By David Poland poland@moviecitynews.com
2 Russ Meyers Memories
I have two memories from the Russ Meyer family.
I met the guy a few times, but not memorably. But Charles Napier, who is also a part of the Jonathan Demme film family, was on a bad movie that I wrote a while back and we got to talking about one of the late “works” of Meyers. Chuck told me that they found some new girls and packed into a van and headed out into the desert to shoot and when they wouldn’t perform the acts Russ wanted them to, Meyers and he and the other men in the crew hopped back into the van and abandoned these poor, young, hugely-breasted beauties out in the heat for a few hours. By the time the guys returned, the girls were desperate to perform.
When I told this story to Roger Ebert, a good friend of Meyers, he insisted that it could not be true and that Meyers never stopped to that kind of mean trick or even allowed his “actors” to engage in sex on his sets. But that protest always felt to me like it was Roger’s love for this director and friend more than a sure truth. And when Chuck Napier tells a story, God, it sounds Richard-Farnsworth-sincere.
My other memory is of Kitten Navidad, who I met and hung out with a bit back in New York about 20 years ago. She was doing a show for friends of mine at The Palladium. She was very sweet, and while her breasts were a bit too big for my tastes, still very sexy. Overtures were made, but I begged off. I remember the notion of romance seeming just so wrong. After all, I was 19. She was all of about 36… just soooo old!
And so, another tale of what morons young men can be…
“Works”? “Actors”? Russ Meyer was a more naturally talented filmmaker than many of his more legitimate peers. I think he made a handful of near-great films, actually, especially the madhouse ones he made towards the end of his career. Bye, Russ.
Why post these ‘memories’, David? I see no useful purpose to the first one except to besmirch a dead man, if true. Seriously, it’s nothing but sour. Was that your full intent?
Sooo, are ya going to tell us what movie you wrote? IMDb has three David Polands, but none have writing credits (and am I mistaken in assuming that Polands II and III are both you? Presuming, that is, that you received special thanks in back of MANITO, a credit I puzzlingly overlooked at the time. Hell, it could even be that you’re all three of them, though I never heard of the movie wherein Poland I delineates the role of “Ali.”)
As for Meyer, I agree with Yancy that he was a first-class filmmaker from a technical point of view at the very least — the pictures he photographed himself look better than any he handed to another cinematographer (even the Oscar-winning Fred J. Koenekamp), and I dare say he was as natural an editor as I’ve ever seen. I further agree that the later “madhouse” films are breathtakingly expressive, and it occurs to me suddenly that the one American director (who too is more popularly lionized now than at the time) he best compares to is perhaps Samuel Fuller.
This was and was not what I was looking for, but I am glad it provided an answer for me. My father was a good friend of Mr. Meyers during the war. After my father’s passing, I found evidence to the truth of his stories. Including a comentary in which Mr. Meyers recounted a tale from his war duty. The information I was looking for was whether Mr. Meyers was still alive. I wanted to see if he might grant an interview of his days in europe.
Thanks for this info.