Up!, 1976.
Directed by Russ Meyer.
Starring Raven De La Croix, Edward Schaaf, Robert McLane, Candy Samples, Janet Wood, Su Ling, Kitten Natividad, Foxy Lae.
SYNOPSIS:
Adolf Hitler is alive and living in 1970s America, but upon his murder a mysterious and very alluring stranger arrives in town.
Even within the realms of Russ Meyer movies, Up! is a strange one. It opens with Adolf Hitler (Edward Schaaf) – or Adolf Schwartz as he is now known, because that will really fool everybody – living in a castle in modern-day California, where he is receiving sexual gratification from a man and three women. All wholesome fun until a mysterious stranger throws a piranha fish into his bath, and the dictator-in-hiding loses more than his remaining one asset, if the lyrics to the song were ever to be believed.
Soon after, in the nearby town of Miranda, sexy hitchhiker Margo Winchester (Raven De La Croix) rolls up and begins to put most of the men – and some of the women – under her spell, getting a job in the local diner and getting to know the local sheriff very intimately. But why is she there? All will be revealed…
And all does get revealed, in glorious close-up every few minutes. Up! is something of a return to the well for Russ Meyer, coming as it did after Supervixens reinforced his reputation for jiggling boobs and saucy comedy following the twin flops of legal drama The Seven Minutes and blaxploitation period piece Black Snake earlier in the decade. It is also regarded as one of his most progressive movies, which really means that every character in the movie was fairy uninhibited and didn’t really mind who they were getting it on with.
This all starts in the opening scenes with Adolf having his fun with several women before allowing himself to be violated by a man; a daring commentary if ever there was one, but tonally it feels a little off, despite many a film and TV director getting laughs out of Hitler and his deviancy over the decades. The whole Hitler part of the movie does have an eventual payoff, but for most of the running time it feels like a comedy sketch where the humour misfires slightly and then gets forgotten about while Russ Meyer returns to his stock trade.
That stock trade being sexy women with huge bosoms, comedy characters (or should that be caricatures?) and groansome jokes, with a voiceover between scenes provided by a naked woman, in this case The Greek Chorus, portrayed by Meyer regular Kitten Natividad. All of those trademarks are present and correct, and for the most part Up! frolics along like a softcore edition of The Benny Hill Show, with the sultry Raven De La Croix seducing the townsfolk with her suggestive puns and don’t-mess-with-me attitude, the buffoon local sheriff being the butt of a lot of the jokes and the creepy bisexual diner owners who seem to be able to sleep with anyone they want.
All of which equates to a lot of gorgeous body parts to look at, but very little story to really grasp onto. Not that Russ Meyer aficionados watch his movies for intelligent storytelling, but other than the visual spectacles – of which there are many – it all feels too thin and flimsy.
Up! was the second-to-last cinematic release that Russ Meyer made and you can tell that he was running out of steam in the ideas department, despite the frantic energy he still directed with, and when he does deviate a little and the fun promiscuity turns to rape, you have to wonder what the intention of this movie was. Nevertheless, for the most part Up! is enjoyable enough nonsense that will really only appeal to hardcore Russ Meyer fans and teenage boys needing an outlet, but for casual viewers it might be a little too wacky and out there to enjoy to the same level of his earlier nudie cuties from the 1960s.
As with all of the Russ Meyer 4K releases from Severin, the picture quality is fantastic, showing off detail to the point where you could almost diagnose diseases from how close the camera gets, and special features are fairly sparse, with only an audio commentary by film historian Elizabeth Purchell (although, if you get the Blu-ray edition there is also an interview with Raven De La Croix), but if you are collecting these releases then you will be buying Up! regardless, although the rewatch value is considerably less than with the other movies released in this range so far.
SEE ALSO: Read our review of the 4K Ultra HD release of Russ Meyer’s Motorpsycho! here
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ / Movie: ★ ★ ★
Chris Ward
