2. Faster Pussycat, Kill! Kill! (1965)
Mixing sexy thrills with extreme violence, many would say that Faster Pussycat! is Meyer's piece de resistance. The movie is short - clocking in at about 75 minutes or so, but what Meyer manages to pack into the film for that short time is phenomenal. It is very fast paced and crams action onto the screen in Meyer's own inimitable style. The film follows the antics of a trio of go go dancers - Varla the bad ass statuesque leader, Billie the blonde man eater and Rosie, Varla's spicy Latino lesbian lover. They like to hang out in the desert, racing their cars against each other when they are not dancing. One day, they come across a weedy guy and his whiny little girlfriend. After a car race against Mr Weedy, Varla picks a fight with him and kills him with her bare hands. She kidnaps the whiny girlfriend. The rest of the film is taken up with the girls' hunt for an curmudgeonly, wheelchair bound, pervy old man's hidden stack of cash. Billie tries to seduce his son who is a mean bodybuilder but so mentally retarded he is called 'The Vegetable'. When this fails, she gets trollied on a bottle of scotch. Varla tries to seduce the other son - a nerdy, bookwormish type as Rosie looks on in disgust and agony. They are distracted by other goings on before Varla can seal the deal. Eventually, the truth about the abducted teenage girl and the gang's pursuit of the old man's fortune comes out in the wash and people start dying. The Vegetable knifes Rose, Varla kills Billie, runs over the old man and in an incredible sequence goes bumper to brawn with The Vegetable. Unfortunately Varla, who by this stage has acquired the aura of a supernatural, invincible anti-heroine, gets smashed up by the simpering teenage brat. This is a sad end for Varla. Faster Pussycat! is a little gem of a movie. The dialogue is corny but hilarious - with Meyer's trademark wit stamped all over it. Sod Quentin Tarantino. All the best dialogue I ever heard in a film came from Russ Meyer's pen. The three female leads boast the ubiquitous Meyer sized knockers and Varla looks particularly menacing - clad in black and smoking cigarillos. She is a great anti-heroine and she really makes the movie what it is - a frenetically paced, 1960's, Meyer produced 'Roughie'.