Russ Meyer's Up! is a nasty black comedy. Totally X-rated. In RM's later years there was something mentally ill about his fantasies. This film is masterful in it's kinetic editing together of a plethora of pervasive perversions. I think the photography is some of the best in his career. Kitten Natividad is one of my favorite parts of the film. She opens up the film as the story's Greek Chorus,(obviously the pen of Roger Ebert)she then opens up her legs with an incredible close up of her Brillo Pad-esque pubic hair. She reminds the audience over and over of the convoluted murder mystery of Adolf "Hitler" Schwartz. Adolf's sex dungeon is one of RM's freakiest and grotesque scenes. I absolutely love Candy Samples aka Mary Gavin as the Headsperson. I love her S&M black leather hood with a zipper on the mouth, "Headsperson,an abyss of gluttony," proclaims Kitten in one of the film's best montages. Like Beyond the Valley and Supervixens, this film is so 'punk' before the fact. Oddly, I think RM was so untouched by 'hipness' of the times. Watching Up! one can imagine pretty clearly why the Sex Pistols wanted Russ Meyer and Roger Ebert to make their movie. This film has an intentional nasty bad attitude in a fun way. Another thing that I love about Up is all the queer overtones. All the men have huge fake penises in this one (perhaps to match the giant tits?). The film opens with Hitler bottoming for his well hung hustler Paul (played by Robert McLane, who was in the queer 'Love Story' A Very Natural Thing 1974). The lesbian scenes are depicted as good and erotic and the male on male scenes are depicted as degrading and perverse. RM was old school and openly homophobic but oddly ALL of his films show an eroticism to men in a lesser degree to the women. RM still fetishizes male muscles, buttocks and torsos and sometimes even the penis... Just an interesting observation. Also, there are lots of shots of feet, his films are great if you have a thing for feet and shoes. All in all, I really like this one. I thought it was better than Supervixens, which is one people always seem to talk about.
