Beneath the Valley of the Ultra-Vixens (1979) User Reviews

Lacks the sharpness and daring of Meyer's best work

[tomgillespie2002 · 5/10 · 17 September 2014]

With his final big-screen movie, the Sergei Eisenstein of skin- flicks, Russ Meyer, festoons Beyond the Valley of The Ultra-Vixens with his usual cynical and scornful look at small-town Americana. With the birth of video-tape and audiences preferences leaning in favour of penetrative, hard-core porn, Meyer bowed out with dignity, refusing to bow down to audience demand and lower himself to such a cheap and easy form of entertainment (although he would briefly return over twenty years later with Pandora Peaks (2001)). All the Meyer traits are here - blockhead male chauvinists, sex-mad townsfolk, a grizzled narrator, women blessed in the mammary gland area - and are loosely stringed together in what makes up the 'story'.

Set in the small town of, er, Small Town, USA, our narrator, The Man From Small Town USA (Stuart Lancaster), shows us all it's wacky inhabitants. There's a well-endowed evangelical radio preacher (Ann Marie) who has sex inside of a coffin, a man-eating junk-yard owner (June Mack), and a randy dentist/marriage counsellor (Robert E. Pearson). In the centre of it all is the beautiful, big-breasted Lavonia (Kitten Natividad) and her lug-head husband Lamar (Ken Kerr). They are happy enough, only Lavonia's unquenchable thirst for sex and Lamar's preference to 'entering through the back door' means that they must find themselves before they can finally 'come together'.

Co-written with Roger Ebert, Beyond the Valley of the Ultra-Vixens is less a story and more a collection of comic, fruity vignettes. Some of sharp, energetic and funny, others can be plodding. The satire is less sharp here than in his better movies, for instance Beyond the Valley of the Dolls (1970) or Up! (1976), but his admiration of the female form is possibly clearer here than any of his other movies. He's often called anti-feminist, but, with Meyer, it's the women who hold all the power, outwitting and overpowering the numb-nut males, even raping one, a 14-year old boy I may add, in one scene. He certainly doesn't seem to mind though. It's often delightful and even titillating, but ultimately lacks the sharpness and daring of Meyer's best work.

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visually stunning

[bertig · 6/10 · 5 July 2004]

i really liked this film, having seen Up, Supervixens, Beyond the valley of the dolls and 2 other which names i can't remember. I thought the film was very funny and i noticed that the lines that the narrator speaks i had heard before it was sampled in a house-track witch i had heard a couple of years ago. I thought the first woman was great and liked the way she dance'd before she went in the coffin. I like'd this whole 70's look and style of the film and the lighting and all these colours and how they played together, it was just visually stunning. The only thing that bothered me was that everybody was always balling and it did get a bit to much. The black woman was really scary and just ugly. But i thought Kitten was great. I read somewhere that she's russ's wife. She was great and horny as hell. I think this was russ meyer's last fil, i'd give it 6-7 of 10. not as good as Up witch is great and i give 8-9

IN an age of porn, and where most people have already gotten some:

[DuskShadow · 4/10 · 15 December 2018]

We come across the most ridiculous movie that tried to be hot. I suppose for those moviephiles that just HAVE to watch anything andeverything, this should not be missed. There was nudity, but it was OLD nudity, meaning in the style that is not terrible appealing to the modern senses of people. BUt many folks always have differing tastes, so whatev. But if you can, play it on double speed to get it over with that much sooner. 4/10 *smfh *

Where is this valley exactly situated?

