here is a paragraph that sums up why i bothered reading this book that, in the end, i feel kinda weird about:

Used, abused, and still a bit nutty after all these years, Meyer's women fight to scratch out some sort of a living, waiting for the break that never came post-RM. They were too far ahead of their time, too big for this planet, and financially they have benefited the least from the work they helped to create. But somewhere out there a fourteen-year-old scowling bad seed of a girl is seeing Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill for the first time and thinking to herself that the world can't be all bad if Tura Satana's in it.

i was that fourteen year old, or, more accurately, that nineteen year old, girl and i have since had a love/hate relationship with the world of Russ Meyer that i still have trouble reconciling. is it empowerment or exploitation? i still don't know, but here are some positive or interesting things about the book:

1 – mcdonough tells the story, albeit briefly, of each of Russ Meyer's stars, their strange childhoods and troubled adulthoods and interesting life philosophies, all of which is worth the time. these are fascinating women, and i would much rather read a book about them.

2 – all of Meyers films are put into a variety of socio-political contexts that i find compelling on their own. hollywood's struggle with the television set, meyer's fight against censorship, the rise of porn and voyeur culture, etc. etc.

3 – i've read all about the sex pistols' aborted film project from their perspective, or from the perspective of people writing about them -- it was interesting to see it from meyer's. or from the author's interpretation of meyer's perspective, anyway.

some things i found nigh unbearable:

1 – mcdonough seems to think that his book should, for the most part, read like a meyer script, which adds up to all sorts of unneccessary bombast barreling right at you like a bat out of hell. or a v-8 engine out of … something. oh god, god, it's insufferable.

2 – despite the respect and support often given to the actresses that starred in meyer's films, it's obvious that the author's interest in meyer's films is mainly … of a prurient nature, and he seems to assume that people reading the book want to hear about that with some regularity.

3 – in the same vein, i don't want to know that much about roger ebert's sex life.

4 – meyer's a gross scumbag.

still, if you're interested in film history, in gender studies, in art vs. utility, form vs. function, etc. etc., and can stand the sort of things i've mentioned above … while i can't recommend it wholeheartedly, i can recommend it with a half-hearted shrug. ( )

For those who think there is nothing to Russ Meyer, I refer you to the idea that he is a Menippean satirist and since I had no idea what that meant, maybe you don't either. From wiki:

The term is used by classical grammarians and by philologists mostly to refer to satires in prose (cf. the verse Satires of Juvenal and his imitators). Typical mental attitudes attacked and ridiculed by menippean satires are "pedants, bigots, cranks, parvenus, virtuosi, enthusiasts, rapacious and incompetent professional men of all kinds," which are treated as diseases of the intellect. The term Menippean satire distinguishes it from the earlier satire pioneered by Aristophanes, which was based on personal attacks.....
Critic Frye observed 'The novelist sees evil and folly as social diseases, but the Menippean satirist sees them as diseases of the intellect.'

For more on Russ Meyer, I've written a bit about him here: http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/145173126

This book had sat on my shelf for a year or so after getting it as a Christmas gift and I finally got around to reading it and can say with authority that it was well worth the wait. I am a life-long movie buff and I especially like to read books about the creative process of film making, my last such book was a bio of John Ford, and I can say with absolute certitude that though Russ Meyer was about a million miles from the great Master of the Western Genre, they shared a few things in common, mainly a cantankerous disposition, which they used to get their way, and a great passion for movie making.

BIG BOSOMS AND SQUARE JAWS by Jimmy McDonough is an in depth look at the great renegade film maker and King of the Nudies, one that does not spare his subject his less than flattering attributes, but also lets the reader come away with a true understanding of this unique man. McDonough, a journalist in the mode of Hunter S. Thompson, finds just the right voice to tell Meyer’s story, from his lowly beginnings to his glory days through his eventual sad decline.

