Mondo Topless
Mondo Topless |
|
---|---|
Technical | |
Type: | Film Color |
Alternate title(s): | Mondo Girls, Mondo Top La Fête du nu (Belgium) |
Country: | USA |
Release date(s): | November 17, 1966 |
Running time: | 61 minutes |
Language: | English |
Budget: | $12,000 |
Company: | Eve Productions |
Staff | |
Directed by: | Russ Meyer |
Starring: | Babette Bardot Sin Lenee Diane Young Donna Scott Pat Barringer Darla Paris Darlene Grey Lorna Maitland Veronique Gabriel Greta Thorwald Denise Duval Gigi La Touche Abundavita Heidi Richter Yvette Le Grand |
Produced by: | Russ Meyer |
Written by: | Russ Meyer |
Music by: | The Aladdins (uncredited) |
Cinematography: | Russ Meyer |
Editing by: | Russ Meyer |
Websites and databases | |
IMDb |
Mondo Topless is a 1966 pseudo documentary directed by Russ Meyer,[1] featuring Babette Bardot and Lorna Maitland among others. It was Meyer's first color film following a string of black & white "roughie nudies", including Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! While a straightforward sexploitation film, the film owes some debt to the French new wave and cinéma vérité traditions, and is known to some under the titles: 'Mondo Girls' and 'Mondo Top.'
Its tagline: "Two Much For One Man...Russ Meyer's Busty Buxotic Beauties ... Titilating ... Torrid ... Untopable ... Too Much For One Man!"
The film was banned in Finland.
Plot
The film presents a snapshot of '60s San Francisco before shifting its focus to strippers. The strippers' lives are earnestly portrayed as they reveal the day-to-day realities of sex work, talk bra sizes, relate their preferences in men, all voiced over while dancing topless to a faux "rock" soundtrack. Throughout a large portion of the film, the narrator talks about the women as if they are a Sub-Genre of the Counter Culture Movement somewhat similar to the Beatnik or Hippie movements that were highly prevalent during the same era. The "Topless" movement as it is called by the narrator could also be perceived as an allegorical subsect of the Sexual Revolution of the 1960s.
Cast
- Babette Bardot ... Bouncy[2]
- Sin Lenee ... Lucious
- Diane Young ... Yummy
- Donna X ... 'Xciting
- Pat Barringer ... Bumptious
- Darla Paris ... Delicious
- Darlene Grey ... Buxotic
- Lorna Maitland ... Herself (Lorna screentest footage)
- Veronique Gabriel ... Herself (Europe in the Raw footage)
- Greta Thorwald ... Herself (Europe in the Raw footage)
- Denise Duval ... Herself (Europe in the Raw footage)
- Gigi La Touche ... Herself (Europe in the Raw footage)
- Abundavita ... Herself (Europe in the Raw footage)
- Heide Richter ... Herself (Europe in the Raw footage)
- Yvette Le Grand ... Herself (Europe in the Raw footage)
In popular culture
Mondo Topless became the focus of a brief comedy bit on The Opie and Anthony Show on XM Radio in 2006. Since that time, the introduction to their morning radio show plays a clip of Meyer saying "But enough of this palaver! Let's get the show on the road!"
The Philadelphia, PA based garage-rock group Mondo Topless named themselves after the film.
Documentary traditions
The title Mondo Topless derives from the series of "mondo" films of the early 1960s. The first and most successful of these was Mondo Cane (A Dog's World). The purpose of these films was to bypass censorship laws by presenting both sexual and graphically violent material in a documentary format.
Mondo Topless shares some stylistic similarities with Jean-Luc Godard's collaborative effort, Le plus vieux métier du monde (The Oldest Trade in the World). Mondo Topless, like most other Meyer films, drew much of its inspiration from the more relaxed European attitudes toward sex, and was followed by a host of imitators.
External links
- Scott, Casey (December 26, 2004). MONDO TOPLESS (1966). DVD Drive-In. Retrieved on August 8, 2008.
- Erickson, Hal. Mondo Topless (English). All Movie Guide. Retrieved on August 9, 2008.
References
- ↑ Infobox data from Frasier, David K. (1998). Russ Meyer : The Life and Films : A Biography and A Comprehensive, Illustrated, and Annotated Filmography and Bibliography. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland & Co, p. 206. ISBN 0-7864-0472-8.
- ↑ Krafsur, Richard P. (1976). "Mondo Topless", The American Film Institute Catalog of Motion Pictures; Feature Films 1961-70. New York & London: R.R. Bowker Company. ISBN 0-8352-0440-5.