In his 1983 memoir Adventures in the Screen Trade, scenarist William Goldman devoted a short chapter to blasting the validity of the auteur theory, and concluded with these sentiments: "Is there then no American auteur director? Perhaps there is one. One man who thinks up his own stories and produces his pictures and directs them too. And also serves as his own cinematographer. Not to mention he also does his own editing. All of this connected with an intensely personal and unique vision of the world. That man is Russ Meyer."

Throw in the ability to successfully self-market his wares as well, and that about covered Russell Albion Meyer (1922-2004). This energetically sybaritic former WWII Signal Corpsman turned to glamour photography for the men's magazine market after his service time, learning quickly that sex sells. From there, he spent the '50s through the '70s turning out nearly two dozen profitable and inimitable grindhouse flicks marked by frenetic editing, bizarre humor, eroticism muted just enough to foil the censors, and ALWAYS - healthy young ladies of genuinely mythic proportions.

Shot on black-and-white stock in the Sacramento Delta, Mudhoney (1965) is redolent with the overheated Southern Gothic flavor that marked such other efforts around the same phase of Meyer's career as Lorna (1964) and Motor Psycho (1965). Stuck in the Depression-era backwater of Spooner, Missouri, drifter Calif McKinney (John Furlong) is looking for any honest labor that can be had, and finds it as a farmhand for the sick and elderly Lute Wade (Stuart Lancaster). While the wages are fair, and the old man and his attractive niece Hannah Brenshaw (Antoinette Christiani) good company, there is the matter of Sidney (Hal Hopper), Hannah's husband. Sidney is a shine-swilling, abusive lout whose daily itinerary consists of being ejected from the local gin joints and bordello, then coming home to drunkenly force himself on his disgusted wife.

For all the obviousness of his liquored-up bravado, few in the community are willing to stand up to the sociopathic Sidney; that number also seems to include Calif, who consistently backs down from Brenshaw's emasculating verbal and physical threats. The reasons for Calif's seeming cowardice have been figured out by the canny Lute, however, and the sensitive farmhand admits to his having served time for manslaughter. Seeing the obvious affection between Calif and his niece, Lute covertly doctors his will to leave the property in their names. Sidney, who's been lusting after the farm for years, doesn't take kindly to the news, and his campaign to disgrace Hannah and Calif, as well as its repercussions, takes Mudhoney to a feverish finale.

A survey of a Meyer film would be incomplete without giving a nod to the ample ladies around which the skimpy narrative is draped. Besides Antoinette Christiani (who'd never have another screen credit), the full-bodied temptations are provided by Lorna Maitland, the titular (sorry) Lorna of Meyer's prior effort, and Rena Horten, the filmmaker's lady of the moment. They were respectively cast as the sisters Clara Belle and Eula, mainstays of the pleasure house maintained by Maggie Marie (Princess Livingston). Meyer had met the German Horten overseas while making his adaptation of Fanny Hill (1964), and covered for her inability to speak English by making Eula a mute. Their relationship soured when she balked on-set at a nude scene, and Meyer remained rankled for years. In an interview for Incredibly Strange Films, he recalled that "One night she decided she didn't want to appear naked in front of the whole crew, and no matter what I said, like: 'You did it in Berlin and there were fifty Germans hanging around,' she would reply, 'Well, it's different now'...Anyway, it worked out, but it affected my feelings for the lady as long as we were together from then on, because it represented a down deep solid lack of trust..."

Part of the fun of Mudhoney for Meyer devotees is searching the grotesque-laden supporting cast for the players who came to be recognized as the filmmaker's repertory company. The singer-songwriter Hopper, who played the sap in Lorna, was here repulsive and often frightening in his supercharged villainy, and the film's champions give him a large measure of the credit for its effectiveness. Mudhoney marked the first Meyer effort for Lancaster, the circus heir who would become omnipresent in the director's latter-day efforts. "[H]is sonorous, self-important voice spewing forth Meyerspeak is somehow comforting no matter how many times I hear it," Jimmy McDonough appreciatively wrote in his comprehensive Russ Meyer biography Big Bosoms and Square Jaws. "He functions as the cosmic guide for RM's sex-industrial universe, often delivering obtuse monologues long after the movie ends."

The film was also the first of many Meyer efforts for John Furlong, who would handle the voice-over for Russ, and Mickey Foxx, appearing here as the tree-dwelling loony Thurmond Pate. Mention is also due to the pop-eyed, toothless harridan Livingston, whom Meyer unearthed for Wild Gals of the Naked West (1962) and would remember for his brief flirtation with the mainstream in Beyond the Valley of the Dolls (1970). "She was funny as hell," Furlong recounted for McDonough. "I don't know if she had any acting experience. I think she was running a motel in Hollywood."

Producer: Russ Meyer, George Costello
Director: Russ Meyer
Screenplay: Raymond Friday Locke, W.E. Sprague
Cinematography: Walter Schenk
Film Editing: Russ Meyer, Charles G. Schelling
Music: Andre Brummer
Cast: Hal Hopper (Sidney Brenshaw), Antoinette Christiani (Hannah Brenshaw), John Furlong (Calif McKinney), Rena Horten (Eula), Princess Livingston (Maggie Marie), Lorna Maitland (Clara Belle).
BW-92m.

by Jay S. Steinberg