[DJ Inferno · 20 April 2001]

I saw this film for the first time in 1993 when I was 18 years old and it gave me a properly kick. "Beneath..." was featured in the midnight program on German cable, but it was not like the usual kind of soft porn I had seen already, because this movie was much more funny, satirical and entertaining. There were a lot of women with oversized breasts like Uschi Digard or Kitten Natividad, combined with grotesque and cynical humor. Russ Meyer´s film was a completely new experience for me: it made me interested more and more in independent and underground movies, films that you aren´t able to see very often, which are normally not featured in commercial cinemas or difficult to rent in conventional video stores. Films that later followed were "Supervixens", "Up!" or "Faster Pussycat! Kill! Kill!". Even masterpieces like Romero´s "Night of the living dead" presented me a completely new side of film making that I hadn´t known until then. Lovers of soft-focus lens erotic à la David Hamilton surely won´t like Russ Meyers movies in any way, because his flicks are vulgar, obscene and provoking. For all others like me he is a master of the modern pop culture. (10/10)

Staggeringly bad

[Lupercali · 3/10 · 21 December 2003]

This is a godawful movie. A pathetic swansong for Russ Meyer. It's hard to believe this is the same guy who brought us Faster, Pussycat! Russ eventually decided to swap his stylish penchant for sex and violence for what I suppose is meant to be a sex comedy with some 'social commentary' thrown in.

You would think, wouldn't you, that a movie which has Martin Borman having sex in a coffin, sex at a baptism, rape within marriage, pedophilia, incest and endless nudity including about 30 minutes of Kitten Natividad waving her tits about would somehow manage to be provocative or outrageous. It's not. It's just really boring. I saw it when it came out, and it was boring then, too. At the end of the movie, when the narrator inexplicably walks in on his fourteen year old son screwing his Austrian wife (why Austrian?), and decides he wants a bit of junior too, you ought to be shocked, right? Nope. You just think "What the f**k is the point of this scene? What's the point of any of this?"

The feeling I get all the way through this movie is that Meyer is trying to show John Waters a trick or two. Forget it. Compare this rubbish with Water's hilarious 'Polyester', from the same year, which is far more outrageous, funny and subversive, and didn't even cop an R rating. Come to think of it, I think Divine is probably sexier than half the women in this film. The Christian radio announcer with the absurdly large breasts who goes on and on and on and on in scene after scene is so excruciatingly tedious that I just had to hit fast forward whenever she started up. The endless bonking, screaming and bad music will set your teeth on edge.

Alright, are there any redeeming features in this movie? Well, there is one - count it - one - slightly memorable line. The two white trash junkyard workers who are 'bitterly envious of the lower classes', but God, if that's the best he can do...

There is a thing with colour. People keep bleeding weird colours. But Meyer is no Peter Greenaway. The Uncle Tom black character bleeds white, which might have been subtle, if one of the characters didn't heavy-handedly point it out to us in case we missed it. Similarly, the one potentially clever scene in the whole movie - where the main male character gets locked in a closet by a gay marriage therapist - is ruined by the latter character telling him to 'get out of my closet' about fourteen times. Besides which, I'm not sure why why we should infer from said male lead's preference for anal sex with his wife, that he's a closet gay anyway.

I can only conclude that Meyer had completely lost his talent by this stage. He's never made another movie (except some recent DTV thing apparently), and frankly, who cares?

Russ Meyer's film explores the Peyton Place-like world of sex and sin

[Nazi_Fighter_David · 7/10 · 30 August 2008]

An on-screen narrator gives us the rundown on the inhabitants of a small south western American town…

One young man works in a junkyard and restricts his sexual activities to rear end collisions, which is upsetting to his lovely but horny wife… A German emigrant plays out unusual erotic fantasies late at night… A female radio evangelist has a strange preaching style… The general plot concentrates on the junkyard employee and his wife…

In contrast to his other ventures into provocative cinema, Meyer constructs this film more on sex than on violence… The erotic studies are quite varied, filled with his usual fast cutaways to naked, buxom ladies running inexplicably around the country side…

The film is not without its macabre overtones either… He stimulates, suggests, teases, provokes, shocks, and upsets his audience in such an unusual way that he has become an American institution

A movie from PLANET RUSS MEYER

[Maciste_Brother · 3/10 · 1 April 2003]

