by Gus Sanchez

Created on: January 30, 2007   Last Updated: May 09, 2007

Directed by the legendary Russ Meyer, Faster, Pussycat, Kill! Kill! is Meyer's undisputed masterpiece, a slam-bang, fast-paced, desert-gritty shit-kicking tale of sex, greed and murder. It's best known for the on-film exploits of three of the most voluptuous beauties ever to grace not just a Meyer film, but any film ever.

Russ Meyer cut his filmmaking teeth while serving in the Army during World War II. As a captain in the film corp, Meyer shot hours upon hours of footage of battle sequences that would later be used in stock footage and news reels. Although the horrors of WWII and the violent nature of man would be a theme he would meditate on in his later films, Meyer dedicated his career to filming the one thing he was most obsessed with: big breasts. His films were, for the most part, inexpensive sexploitations involving big breasted women and the men who wilted in their presence. It isn't to say that Meyer's film were porn, or that he worked within those parameters. Far from it; Meyer disdained porn. His films, although comical and devoid of any "deep" meaning, were quick-paced sex romps that turned a modest profit. With the lone exception of Beyond the Valley of the Dolls (his sequel to the lurid yet financially successful Valley of the Dolls, the screenwriter of his sequel was a fat, four-eyed little-known film critic named Roger Ebert), Meyer rarely worked within the confines of the Hollywood system. Whatever money

The secret to Meyer's filmmaking was his insistence on being in complete control of the project. Working with a miniscule budget, Meyer produced, wrote and edited his films as well. Before the term became something of a cliche, Meyer was perhaps one of the first "independent" filmmakers, eschewing Hollywood money in favor of creating something out of his own vision. That "vision" wasn't compromised by the film's low budgets. Yes, his films generally fell into the sexploitation genre, but unlike the sloppy, gonzo-style of most skin flicks, Meyer was a photographer first, skilled at framing shots, scouting locations, and using, in the case of Faster, Pussycat, the natural beauty of the California desert, as an uncredited "character". The dialogue is usually snapped and quick-paced, his editing sharp. There's never the impression of a wasted shot in a Russ Meyer film. There's a shot in this film where Meyer frames a dialogue between a wheelchair-bound lecherous man and two of his female leads that reflects both his skill as a cinematographer and

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