Meyer was born in California in 1922 and raised by a single mother after his police man father left the family when Russ was an infant. Like many of his generation, the defining event of Meyer’s life was service in World War II, where an early love of cameras landed him in the 166 Signal Photographic Company. As a combat photographer, he would see plenty of action and make the life-long friendships that would become a sort of first family for Meyer as he would remain close to his army buddies for the rest of his life. His wartime experience got him a job making industrial films, while working a sideline as a photographer for the many skin magazines of the era. It was a sideline that brought him in contact with strippers and budding actresses and allowed Meyer to indulge his fetish for the well-endowed and full-figured female form. At the same time, he was learning everything about the film making process, so by the time he was ready to make a low budget picture of his own in the late 50’s, the he was virtually a one man film crew all his own.

Starting with THE IMMORAL MR. TEAS and continuing for the next two decades, Russ Meyer would churn one low budget “nudie” film after another, filled with gorgeous women, the men they drive crazy, and the violence that ensues when his combustible characters meet. MUDHONEY; COMMON LAW CABIN; FASTER PUSSYCAT! KILL KILL; VIXEN, HARRY, CHERRY, AND RAQUEL; BEYOND THE VALLEY OF THE DOLLS and BENEATH THE VALLEY OF THE ULTRA VIXENS are among his titles that have developed a true cult following. Though he would often be called a pornographer, Meyer was nothing of the kind, his movies had actual plots, and the nudity in many of them would barely qualify for an R rating these days. The women in his films were anything but passive victims, most of them being able to handle anything a man dished out and then give back to him twice over, Some, like Tura Satana’s Varla in PUSSYCAT, are down-right man destroying killing machines; when it came to the kick ass female protagonist, Russ Meyer was way ahead of everyone else. He would briefly work at 20th Century Fox in 1970, and would produce a profitable X-rated epic for them before a change in studio management ended any chance of mainstream success. Which was a shame, one wishes he could have found a producer in the 70’s who could have raised the kind of money that would allowed Meyer to take it too another level; yet one gets the feeling that he would not have traded away the freedom to make his movies, his way, for any amount of money. And if truth be told, there were probably many Academy Award winning directors working within the studios who must have envied Meyer his freedom.

We meet Meyer’s second family, the varied individuals with whom he made his movies, especially the women, most of them characters in their own right: the aforementioned Tura Satana, Haji, Lori Williams, Erica Gavin, Rena Horton, Alaina Capri, Babette Bardot, Uschi Digard and Edy Williams. What a loss it was that most of them never found mainstream success. The famously square jawed Charles Napier was the one Meyer regular who went on to a real career, co-starring in RAMBO and becoming a regular in the late Jonathan Demme movies. And of course there is Roger Ebert, the film critic and passionate Meyer fan who wrote screenplays for him and become a lifelong friend. McDonough wrote this book in 2005, and sadly, a number of these people have passed away in the years since.

Meyer was among those, like Hugh Hefner, who in post war America, helped bring the notion of a sex life out from behind bedroom doors and closed curtains; it was an attitude that met with more than a little resistance. The author details Meyer’s battles with the censors and decency crusaders like the arch-hypocrite, Charles Keating, where he knocked down doors for the others to enter. McDonough doesn’t spare any details in describing Meyer’s sad last years when dementia ravaged his mind and he was taken advantage of by some less than scrupulous hanger-ons. The culture had moved on, and Meyer’s peculiar brand of sex and violence had become the normal.

Meyer, the man, could be rude and crude, a real 20th Century American male who detested Communists, and despite his reputation, preferred straight missionary style sex according to his many bedmates. He was a great self promoter who knew what he liked, and believed many of his fellow Americans would like the same things if given a half a chance. He was proven right and made millions in the process. Why should we remember him? Because his influence has been enormous, John Waters, Tim Burton and Quinton Tarantino have sung his praises; as a faithful watcher of TRUE BLOOD, I can say for certainty that Mayer’s presence is still being felt. Whether you are member of the cult of Meyer or just merely interested in movie history, BIG BOSOMS AND SQUARE JAWS is a must read. Thank you, Jimmy McDonough for writing it; I think Russ would be pleased. ( )

Funny, at times titillating.