I don't know what offended me more in BENEATH THE VALLEY OF THE ULTRA-VIXENS. Was it the total crudeness of the story and the direction? The two blonde women with the disturbingly ugly fake breasts? Was it Kitten Natividad (who looks like Rosie Perez) portrayed as a nymphomaniac Charo on speed and who jumps on anything with a heartbeat? The German music and swastikas (what's with Meyer and Nazis anyway?)? Was it the pseudo-necrophilia where one of the blonde bimbos with the ugly fake breasts humps an old man in a coffin? The big chunky black woman who owns and operates a junkyard and forces her male employees to have sex with her? The dentist who's a psycho queenie homosexual man who wants to bed Lamar, the main character of the film? The incessant yammering from the old man, or from Kitten during the scenes with her dual persona, Lola Langusta (when she rapes Lamar, her husband), or from the Christian blonde bimbo radio announcer? Shut-up!!!! Is it the baptism scene? The unexplained reason why Lamar can't have sex without doing it doggy style? The scene of the vibrator dipped in vaseline? The all around ugly cast? People's blood being different colors, including a black man who bleeds white blood? The appearance of Russ Meyer during the nonsensical ending?

I love earthy movies. And BTVOTUV is definitely earthy but it's too crude and unsophisticated to be enjoyable, even as a sex comedy. I mean, we're talking about something that's less sophisticated than an Austin Powers movie. Yessh! And the constant talking and music gave me a headache. This is Russ Meyer's last film, and was co-written by Roger Ebert(!!!), and even if it never takes itself seriously, it's an extremely overindulgent film, about everything, including the pervasive political incorrectness, which usually doesn't bother me but not this time. The political incorrectness in BTVOTUV is excessive.

Not Meyer's best, but a decent little corny porn comedy

[The_Void · 7/10 · 3 September 2007]

Russ Meyer's films may be silly and irreverent, but they're also great fun, and while Beneath the Valley of the Ultravixens is not his best work, it's still great fun to watch and certainly comes recommended to Meyer's fans! In my opinion, Meyer is at his best when he's mixing comedy porn with a thriller plot structure - with Faster Pussycat! Kill! Kill! and Supervixens being the best examples of his work. Beneath the Valley of the Ultravixens is basically your average porn movie with a focus on a load of set-piece situations, but Meyer keeps the laughs coming and there's no shortage of big breasted ladies to keep the audience interested. There isn't really much plot to speak of, but the film centres on Levonna & Lamar; a couple in "Smalltown, USA". They're having problems in (you guessed it) the bedroom, as Levonna wants to have sex normally, but Lamar only likes to go in through the backdoor. Levonna becomes frustrated, so she does what any woman would do - gets herself a wig, learns Spanish and pretends to be a Mexican dancer to try and change Lamar's sex preferences...

The plot isn't really relied upon and the film is more of an excuse for Meyer to present a load of silly scenes; but that isn't a problem. The situations that various characters find themselves in generally are funny - with the scenes that sees Levonna get her wig and Spanish phrase book, and a sequence taking place in a dentist's surgery being the highlights of the film. There's plenty of nudity as you might expect, and all the girls have overly inflated chests in the true Russ Meyer style. The sex is not exactly hardcore, but there's plenty of it and it's not disappointing. The style of the film seems to be a parody of the American "apple pie" theme and the story is told by a narrator, who seems to be taking on the role of the "all American workman", the twist being that he's always talking about perversion. I don't think Russ Meyer was really trying to say anything with this film - there's a slight hint of a point stemming from the idea of "Smalltown, USA is a normal small town, but look what goes on behind closed doors!", but it's not implemented well enough to have much meaning. Overall, this is a very decent little porn flick from Russ Meyer, and while I'd recommend other films of his over this one; Beneath the Valley of the Ultravixens is worth a watch.

Ride from this valley!

