"He's this guy who made these awful movies during The '70s featuring these kinds of women. He's obsessed. He's obsessed with breasts. That's hard to say."
Russ Meyer (March 21, 1922 — September 18, 2004) was an American director, producer, screenwriter and cinematographer from Oakland, California best known as a pioneer of sexploitation films during The '60s and '70s.
Selected Filmography (collectively known as Meyers' Bosomania Collection):
- The Immoral Mr. Teas (1959)
- Mudhoney (1965)
- Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! (1965)
- Vixen! (1968)
- Beyond the Valley of the Dolls (1970)
- The Seven Minutes (1971)
- Supervixens (1975)
- Up (1976)
- Beneath The Valley Of The Ultra Vixens (1979)
"I always had a tremendous interest in big tropes":
- Ascended Extra: He was on the camera crew for the 1957 Documentary The James Dean Story.
- Author Appeal: Buxom women, violence, weak-willed men
- Autobiography: A Clean Breast
- Character Title: 1964's Lorna, 1968's Vixen!, 1969's Cherry, Harry & Raquel!
- Everytown, America: Beneath The Valley of the Ultra-Vixens was set in "Smalltown USA".
- Exploitation Film: His stock in trade.
- Insistent Terminology: He called 20th Century Fox inviting him to make Beyond The Valley of the Dolls "going up the mountain."
- Lantern Jaw of Justice: The profile of him in the book Videohound's Cult Flicks and Trash Pics included "Men with square jaws" as something usually found in his movies.
- Charles Napier in Beyond the Valley of the Dolls and Supervixens.
- Legacy Director: John Waters cited him as a major influence.
- Ms. Fanservice: He had an eye for sexy women and filled his movies with them.
- Returning War Vet: He served in World War II as a combat photographer.
- Take That!: His service led him to hate Nazis, which is why he used them as objects of ridicule in his films.
- Trope Codifier: Meyers is credited with being the inventor of the "Nudie Cutie" with The Immoral Mr. Teas.note
- Undying Loyalty: Was this to numerous wartime comrades, screenwriters, and actors over the years. Roger Ebert described a crowded dinner where Meyer's former ensign asked who he was. "Russ said 'That's Ebert.' There was no follow-up question."
- World of Buxom: The women in his movies are never flat-chested — there's a reason his oeuvre has gone under the moniker Bosomania Collection.