DVD/Blu Ray

Russ Meyer’s Vixen Trilogy: Vixen, Supervixens, Beneath the Valley of the Ultravixens (18) |Home Ents Review

Dir. Russ Meyer, US, 1968, 1975, 1979, 71, 106, 93 mins

Cast: Erika Gavin, Shari Eubank, Charles Pitt, Charles Napier, Kitten Natividad

Review by Colin Dibben 

These classic satirical sex comedies from the maverick maestro of mammoth, mesmerising mammaries look better than ever for their debut on Blu-ray and UHD. The films come across even weirder than the last time they were out of the box, as Russ Meyer’s unique take on sex and film style makes creative and ideological tensions explicit at every level. 

Producer-writer-director-cinematographer-editor Russ Meyer hit pay dirt with his 1968 feature Vixen, which managed to transcend its sexploitation nature to become one of the highest grossing movies of the year. There isn’t much of a story: Vixen (Gavin) likes sex and takes every opportunity to have it, even though her pilot husband isn’t often at home. She measures men by whether they want her – and if they don’t there must be something wrong with them. 

Part of the weird attraction of Vixen must be its off-key contrast of values, which it also shares with the other two films here: the characters are sexually liberated but politically conservative, and the films feature big bouncing boobs galore as well as taking swipes at draft dodgers, commies and civil rights. Erika Gavin’s lead character is a quintessential Russ Meyer woman, all spiky, ambivalent sexual power – and the sort of woman that every real man wants to bed. 

After the success of Vixen – and the commercial failure of his one attempt at a studio production, Beyond the Valley of the Dolls, Meyer could continue to do exactly what he wanted – at least until his curveball, softcore approach was swamped by hardcore and video and the death of the drive-in. 

Supervixens is one of my favourite 1970s films, the picaresque tale of a man framed for murdering his wife, who goes on the run across the desert landscapes of southern California and Arizona and bumps into a series of big-bosomed ‘donors’. The murdered wife (Eubank) – who was a bit of a bitch – reappears in an angelic guise, making her a sort of Eternal Feminine symbol. As well as touching on myth and folk tale modes, the film also looks really ravishing in this presentation. 

Russ goes a bit ‘meta’ with Beneath the Valley of the Ultravixens, in which a narrator tells the story of a small desert community, especially the sexual cavortings of Lavonia (Natividad). There are satirical swipes here at evangelical Christianity and Russ himself appears to show us some of his filmmaking tricks of the trade. 

Stylistically, Supervixens and Beneath … are incomparable bits of independent film making (at least until Severin Films bring out Russ Meyer’s 1960s classics such as Faster Pussycat … Kill! Kill!, Motorpsycho and Mudhoney). Meyer’s signature fixed shot camera set ups and rapid editing have never been so impactful and the desert spaces – filmed for the first time by Russ Meyer in wonderful colour – give a strong sense of real environment to the exaggerated, cartoonish stories.  

This trilogy is the first of a series of releases from Severin Films. They have teamed up with the Russ Meyer Charitable Trust and the Museum of Modern Art to source and restore negatives and scan stuff at 4K. 

It is hard now to visualize the industry landscape back then that enabled an indie like Meyer to take total control of every aspect of his films. The extras include interviews with Meyer that provide some of that background as well as detailing his ways of working and epic legal woes. 

There are over 9 hours of extras across the set, including: 

  • Audio commentaries with Russ Meyer
  • Vixen audio commentary with Actress Erica Gavin 
  • Interviews with Charles Napier and Kitten Natividad
  • Insightful interviews with Russ Meyer 

The Russ Meyer’s Vixen Trilogy: Vixen, Supervixens, Beneath the Valley of the Ultravixens is out on Blu-ray and UHD on 26 January 2025