jlomax28

Russ Meyer's Up! is a nasty black comedy. Totally X-rated. In RM's later years there was something mentally ill about his fantasies. This film is masterful in it's kinetic editing together of a plethora of pervasive perversions. I think the photography is some of the best in his career. Kitten Natividad is one of my favorite parts of the film. She opens up the film as the story's Greek Chorus,(obviously the pen of Roger Ebert)she then opens up her legs with an incredible close up of her Brillo Pad-esque pubic hair. She reminds the audience over and over of the convoluted murder mystery of Adolf "Hitler" Schwartz. Adolf's sex dungeon is one of RM's freakiest and grotesque scenes. I absolutely love Candy Samples aka Mary Gavin as the Headsperson. I love her S&M black leather hood with a zipper on the mouth, "Headsperson,an abyss of gluttony," proclaims Kitten in one of the film's best montages. Like Beyond the Valley and Supervixens, this film is so 'punk' before the fact. Oddly, I think RM was so untouched by 'hipness' of the times. Watching Up! one can imagine pretty clearly why the Sex Pistols wanted Russ Meyer and Roger Ebert to make their movie. This film has an intentional nasty bad attitude in a fun way. Another thing that I love about Up is all the queer overtones. All the men have huge fake penises in this one (perhaps to match the giant tits?). The film opens with Hitler bottoming for his well hung hustler Paul (played by Robert McLane, who was in the queer 'Love Story' A Very Natural Thing 1974). The lesbian scenes are depicted as good and erotic and the male on male scenes are depicted as degrading and perverse. RM was old school and openly homophobic but oddly ALL of his films show an eroticism to men in a lesser degree to the women. RM still fetishizes male muscles, buttocks and torsos and sometimes even the penis... Just an interesting observation. Also, there are lots of shots of feet, his films are great if you have a thing for feet and shoes. All in all, I really like this one. I thought it was better than Supervixens, which is one people always seem to talk about.

This is not a sequel and there has never been anything like it. It is a shame that Russ Meyer didn't make more films like this at 20th Century Fox. All of his films has a professional look to them but Beyond looks polished and perfect. Russ Meyer called this film one of his, "most important." As far as editing and cinematography, the film is beautiful. Roger Ebert's script is funny and the tone is curious at times. I am a firm believer that Russ Meyer's films were funnier and more unique before Roger Ebert's influence of self parody. With that said, I still think Beyond is one of his best films and is the one he is most known for. The tone of the film totally changes by the end and plays out almost like a serious horror film. I think it is amusing that Roger Ebert and RM changed the ending after the murder of Sharon Tate by the Mason family. John Waters (who pays many homages to RM) changed the ending to his film Multiple Maniacs 1970 based on the Manson murders as well. Great minds think alike I guess... The film has so many endings that it is hard to remember how many exactly. One of them has a narrator reciting a moral road map for the audience. Hilarious. Especially the part about Susan Lake, "Perhaps TOO pure." And how even, "excessive goodness," in itself can be a bad thing. Russ Meyer only made one more film at 20th, The Seven Minutes, a film I like but most people, even the director, dismiss. After seeing the end of 'Dolls' and the bathtub scene in 'Supervixens,' I really wish RM would have made an entry into the horror genre. His violence and gore is always so extreme. This is a great introduction to RM's style. Better with multiple viewings. Erica Gavin is in the film without her weird Vixen eyebrows. I wish she was in the film more but her scenes with Cynthia Myers are some of the most memorable.