Russ Meyer returns to film-making for the first time in twenty years with this documentary about mega-busty stripper/nude model Pandora Peaks. It follows a similar basic template to Meyer's earlier stripper documentary Mondo Topless (1966), although with a focus far more squarely on one girl, despite appearances from other models, including Candy Samples. It's typified by lots of sexy routines from Peaks accompanied by biographical voice-over material. There's also quite a lot of (lame) humour.
With this film Meyer essentially achieves what I had always thought was impossible in that he makes large breasts kind of boring. Don't get me wrong, I find Ms Peaks very attractive and the idea of watching her strip through a series of routines sounds like a pretty good idea to me. But the problem is, that in order to make that kind of stuff work you really need to keep things simple and just point the camera and watch but Meyer being Meyer he is simply unable to do such a thing and can't help but use his usual rapid fire editing style, which works so very well in is idiosyncratic narrative films but which is so useless in a film that should essentially just be soft-core erotica and nothing more. So what we end up with is the worst of both worlds with a series of well shot scenes with Pandora Peaks edited so frantically you can't really enjoy them properly. Meaning that, you are left with the film as a documentary but it's hardly riveting stuff on that front and, in any case, is offset by an alarming amount of annoying humour which brings things down a peg or two further still.
I am a fan of Meyer's work but he always achieves his best results when working with an actual story. When he doesn't have one, his style can grate a bit and here is no different. Pandora Peaks is gorgeous of course but it's a pity Meyer didn't provide her with something better suited to his talents as a film-maker. She deserved better from him.
With this film Meyer essentially achieves what I had always thought was impossible in that he makes large breasts kind of boring. Don't get me wrong, I find Ms Peaks very attractive and the idea of watching her strip through a series of routines sounds like a pretty good idea to me. But the problem is, that in order to make that kind of stuff work you really need to keep things simple and just point the camera and watch but Meyer being Meyer he is simply unable to do such a thing and can't help but use his usual rapid fire editing style, which works so very well in is idiosyncratic narrative films but which is so useless in a film that should essentially just be soft-core erotica and nothing more. So what we end up with is the worst of both worlds with a series of well shot scenes with Pandora Peaks edited so frantically you can't really enjoy them properly. Meaning that, you are left with the film as a documentary but it's hardly riveting stuff on that front and, in any case, is offset by an alarming amount of annoying humour which brings things down a peg or two further still.
I am a fan of Meyer's work but he always achieves his best results when working with an actual story. When he doesn't have one, his style can grate a bit and here is no different. Pandora Peaks is gorgeous of course but it's a pity Meyer didn't provide her with something better suited to his talents as a film-maker. She deserved better from him.