Running time: 60 mins
Director: Russ Meyer
Starring: Babette
Bardot, Pat Barrington, Sin Lenee, Darlene Grey
Genre: Documentary
Country: USA
Yesterday was to be the first of a month of Meyer Mondays but with the
untimely death of director Tony Scott I decided to put it off the first
publication for a day. Now, 24 hours
late but better than never, we take a look at an early example of the birth of
American Exploitation as the once impenetrable Hayes code crumbles by the side
of the road.
After a whistle stop tour of San
Francisco full time sweater meat enthusiast Russ Meyer
takes us on an all jiggling multi-cup tour of breasts including British starlet
Darlene Grey (Buxotic) and French/Swedish babe Babette Bardot… “50/50 the best
way”. Exploitation documentary American Grindhouse would touch on the titillation
documentary in it’s quest to explore the ins and outs of 42nd Street and opened up a
lot of the performers to the level of loss of earnings that would often leave
the genre with a bad taste after discussion. Many exhibitors and owners of strip
clubs discovered that films their girls’ best moves allowed for wider coverage
and they only had to pay the performers once.
In keeping with this style Meyer offers up a cool and jazz riddled
pastiche of the exhibitionist titles like The Pleasures of a Woman but with an interesting discussion on body image and female
representation playing just below the surface.
Mondo Topless is probably best described in percentage as it’s
80% cheap titillation, 10% visibly and audibly sumptuous through well
constructed cinematography, landscape and a period score to boot but that extra 10% is something that you don’t expect and it’s surprising when you
consider Meyer’s sensibilities. What it actually manages to offer up is an interesting and still incredibly relevant
discussion on the female form, body image, condition and the constant tug of
war between exploitation and empowerment.
It’s most certainly not a message or discussion that the
film makers would have intentionally tapped into, as it’s one that goes beyond
the mere superficial but it is interesting to see how almost half a century
later most of Hollywood
is still having trouble with the same issue.
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