[Greensleeves · 2/10 · 31 August 2007]

This movie will stretch your patience to breaking point in no time. The constant droning of the on screen 'comedy' narrator, the repeated shots of bouncing breasts and grinding crotches, the hysterical orgasmic screaming of the female leads will have you exhausted with it all after ten minutes. If the tedium doesn't get you then the unceasing loud and overwrought music score will guarantee a headache. Russ Meyer's early movies were much more enjoyable than this last effort where he goes all out to be as 'shocking' and explicit as possible. The women are as amazing as usual (in a an exaggerated cartoon kind of way) for a Russ Meyer movie but if only everyone could have calmed down just a little then it may have been watchable. As it is, watching it just becomes a horrendous, never-ending, shrieking nightmare.

THE Meyer film to end all Meyer films

[Tresix · 7/10 · 22 June 1999]

Maybe it's because it was the first Russ Meyer movie that I had ever seen, but I happen to think that it is also his best. Because of this movie, I cannot hear the song OLD-TIME RELIGION without getting dirty thoughts. Sadly, most of the women who have appeared in this movie have never been heard from again (Anne Marie, June Mack, Sharon Hill) and I would like to know if anyone knows whatever became of them. Especially Marie, since she is a local girl. At any rate, this is just a plain, good, old-fashioned, dirty time at the movies. Since this year marks the twentieth anniversary of the movie, I wonder if there will be any special occasions to commemorate the event.

One of his lesser, but still a gem

[ozzfan2 · 8/10 · 30 May 2004]

Beneath the Valley is one of Meyer's better known works, largely due to its broader distribution, over-indulgence of feminine beauty and crass humor. These are all time-honored features of Meyer in his films, but as his last feature (Pandora Peaks typically isn't counted in terms of conventional Meyer timeline), everything gets laid on extra thick. Meyer tests the boundaries of just how far he can go before the viewer reaches sensory overload. Nonetheless the impeccable Kitten Natividad and the often unmentioned, but still unforgettable Ann Marie stay true to Meyer fashion and manage to suck in the viewer while Meyer dishes out social taboos and common problems associated with the modern couple. Nobody is safe from his scathing satire. The homosexual professional, the self-defeating redneck and the two-faced nature of radio/TV evangelism all get a thorough walloping in this film. This film also serves as the epitome of Meyer's work with photography and cinematography. His virtually-patented "up through the bed springs" shots are unmistakable and this film serves as the perfect showcase and record of this unique, yet effective technique. Never before has any director opted to shoot the love scene from the mattresses point of view! Although this film does indeed lack in comparison to Supervixens or Up! as one of Meyer's late '70s style flicks in terms of dramatic story complexity, it's still Russ Meyer, and that alone makes the film worthwhile.

An Editing and Cinematography Masterpiece!

[richcyn · 10/10 · 13 October 2004]

OK, so it's a very corny flick. Duh, Russ trafficked in pure corn all the time. And Breasts. Did I mention Breasts? But let's talk about the editing since I was a Film minor in college. The editing and cinematography here is so challenging and professional, it makes the film explode off the screen. It's rapid and harsh. It gets the pulse going. And the social commentary and sarcastic humor of "Small Town USA" hits it's target full on.

Finally, the overall energy and pace of the film kills just about anything that even remotely tries to imitate it these days. No wonder Russ really didn't do anything else after this-it was hit final "breast" work! (Hey- I abstained from even mentioning Kitten N. at all)

RM's last and least

[Charles Garbage · 7 June 2001]

It was Russ Meyer who pretty much launched the new Sexploitation industry in 1959 when he made THE IMMORTAL MR. TEAS, the first nudie-cutie which grossed one-million dollars and spawned a new breed of adults-only movies throughout the early-60's. Nudie-cuties and nudist-colony movies then became a bore among the male audience so they began to mature. "Roughies" were films which mixed nudity and violence with women getting what they deserve. By that time around the mid-60's the Sexploitation era was at it's peak with "Roughies" like OLGA'S HOUSE OF SHAME and THE DEFILERS along side more creative and even more entertaining nudies like KISS ME QUICK knocking 'em out at grindhouses along 42nd street.

