so naturally that the two start to really laugh, making the scene really quite wonderful. It's this kind of playfulness that make Meyer's output such as joy to watch.

Directed by: Russ Meyer

Starring: Lorna Maitland, Mark Bradley, James Rucker, Hal Hopper, James Griffith

Country: USA

Rating: ***

Tom Gillespie