Supervixens
Supervixens (1975), is a story of a love-triangle turned love-quadrangle. The film is occasionally very violent and is from director Russ Meyer's surreal period which features Meyer regulars Charles Napier, Uschi Digard, and Haji, the film also features Shari Eubank in one of her few film roles and Christy Hartburg.
Synopsis
Gas station attendant Clint Ramsey, who works at Martin Bormann's Super Service in the desert, is married to an unhappy nymphomaniac (the eponymous SuperAngel) who constantly is harassing him at work. Clint finds SuperAngel's demanding sexual nature and constant arguing a turnoff, and back at home, they fight after he rejects her advances.
A tease, SuperAngel picks up and beds the well-hung but impotent motorcycle cop Harry Sledge (a character who earlier appeared in Meyer's Cherry, Harry & Raquel!), who murders her after she mocks his inability to perform. Sledge then tries to pin the murder on Clint, forcing him to flee.
In his odyssey of escape, our hapless hero is sexually harassed by various voluptuous nymphomaniacs, all of whom have the word "Super" in their Christian names. Clint eventually meets up with SuperVixen at a roadside diner. SuperVixen is (inexplicably) the reincarnation of SuperAngel (whose ghost comments on the impending action from her perch on a bedspring balanced on a mesa). Soon, SuperAngel and Clint's nemesis, Harry Sledge, arrives on the scene. Harry clearly is a psychotic, and he plots to end the bliss of the happy couple.
There is no indication that Harry has overcome his impotence; his desire is not for SuperAngel, but merely to wreck their lives. Rather, the sadistic Harry exists in the same thematic sense as the character Evil in the medieval mystery plays. Despite Harry's physical and moral impotence, Meyer's movie does manage to end, literally, with an explosive climax.
Cinema semiotics
Meyer makes the cartoonish nature of the film explicit towards the end, when the impending death of Clint's antagonist is signalled by the "Beep-beep!" sound of the Road Runner, which always introduces imminent disaster for Wile E. Coyote in the Wile E. Coyote and Road Runner cartoon series. The antagonist breaks the Fourth Wall between the fictional world and the audience with a facial gesture showing he is resigned to his fate.
End credits
As a humorous sidenote, in the end credits of the film the names of all participants have been changed either partially (Uschi Bristol instead of Digard) or completely (Brown Pants, C. Unt). Interestingly, Shari Eubank is credited as 'Shari Sheridan,' the initials of which would be [SS a possible further allusion to a Nazi subplot featured in the film.
Meyer trademarks
As a combat photographer in World War II, Russ Meyer made many friends and acquaintances in Europe, and later claimed the war years were the best years of his life. Meyer used running jokes and recurring themes in some of his films which were unique to the veteran's sense of humor. In Supervixens, these include:
- The use of German marching tunes.
- Actor Henry Rowland appears as Martin Bormann, who was Adolf Hitler's personal secretary, rumored to have escaped Allied justice for decades and the subject of many "sightings".
- The Bormann character refers to SuperAngel as the Führer.
Supervixens in pop culture
- The song "Supervixen" featured on the |debut album of rock band Garbage was named after the film.
- The band Queens of the Stone Age recently released a music video for the song "3's and 7's" featuring a plot based on Supervixens
External links
- Supervixens at the Internet Movie Database
- Russ Meyer on Supervixens by Gary Morris @ Bright Lights Films
- Review at DVD Maniacs