By the 70's, the innocence of Sexploitation had transformed itself in to "porno". Old masters obeyed their audiences' lusts and turned up with more dirtier flicks containing more nudity and less artistic touches. Some usually went over-board while others like Russ Meyer kept their brains in their head to create more funnier and sexier films which we can now look upon as art that has been lost through this age of video-taped and digitised filth.

Meyer's 70's features were usually lots of fun. Films like SUPERVIXENS and UP! are highly original and humorous spins on society with the typically great Meyeresque cinematography, editing and dialogue. BENEATH THE VALLEY OF THE ULTRA-VIXENS is his last film to date made in 1979, the coming-approach of video-cassette in which men could just go their local videostore to get aroused instead of their local grindhouse. It was also a year where things were really changing in the Sexploitation industry and even auteurs like Russ Meyer seemed to be going along with the flow. ULTRA-VIXENS is a pretty outrageous film but that does not necessarily mean it's a great film. Stuart Lancaster repeats his role from SUPERVIXENS as a farmer living in Smalltown USA narrating the tale of Lavonia (Kitten Natidad) and her husband Lamar who does not seem to be as horny as the rest of the town. They go around laying the town's small population and end up happily laying each other again. ULTRA-VIXENS contains *lots* of exaggerated sex and (lower-deck) nudity. A bouncy-boobed evangelist makes it with Martin Boorman to 'Old-Time Religion' while Kitten is fully naked for over half the movie making it with lingerie salesmen, nurses and underage boys. So basically, this is a movie that will satisfy the more perverse members of the audience. You can be anything but a porn freak to enjoy most of Russ Meyer's movies but it is a completely different case here. His amazing twenty-year career in film-making explored a whole range of Sexploitation sub-genres: nudie-cuties, "documentaries" on busty women, backwoods dramas, morality tales and bigger budget films for Fox Studios all make up for this; a tasteless, boring, totally unsophisticated piece of pornographic crap which seems to crave for more of it's director's special touches. You do get (in very small proportions) his snappy editing, cinematography and characters from previous films. Stuart Lancaster, who had been appearing in Meyer's films on and off since 1965, can sometimes be entertaining to watch, Uschi Digart once again plays Soul (humping her 15-year-old son), Henry Rowland as Martin Boorman and even RM himself shows at the end.

During the last forty years men's entertainment has depended on it's (mostly male) audience and what they enjoy viewing. THE IMMORTAL MR. TEAS was made at a time when most bachelors were clean-cut and sophisticated. Today's hard-core, non-simulated sex viewed over the internet seems to be aimed at brainless sleazebags who have never had a girlfriend or, for that matter, many friends. Meyer made this right in between these two eras and seems to be confused whether he's doing another one of his standards or a film for perverts. It's hard to sit through a film who's director does not know what he's getting at. Basically Russ should have stopped with UP! Like the rest of the reviewers, some of you may enjoy ULTRA-VIXENS more than I did.

Russ Meyer !! YES !!

[CelluloidRehab · 8/10 · 4 November 2003]

Where to start ??..... Yes, at the beginning... Russ Meyer. The man who combined the talents of Ed Wood, Roger Corman and Coleman Francis. If it was just this movie, BTVOTUV, his genius could easily be considered a fluke. But no, Motopsycho, Beyond the Valley of the Dolls and Vixens is proof enough that BTVOTUV was not a fluke. Now to the movie. The story is fast, and entertaining. Don't expect hardcore porn. Instead, expect a Skin-aMax flick. Imagine the documentary (that would have come in the late 1960's and early 70's - as a result of the beginning of deindustrialization in the US) of the diminishing small-town American town, complete with a "common town folk narrator" and characters that have sex as the end all be all. The plot is laughable. A main character that is oblivious to his hot, horny wife, but somehow likes sodomy. The wife being a woman (obviously)who must concoct some lame plan to gain her husband's attention through sex with various men throughout the town. We are give a documentary type descriptions of the town and its happenings through the narrator. You have to love Russ Meyer's choices for backdrops and locations , including : scrap yard, garbage dump, desert, car interiors, strip club, river, radio station, radio station bathroom bathtub. The narrator is great for his dry, documentary style monologue, yet comical for that same reason. I recommend this movie for people who like MST3k type films. Those films that are bad, but so funny. If possible see the other Russ Meyer movies. He's a rare .. very rare talent. Gotta love the names of the characters. One word to sum up BTVOTUV - "Zebulon" !!

