Mondo Topless

I couldn't help but laugh out loud while watching MONDO TOPLESS. The overexuberant descriptive narration along with the busty women's epileptic dancing gave the movie a kind of surreal, comical effect. Visually, there are some stunning shots (the woman dancing next to the incoming train) and the wacky yet clever narration parodies everything about the late 60s, 70s sexual revolution. So, clearly, Russ Meyer ain't no idiot. There's a method to his madness. But the movie gets a bit boring after a while. And many of the women look odd, due mainly to the dated hair styles and attitude. But it's worth a look just for the oddity of it all.

This is a really great movie, hilarious! The narrator is just ridiculous, they keep calling it "the art of the topless" and how the girls are skilled in the art. Its a good movie to pull out when you have people over and need something to entertain everyone. Basically, its just girls who are topless talking about their jobs or other various things in their lives. It's pretty soft core & the most mischievous things one of the girls says is "When I go to bed, I don't wear a brassiere". The things the girls say are stupid but the movie is pretty caked in satire. The narrator actually says "try to concentrate on this girl as she's talking to you", its a joke! Old style movie but definitely worth it. Plus, it's entertaining! O & A party rock!

Hilarious double-entendre narration (subtle as a sledgehammer) over "mod rock" music. Thoroughly pneumatic cast and hypnotizing choreography.

Although Russ Meyer made this movie in a hurry to make some fast money, he later came to see it for what it is - a classic sendup of the go-go and striptease girls of the swingin' 60's! The movie is sparse, even by Russ Meyer standards - just a music soundtrack accompanied by an announcer who introduces the "girls"!

But the "girls" are something else! Most of them are California based professional strippers of the era who jumped at the chance to get in front of a movie camera and do their go-go bad thing. All of them are eye catching, but one stands out, literally, from the rest.

Russ was actually ready to run this film through his paces, featuring the already well known Lorna Maitland, when he got a phone call from a great "procurer" friend, one Andy Anderson. He told Russ that he had a major discovery in front of him at a strip club in downtown Los Angeles (San Francisco has been incorrectly reported) and that Russ should "get his body down to a certain club a.s.a.p." in order to be the first to shoot her. Andy said "I'll hold the dogs off until you get here!"

Russ complied, went to the club and together, he and Andy went to the dressing room of one Vivian Cournoyer. She had apparently just begun dancing at the club and was new to the art of striptease and the area, temporarily staying with a friend. Identifying himself, Russ asked Ms. Cournoyer to display the goods whereupon Russ got to see, according to him, "the greatest set of breasts I've ever seen or filmed", all the more remarkable on a petite 112 pound body!

Realizing he had to act quickly in order to be the first to get this buxotic lady on film, Russ Meyer drove with her to the desert early the next morning and spent the entire day shooting stills and film of the woman he called Darlene Grey for his ode to the go-go era, MONDO TOPLESS. Darlene Grey went on to a short-lived career in magazines such as Arv Miller's FLING, posing as Candy Morrison, Vivian Moyer and Angela Carter.

Then, as Russ tells it, she just disappeared from sight after less than a year of posing. Nevertheless, Russ Meyer still claims that MONDO TOPLESS has been one of his best selling videos over the years "simply because of Ms. Grey's great heaving chest".

If for no other reason, enjoy this movie for the "girls", but especially for the extended "desert boogie au go go" done by Darlene Grey near the beginning. No less a film critic than Roger Ebert felt compelled to specifically comment on the voluptuous Ms. Grey in MONDO TOPLESS. Seeing her cavort, topless in the desert, holding a tiny AM transistor radio in one hand is an experience never to be forgotten!

Russ Meyer directed this mondo film immediately after the commercial disappointment of his now classic Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! Despite being considerably less interesting than that earlier movie, Mondo Topless did far greater business at the box office. It seems pretty obvious to me that this was on account of its no messing high-concept - i.e. The promise of large breasts - and beautiful provocative promo posters. In the event, it is kind of a boring film to watch from start-to-finish unfortunately, but, as you can probably imagine, it still definitely has its individual moments.

Like all Meyer movies, this one has a pretty solid dependency on its female cast and it boasts quite a number of pneumatic girls. The standout for this viewer has to be Babette Bardot (she of the iconic posters), who we see driving her car in glorious twin-peaked profile on several occasions. And it's definitely always a bonus to see Lorna Maitland, who appears in some behind-the-scenes stuff from Lorna. If the film in general was to be broken down into its basic parts it would be dancing, narration and fast edits. The narration combines knowingly over-the-top nonsense from a male narrator and voice-overs from the various strippers about their personal lives, as we watch them bust some moves. Its all underscored too by a particularly relentless soundtrack of garage rock guitar instrumentals. Despite the presence of all these lovely women in states of undress, it does get a bit tedious after a while though, given the overall sameyness of so many of the routines, the high-speed edits taking us from one girl to the next and the relentless soundtrack. Still, it wouldn't be a Meyer film if it didn't look good and this one is no different on that score, with loads of well composed static shots and a constant accent on making the women look great. There's a particularly fabulous shot of one of the girls booging on down, as an incoming train fires towards the camera at speed - its ideas like this that really show Meyer's unique eye in full splendour. So, overall, not the most engaging watch in truth but if you like buxom women and you like to see them photographed really nicely, well, this one is certainly worth a look at least.