Big Bosoms and Square Jaws: The Biography of Russ Meyer, King of the Sex Film

Say the name Russ Meyer to folks and one thing usually springs to mind... well two would be more precise. Russ Meyer's film legacy spans over four decades of cinematic lunacy. Each of his films had the subtlety of, as one of his leading ladies would say, a velvet glove cast in iron. Even filmgoers who have never actually seen one of his movies could rattle off some of their more hyperbolic titles: Mudhoney, Vixen!, Up!, Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! Meyer's influence on culture is still being felt, despite his lack of widespread mainstream acceptance.

Meyer, whom John Waters called "the Eisenstein of sex films," made it very difficult for anybody to get an accurate biographical account. One German biographer, working with Meyer's cooperation, ended up being trashed when the finished product was released. Meyer even went so far as to go to court to prevent it from being published outside of Germany. Meyer himself penned an autobiography, the massive, three-volume A Clean Breast, but the only thing he really exposed were the miles of female flesh that he'd photographed over the years and every grudge he had ever held. Meyer said that only he could write his life story. Sadly, with his death last year, he lost the chance to ever give readers an in-depth and accurate view of his life and work.

Into this paucity of material steps Jimmy McDonough, a man who knows a thing or two about difficult subjects (as Neil Young's official biographer, he had to sue the rock star to be able to publish his profile Shakey). In Big Bosoms and Square Jaws, McDonough unearths a stunning cornucopia of information about Russ Meyer, separating the man from the legend while diminishing neither.

Through countless interviews, from Meyer's many leading ladies to his old army buddies, McDonough paints a compelling and addictively readable portrait of the filmmaker. Raised by a domineering mother and a milquetoast stepfather, Meyer never really found his testicularity until he was dispatched to the European theater of World War II as a filmmaker for the army. There he discovered the two forces that would dominate both his work and his life: sex and violence (the former being introduced to him by a trip to a French brothel arranged by Ernest Hemingway). The details of Meyer's early adulthood are interesting, but the biography really gains traction the moment Meyer returns home to a day job making industrial films and an evening hobby of photographing burlesque dancers, which eventually leads to his career as a cinematic provocateur. The picture McDonough paints of this bygone era, where gentlemen would retire to the local gin joint and take in a few strippers over some highballs and Lucky Strikes, is so vividly recreated, you can practically feel the swish of tassels being twirled a few inches from your face.

The pleasure of such attention to detail that McDonough provides his readers is exceeded only by his music critic's ear for rhythm, writing with an attitude and swagger that mirrors his subject. McDonough's flair for descriptive writing couldn't have found a better subject .When describing Mudhoney villain Hal Hopper, McDonough writes, "Hopper had a lipless, reptilian mug with skin like a thrift-store wallet, lit up by a pair of mean, incandescent eyes." McDonough ups the ante in his description of contemplating a tryst with starlet Babette Bardot, "A daunting task, if you ask me, like attempting to mount a float from the Macy's parade." It's the kind of crazy, hepcat language that succeeds not because McDonough is attempting to imitate Meyer's argot, but because he is a fellow traveler himself.

As Meyer's star begins to fade, McDonough's tale veers into tragedy. Sickness, dementia, and infighting among his cast and staff consumed Meyer's last years. Here, McDonough wisely avoids painting heroes and villains in this stage of Meyer's life. Everybody gets their say and it's left to the reader to pick the saints and the sinners in Meyer's last act.

Big Bosoms and Square Jaws succeeds on more levels than it is possible to convey in an 800-word review. Even if this book was only the chapter on Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!, with its extensive comments from Meyer's most vividly memorable starlet Tura Satana, it would be well worth the price of admission. As it stands, McDonough's exploration of Meyer's life and times is an intoxicating evocation of a less politically correct, but frequently more entertaining (and more risk-taking) period of American entertainment. The only thing missing from this book are exclamation points in the title.

• Read more about this book