-Celluloid Rehab

Funny and gratuitous... just don't try to understand it.

[vaudevillejones · 23 August 2002]

There are some films that are entertaining, thought-provoking and well-made. There are some that try to attain these qualities but fail. And then there are films like this. Technically, this film should be awful. The acting is poor, the storyline totally throwaway and there is more gratuitous nudity than... well, anything else in this movie. It's about as politically incorrect as you can get. But on the other hand, it's unpretentious. It's as if Russ Meyer said, "Okay, let's get this straight. This is a sex comedy, now let's get down to the sex and comedy."

Once you've got over the fact that this is a Dumb Movie And Proud Of It, this is a funny film. There are some sophisticated bits of satire- the very matter-of-fact narrator who links what is basically a series of sex scenes is reminiscent of those very moral public information films. There are also some jokes that are just plain stupid (the gay marriage counsellor is funny, if stereotypical).

Of course, what Russ Meyer films are most famous for is naked busty women. Although I must admit that although the aim of the movie is clearly tittilation, after a while the nudity frankly becomes boring. We basically know that every woman who appears will get 'em out, whether for a sex scene, to sunbathe or, what the hey, just because she's a woman with large breasts. There's only so much you can take before it gets tedious.

Otherwise, the movie is pretty much what you'd expect from a Russ Meyer movie of this era. Lots of desert locations, the same actors and actresses that appear in all of them, some truly perverse sex scenes (necrophilia, incest, paedophilia and the list goes on) and a sex scene involving someone babbling on in a foreign language.

Broadly speaking, you'll like this if you like Russ Meyer films. If not, you'll be bewildered and confused.

Meyer pulls out all the stops on this one

[john22900 · 10/10 · 23 June 2006]

Ann Marie has one of the most amazing pair of tits I've ever seen. She defies gravity! The rest of the cast is equally built especially Uschi Digard and June Mack as Junk Yard Sal. It really is a shame that this was the only film appearance by June Mack in an x-rated movie. She and Ann Marie both have bodies that cry out to be in more movies. The opening scene with radio evangelist Ann Marie - 100,000 watts of faith healing power - mounting Martin Bormann in the open coffin is probably one of the most sexiest scenes even put on celluloid. As far as plot goes as concocted and written by Meyer and sometime co-writer, Roger Ebert, suffice it to say that a complete dolt of a husband is married to Kitten Natividad and the only way he can get an erection or have sex with her is by going through the back door. Stuart Lancaster, a mainstay in Meyer films, is the on-screen narrator. Ann Marie finally cures the dolt and Uschi Digard turns up near the end.

Wicked satire from the one true auteur of American film

[jminer · 14 November 2000]

More than a comedy, this is a parody on a parody. Based more than a bit on Thornton Wilder's "Our Town", it satirises American middle class values in a much more Rabelaisian way than Wilder himself did. Or could.

OF course, Meyer is the great auteur. He writes, directs, produces, shoots and appears in this film, helped only by a pneumatic cast on screen and Roger Ebert thankfully off it. Even the title screams satire, from the great outsider, poking Hollywood right in its Beyond the Valley of the Dolls/Beneath the Planet of the Apes tunnel vision. Nobody makes films as full-blooded as Russ Meyer. His vision is full speed ahead and damn the torpedoes. But it's also sophisticated in structure, with enough dramatic irony to warrant the term post-modern.

I haven't seen it in 20 years but I'll never forget the rollercoaster experience, or the absurd self-referential epilogue. An extraordinary film that deserves acclaim beyond its secretive cult status.

