Vixen!

 Russ Meyer's Vixen!

Vixen has an insatiable sex addiction that keeps her from remaining devout to her husband only; his job as a bush pilot doesn't help matters. She just needs a man's touch.
**½

*Nudity featured in this review*

Russ Meyer sure knew how to pick them, didn’t he? Vixen! is all about Erica Gaven, let’s be honest. She is the kind of gal who just bangs and shags everyone in her sights just about. Her husband flies a plane often, carrying around tourists and clients; their home is in Canada. I was trying to place who her voice resembles and, sure enough, Colleen Camp came to mind! In fact, Erica even resembled her to me for some reason. When Vixen stuffs a fish down her blouse and jiggles her tits in front of her hubby’s client, a lawyer as his disapproving wife looks on, this tells you (if the tryst with the Canadian Mountie didn’t already) all you need to know about her sexual appetite and audacious attitude. Here’s the thing: in Meyer’s movies, he hired babes who seemed perfectly comfortable in the buff. And, also, they sure seemed to take those lines given them and applied a little razzle dazzle to compliment the cheeky material. For instance, Erica certainly adds some spice to dialogue like “When I’m attracted, I respond”. She does this as she unbuttons her blouse for the lawyer-client of her pilot husband, unveiling her impressive bust. This whole deal is instigated by the two of them when “the fish aren’t biting” at a particular fishing spot selected by Vixen’s husband. Of course, “the other woman” isn’t so shabby (in fact, I think she was even hotter than Vixen) either, and when she asks to use Vixen’s hubby’s lap as a pillow, I imagine such a request would be quite difficult to deny. Of course, hubby is sold completely to his Vixen, totally faithful, oblivious to her wandering libido, and uninterested in another woman’s delectable flesh. My favorite part—of course—is Vixen’s attraction to the lawyer Dave’s (Robert Aiken) wife, Janet (Vincene Wallace), snockered after guzzling some booze because her husband has not desired her for over a month (and his interest in Vixen miffs her as well). Vixen finds Janet’s skin seductively soft, soon caressing and fondling her body, a total loss of control, desire overwhelming her. It is interesting how lesbianism is used in dialogue here (Vixen says, “I know it’s strange, but your body really turns me on.”), but Meyer knows how titillating such a scene would be if you have Erica and Vincene lost in Sapphic embrace. Janet even asks Vixen, “Is there something wrong with us?” I have seen a lot of the later softcore films have women partake in two-minute lesbian make-outs, performed with little energy or joy or passion, and the routine goes way back, let me tell you. I grinned when Vixen asked Janet, “Have you ever made love to a woman?” How many softcore movies (or the breed of lesbian hardcore fuckfests now widely available these days) featuring a lesbian sex scene start with a line similar to this? In this movie, I appreciated how Vixen takes full control—takes charge with a fierce dedication—of the situation and Janet is only more than willing to let her. The thing about how Erica approaches her character’s sex scenes (perhaps intentional by Meyer) that left me rather baffled was how she seems to be in pain (as if anguishing from being stabbed by a knife repeatedly) instead of ecstasy. Maybe that’s her own way of conveying pleasure…as if she were being gutted like a fish instead of pleasured by coitus. Not to mince Vixen’s nymphomania, director Russ Meyer even has her instigating a sexual act with her own brother! Yes, a biker along with his draft-dodging American black friend, Niles (Harrison Page, a really fine actor who has made quite a nice career after this), Judd (Jon Evans) is surprised by his naked sister while he was taking a shower. She infiltrates his rub-a-dub-dub, motivates him to soap her back, and eventually the two are making out, soon to hit the spring mattress (Meyer loves to shoot the spring-frame underneath, a most unusual visual) in full blown sex. Vixen loves to use racial slurs against—as well as emasculate—Niles. When Niles is outside waiting on Judd to get done with the shower, Vixen tells her brother, “Buckwheat can wait.” “Spook” and “Coon” are also thrown at the guy. He’s not a bad guy, either, but does Vixen try to piss him off!

Bush pilot in the Canadian Northwest with a slut for a wife who loves her some plentiful coitus. He’s a damn good husband who always does the right thing. Straight as an arrow and law abiding. Oh, Vixen loves him. She respects him. She’s just gotta have it. So Russ Meyer’s Vixen! has nymphomania, incest, racial slurs, draft-dodging, lesbianism, adultery, and eventually criminality and communism injected into the absurd cocktail. An Irishmen with a full-fledged devotion to the Communist ideal—with plans to force Vixen’s husband, Tom (Garth Pillsbury) with a German luger (appropriate weapon, eh?) to fly him without choice--wants to go to Cuba, asks Niles to accompany him (Cuba, to Niles, is a flower of Communism in bloom), and while in the air, expects Tom to fly past San Francisco and onward to Cuba without stopping…or else.

I don’t really ever get that aroused by the sex scenes I see in Meyer’s films as much as I am tickled by his bubbly-and-toxic brew of various themes that seem built to offend those with a philosophy/politics/morality that is the polar opposite. The women are certainly a draw, I have to say. I know what kind of bouncy honeys, freely enjoying their sexual freedom, will show up in his films, eventually naked and wholly devoted to getting their urges satisfied. The themes also on display that find their way amongst all the tits and sex give these films a topical edge that few porn films at that time or in the future lack. I love how Meyer’s films wink at you. Gleefully tapdancing on prevalent taboos of that time was Meyer’s specialty. Still, through and through, even as it seems Tom’s portrayed as a putz, his devotion, unwavering trust in her despite advice from others and behavior that would say otherwise, is commendable. His principles, law abiding nature, and gullible inability to see the truth about his wife, holds him up as a rather sympathetic figure; even as the film sometimes makes fun of him, there’s an admirable way Meyer’s movie presents him. I like that a lot. I also like how, despite escaping a fate almost life-detrimental, regarding a gun and 5,000 feet altitude in the sky inside their Cessna, Vixen isn’t about to change her ways…once a nympho, always a nympho.

Those who are familiar with Meyer know he loves to edit the hell out of his movies; Vixen! is no different. I damn near bet there isn't a scene where the camera holds still on the characters for five seconds. It's his own way of moving the plot (what little there is here) along and capturing characters in various ways, dialogue and facial expressions vitally important in conveying sex and lust as only Meyer and his cast could do. Sex scenes are never explicit here. I understand Vixen! has a reputation for being one of the first to get stuck with the X-rating, but I have seen a hell of a lot more sex and nudity in R-rated fare than is featured here. Each scene is edited not to reveal too much; rather a lot is implied. I think in this film's case, it is more about the naughtiness of the lead actress' character and her less-than-subdued desire for the ravaging of a male (and female, I can gleefully say). When she is more than willing to bed her bro, you kind of get that she's all in for the bump and grind, even if incest is how she needs satisfaction.