Sad day in Filmland. Russ Myers dead at 82

[Worf101]

Debate the "artistic merits" of his films if you want. Call them post adolecent soft-core porn. But man his films were fun. Here's to Russ, purveyor of many a young boys dreams.

Da Worfster :p

[Woochifer]

Indeed, quite a sad day. Someone who had the kind of campy vision of the world that he did is very rare in this age of self-important filmmaking. It's also interesting to note that his movies always had strong female characters in the lead, of course they also shared an inability to make note of what shoes they were wearing while standing up!

http://www.latimes.com/news/obituaries/la-me-meyer22sep22,1,6099629.story?coll=la-home-obituaries

[dean_martin]

Have you seen a good retrospective of his career online? I have many of his films on vhs and hope to get a select few on dvd. Beyond the Valley of the Dolls and Faster Pussycat, Kill, Kill are classics. All his "Vixen" titles are excellent examples of sexploitation.

However, if you've found humor in the "white trash"/Southern Grotesque novels of Erskine Caldwell (Tobacco Road and God's Little Acre) and William Faulkner (As I Lay Dying, etc.) you might find Russ' film "Mudhoney" amusing.

[Worf101]

Indeed, quite a sad day. Someone who had the kind of campy vision of the world that he did is very rare in this age of self-important filmmaking. It's also interesting to note that his movies always had strong female characters in the lead, of course they also shared an inability to make note of what shoes they were wearing while standing up!

http://www.latimes.com/news/obituaries/la-me-meyer22sep22,1,6099629.story?coll=la-home-obituaries

So what if the female leads were of ridiculous mamarian proportions. LOL, that's all good man, that's allllll gooooood.

Da Worfster :D

[eqm]

the sheer cost of his movies are the only thing keeping me from owing a few. I bought "beyond the valley of the dolls" on vhs many years back. anyone know why all his movies are so expensive?

[dean_martin]

the sheer cost of his movies are the only thing keeping me from owing a few. I bought "beyond the valley of the dolls" on vhs many years back. anyone know why all his movies are so expensive?


Not sure on this, but it's probably because they are released by a relatively small production company. I've found similar situations with other cult or niche directors. For example, Radley Metzger's films are released by Audobon Pictures. At first they were running for $25-30 a tape.

In the good old days, a friend of mine and I would buy half a collection each on vhs and dub. We did this with all the Andy Warhol films just before the estate got an injunction against showing and distributing most of the films. We did this with a lot of Jess Franco cheese flicks and of course with Russ Meyer films.

BTW, I'm thinking of selling my Warhol collection. Does anyone know whether there's a market for it eventhough it's on VHS? (I'm not trying to pimp my stuff here, but I would like to know how to find out whether these films are collectables, etc.)