Silicone Overload - Russ Meyer Style!....

[EVOL666 · 8/10 · 20 December 2007]

BENEATH THE VALLEY OF THE ULTRA-VIXENS is a Russ Meyer directed boobs, butts, and bush extravaganza where the plot really only has one purpose - to put the severely silicone-enhanced females in the film in as many clothes-shedding situations as possible...and I for one am totally OK with that.

The story surrounds several inhabitants of "Smalltown USA" who are all pretty much a bunch of back-woods nymphos. The main storyline focuses on slow-witted Lamar and over-sexed Lavonia (played by super-sexy Meyer ex-girlfriend, Kitten Natividad...), a couple who have their own unique sexual problems. Lamar can only get turned on by screwing Lavonia in the ass, and Lavonia is an insatiable nympho that just can't get enough dick (or pussy in some cases) from anyone that's around. The film follows the antics of the couple as they try to work through their issues. Along the way, the audience is introduced to several other equally endowed women and equally IQ-deficient men, which leads to some pretty comical encounters...

The plot may be gaunt, but the female flesh on display sure isn't. BENEATH THE VALLEY OF THE ULTRA-VIXENS has more gigantic tits, asses, and furry '70s puss-fros on display (and even a few boners for the ladies...) than you can shake your dong at. Again, the plot isn't anything to really write home about - but the situations that the characters are thrown into are pretty damn funny in most cases, and the virtually non-stop assault of semi-explicit soft-core sex scenes should keep any sexploit film-lover more than amused. My only real complaint would be the gross under-usage of Uschi Digard, Ann Marie, and Sharon Hill - all of whom are just as, if not hotter than Natividad - especially Uschi, who only gets one very short scene. Even so - sexploit fans will rejoice over this one. Not as memorable as BEYOND THE VALLEY OF THE DOLLS (my personal favorite of the handful of Meyer films that I've seen) but far more laden with nudity and sex - and I'll never complain about that. A fun and truly funny sex-romp that is well worth a look...8/10

Not Meyer's finest hour, but Kitten sizzles!

[Infofreak · 20 January 2002]

At this point 'Beneath..' appears to be Russ Meyer's last movie, which is a pity. A pity because we could do with his invention and energy and ideas to liven up our dull movie going lives, and also a pity because it isn't one of his best efforts.

Meyer's two movies prior to this one - 'Supervixens' and 'Up!' - are two of his best ever, and don't receive the attention they deserve. 'Beneath..' follows a similar format to those two classics but does so with more coarseness and less fun. Meyer takes advantage of the more liberal censorship laws of the late 70s and makes his most explicit movie yet, but loses much of his sense of smutty joyfulness.

The one thing that saves this movie is the exuberant performance from the dynamic Kitten Natividad. If you are a fan of Kitten and her sensational body then this is the movie for you! Otherwise I could name at least a half a dozen Meyer movies to watch before this one. A disappointment this, but still has enough glimpses of Meyer's genius to make it worth a look.

Russ Meyer, not the most Politically Correct person in the world.

[gelefiche · 10/10 · 31 May 2001]

Some people might say that Russ Meyer is nothing more than a dirty old man, but SO what! He certainly knows a good thing when he sees it, day in, day out, having to film these lovely creatures, while we go back to work in our factories or offices. This particular offering, is nothing out of the ordinary, it stars Russ Meyers lovely wife Kitten Natividad, as, indeed, do most of his films. Russ Meyer, while not being the most politically correct person in the world, should, at least, go down in history as one of the FEW film makers in the world, that could tell the difference between a NAUGHTY movie & a DIRTY movie.

Gift wrapped Kitty cat...

[Red-Barracuda · 9/10 · 19 February 2024]

I remember reading in the book Big Bosom's and Square Jaws where it was suggested that Russ Meyer may have already started to lose his mind while he was making this picture, his final feature proper. Now, I don't really know the truth of this opinion but it does have to be said that this is one crazy film. One thing you could never accuse Meyer of was of losing his energy with age, as this is yet another full-on visual extravaganza and a film which has to be the most sexually explicit he ever made.

