By Tristan Bishop
“Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to violence” – as first lines go, it’s one of the best. Delivered by a disembodied voice over an image of a pulsing soundwave, the opening narration goes on to warn us about “…this dangerously evil creation, this new breed encased and contained within the supple skin of woman…One might be your secretary, your doctor’s receptionist… or a dancer in a go-go club!”. Then with supernatural timing the screen is filled with writing dancers and boozy male patrons encouraging the girls to ‘Go, baby! Go!’ as the incredible minor-key garage punk classic ‘Faster Pussycat’ by The Bostweeds clangs away on the soundtrack. Sixties cinema got no better than this.
Fifty years since the release of the film, critical appreciation has gone from strength to strength. Initially dismissed by the critics as just another skin flick (which makes one wonder if they even bothered to watch it, given the lack of nudity in the film), the film gradually received more and more attention, not least due to celebrities such as John Waters and Jonathan Ross proclaiming it to be their favourite film of all time. After being re-released along with many of Russ Meyer’s other films in the 90s, it became a camp favourite among a younger audience, and nowadays firmly holds its place in the canon of the greatest exploitation films ever produced.
The film itself is unusual in director Meyer’s filmography in a couple of ways – Firstly, as previously mentioned, it’s one of the few films of the director to feature no actual nudity, as apparently he was trying to stay ahead of the censors at the time. Secondly, it isn’t a sex comedy, as nearly all of his earlier and later work was in this genre. Faster Pussycat was made around the same time as Mudhoney and Motorpsycho (all these films were made in 1965!) and this was considered Meyer’s ‘Gothic’ period – where he made moody, violent films in black & white. Faster Pussycat is basically a throw-back to the Juvenile Delinquent (or JD) films so prevalent in the 1950s when everyone was afraid of what the youth explosion was capable of. The twist this time of course is that this bad ass biker gang consists of female go-go dancers, who go on the expected rampage of kidnap, theft and murder.
If you’ve never seen a Russ Meyer film it can be hard to describe what makes them so special. Beyond the fact that he usually cast a lot of unnaturally busty women in prominent roles, Meyer’s skill was in editing and dialogue – both delivered at a dizzying rate and so rhythmically satisfying that it’s a surprise that Meyer wasn’t a musician as well as a writer/director/editor. Whilst many aficionados of Spanish sleaze master Jess Franco praise the languid, jazzy feel that his musicianship brings to his films, Meyer worked to a different beat, his edits like a fast drum track unpinning the hip, snappy, sometimes shocking words spoken by his characters – like beat poetry with visuals. Faster Pussycat is a prime example of his technique, and unfettered from the fixation on nudity that characterised his earlier ‘nudie cuties’ (a genre which he defined with 1959’s Immoral Mr Teas) and his later, outrageous sex comedies (Supervixens, Up), it shines brightest here, perfectly fitting the low-life crime narrative.
The film’s three main protagonists are Rosie (Haji, an actress of British-Filipino descent who starred in many of Meyer’s later films), Billie (Lori Williams) and Varla (Tura Satana). Haji is a sultry beauty who speaks with an unspecified ‘foreign’ accent, Billie is a buxom blonde who can’t stop go-go dancing even when she’s off-stage, and Varla is possibly the screen’s best-ever bad girl, a truly Amazonian figure in tight black clothes who will think nothing of breaking a man’s spine. Satana, whose eye-catching looks resulted from her Japanese/Filipino/Cheyenne/Scottish heritage, worked as a dancer, a stripper, and almost married Elvis at one point! By her own admission she was actually in a girl gang as a teenager, and that won’t surprise anyone who has seen the film. Actress Susan Bernard who plays a girl kidnapped by the gang was reportedly terrified of Satana on set, and you can quite understand why, as she comes across on-screen as the real deal. It’s by far the best performance in a Meyer film, and I would argue, among the best in the history of exploitation films.
There’s some debate over whether Faster Pussycat can be considered a feminist film. It’s obvious that Meyer was making films for men to enjoy – in fact one gets the idea that Meyer was really just making them for his own titillation (and the vast fortune he made was a nice bonus), but, especially in the case of Faster Pussycat, which has little of the skin and sex of his other work (although there is, let’s face it, a lot of cleavage on show), there’s a kind of ‘accidental feminism’ on display. Meyer’s world is one of Super Women who prey on (and sometimes love) weak-willed men, and in a world where Marvel Studios still haven’t given us a Black Widow film, it still feels fresh fifty years on to have a trio of tough female anti—heroes carrying a film.
The gradual cult surrounding the film since its original disappointing release (although, having been made for the princely sum of $45,000 it made a decent enough return) has seen it referenced and homaged in everything from Spice Girls videos to The Simpsons, with Tarantino’s underrated Death Proof (2007) containing many elements of Meyer’s film (he gets a thanks in the credits). Even Rihanna’s current controversial music video Bitch Better Have My Money seems partially inspired by the lawless bad girl gang on show here (and the many arguments for and against that video can equally be applied to Faster Pussycat).
Meyer passed away at the age of 82 in 2004, having retired in 1979 to enjoy his wealth (and apparently a series of tumultuous relationships with dominant, large-breasted women). His gravestones states ‘King of the nudies. I was glad to do it’. And we’re glad you did it, Russ.