Supervixen — Supervixen( Blu Ray)
Supervixen was the twenty-first feature from director/ writer Russ Meyer. Appearing in the middle of the 70s- the film is a wild, at-points wacky romp blending large-breasted softcore, camp drama, and action with a few moments of extreme/nasty violence. The film starts off, as a jealous and randy woman-focused unhinged domestic drama- before shifting towards a blend of bloody murder thriller, sexual encounter lined road movie, comedy-drama, and whacked-out action film- so a ride and a half, and the film's tagline of ‘Too much…For One Movie’ most certainly fits. Here from Severin, as part of their series of reissues of the Meyers work, is a new release of the film- taking in a new bold ‘n’ buoyant print, and a few new and archive extras.
Supervixen is from 1975 and was mainly filmed in the desert lands of Arizona, California, and New Mexico.The film runs at one hour and forty-six minutes- which may sound a little too long for this type of thing- but boy, does Meyer keep you entertained, amused, at points troubled & astonished.
As a film/ experience, the less you know about Supervixen's plot, the better- so I’ll give a very rough rundown of what happens in the film, well, at least early on. Our lead character here is dressed all-in-denim roadside garage worker Clint(Charles Pitt)- who is mainly a hardworking/happy-go-lucky guy, but he has an issue- his large-breasted/ brunette girlfriend Angle(Shari Eubank) is irrationally jealous and constantly randy. Early on, we see her ringing and pestering Clint at work- asking him to come back home for sexy times- he says he can’t, but she gets mad when she finds out a large-breasted customer has turned up at the garage- Angle threatens to burn down their home. He rushes back, and an OTT fight/ set to unfolds- rolling in, then out of their house, going into his truck, with axes swinging. Due to the disturbance, blond-haired, mirror-shaded, and glinting white-teethed cop Harry( Charles Napier) is called in- though he may not be quite what he seems…here ends the early plot set-up.
As things unfold, Clint hits the road- along the way, meeting a selection of largely sexed-up characters- going from a couple of thrill seekers, a very large-breasted Austrian woman(Uschi Digard), and a few others. As you’d expect, there is lots of softcore comedy ‘n’ romping and camp dramatic encounters- but also, there are moments of OTT/ extreme violence, desert car chases, explosions, ranting madmen, dead women reappearing, and moments of large breasted desert bound surrealness. It truly is one hell of a ride of a film!.
Moving onto this new release, we find a 4k scan of the picture- this features great depth and clarity picture- with bold and buoyant colours. On the extras side of things- we largely get archive material, but it’s the most worthy/interesting archive material.
The only purely new thing here is The Return Of Harry Sledge(18.45) a filmed interview with actor Charles Napier. He opens by talking about Meyer gave him the biggest break of his career. He details his first meeting with the director- finding him gruff, in your face and intense. He discusses the first Meyer film he worked on Cherry, Harry & Raquel! (1969), touching on other films he did with him before getting to Supervixen. He goes onto talk about the film hand- relating a story when he & Meyer were discussing the film's violent bathroom scene, and the cops got called- because someone overhearing the conversation thought they were planning a murder. He talks about how at one point Supervixen was a film missing both cast members and a story. And lastly, we find out he got his big break due to Supervixen- as Hitchcock saw the film, and shortly after signed him up as a contract actor.
On the archive side, we get a commentary track from Meyer. Russ Meyer Versus The Porn-Busters(23.54) a 1990 interview with Meyer- finding him discussing how/ why he largely avoided censorship and remained popular into the 90’s. Lastly, we get The Incredibly Strange Film Show Season 1, Episode 5: Russ Meyer( 39.17) which is the Johnthan Ross presented show from the late 80s, and if you’ve not seen it- it’s a must as it features an in-depth look at Meyers work, as well of course interviews with the man himself. There's a trailer and TV spot
Supervixen truly is the Meyer film that has it all- big big-breasted women, camp drama, action, and violence. Yes at points it darts into OTT-ness/surrealism, but it’s all the better for it. Great to see this film has been added to Severin's reissue series of Meyer’s filmography- with bold and colourful scan, and a selection of worthy extras.