It's a sex comedy set in a small town populated by various eccentrics and weirdoes. The main thrust - so to speak - of the story is about the bedroom problems of a married couple, where the husband is only interested sex of the backdoor variety. Sounds sleazy, right? Well, yeah it is but, like all Meyer, its kind of difficult getting offended when the presentation is so insane. This is a film after all which features incest and rape, yet it doesn't register as out-of-order on account of the aforementioned demented perspective of the film. Meyer's trademark visual style batters us from start to finish, i.e. Crazy camera angles and quick edits galore. Story components are typically bizarre, with delights such as a somewhat unhinged gay marriage therapist, radio evangelism, dumb rednecks, go-go dancing, people leaking different colours of blood and on-the-run Nazi Martin Borman pitching up (again!) only to have sex in a coffin! And if you like big boobs, well we've got some of that! Actually, we really in fact have quite a lot of that, with the gorgeous Kitten Natividad making an impression. In truth, this film is something of a love letter to Natividad in particular, as she is all over this one and virtually always naked at that. Meyer photographs her beautifully throughout and she really had a premier division body it has to be said.

So, if you are interested in big boobs, striking visuals, demented screenplays and a complete lack of subtlety, then you are probably in the demographic that this film is aiming for.

Beneath The Valley And Over The Top

[Mvpkinger · 10/10 · 17 July 2014]

This 1979 movie was co-written, produced, and directed by Russ Meyer. Stuart Lancaster, credited as the Man from Small Town U.S.A., is the on-camera narrator of the movie. Early in the movie, Candy Samples appears briefly as the Very Big Blonde. Like everything else in this movie, she's larger than life. Lamar Shedd (Ken Kerr) can't satisfy his wife Lavonia (Kitten Natividad), because he can only climax in an unconventional way. Lavonia, with the aid of a wig and a Mexican accent, becomes a sexy stripper named Lola Langusta. Lola proceeds to bed down men with more standard sexual tastes. Lamar is put through a series of cures, culminating with the laying on of hands by a radio faith-healer named Sister Eufaula Roop, played by the super-stacked Anne Marie (67-25-36). Near the end of the movie, Uschi Digard has a cameo as SuperSoul. Russ Meyer himself appears at the end of the film to wrap up the movie. 1972 was a watershed year for adult movies, with the release of "Deep Throat" and "Behind The Green Door." Even though this was the most graphic of Russ Meyer's movies, it seemed tame by comparison. At the end of this movie, it says to look for the further adventures of Lola Langusta in "The Jaws Of Vixen." Unfortunately, that movie was never made. "Beneath The Valley Of The Ultra-Vixens" was the last of Russ Meyer's theatrical feature films. The Russ Meyer "Pandora Peaks" documentary was a direct-to-video release in 2001. Sadly, Russ Meyer died on September 18, 2004.

Beneath the valley

[rlodewell · 17 September 2007]

Bryce David is a priggish old lady school teacher. Everything he mentions is accurate, but the movie is actually insane and great. The narrator is wonderful, not annoying and who knows what's going on with the blood and all of that. Frankly, if you watch a Russ Meyer film you're going to get some completely insane adventure. Sure it's idiotic, but that's the charm. What do you expect?

Well, this says I have to have 10 lines of text before it'll put it up on the web page. This is, of course, idiotic. I don't have much more to add to what I've said so I'll have to ramble here and go on and on and on and on and on and make up stuff and try to fill up space as best I can. Oh, here's one thing: I met Roger Ebert on the street in NY City once. I was standing there and he walked past. I said, "you're Roger Ebert, right?" and he shook my hand and never stopped moving. Obviously, he'd dealt with a lot of maniacs in his day and knew if you stop you might never get away. I've wished forever that I'd mentioned his writing the Russ Meyer films he did, but I didn't. Oh well . . . Why he was in NYC I don't know? Perhaps this is long enough now.