Woman or animal?

“Vixen!” is yet another masterpiece from Russ Meyer. The title character is a nymphomaniacal beauty living in the Canadian bush country with her pilot husband, who knows no bounds when it comes to satisfying her voracious sexual appetite. Vixen gets it on with everyone : one of her husband’s clients, his wife, her own brother… everyone, except her brother’s black best friend. For Vixen, a sexual ultra-liberal, is an extreme-right conservative when it comes to race. She is also ultra-conservative in her attitude to communism. Can she warm up to her black nemesis if it’s the only way to save him from the clutches of an evil commie?

If the above summary sounds weird, it’s because the movie is. After a first hour of non-stop softcore scenes, interspersed with some hilarious dialogue, including some delicious bickering between Vixen and the black Niles, the film ends with a confrontation aboard a plane between Vixen, her husband, Niles and an undercover communist trying to hijack the plane to Cuba. This is after all Russ Meyer.

Watching Vixen, I couldn’t help but wonder if Meyer wasn’t the main inspiration for Paul Verhoeven. The man was making exploitation movies with socio-political messages when the Dutchman was still in diapers. “Vixen!” is pure B-Movie sexploitation, but it is strange in its refusal to adhere to conventions. Vixen is a “sex machine” as one character calls her, with no apparent moral reservations. Yet her quest for sexual gratification is strangely innocent, like a survival instinct (hence the “animal” in the film’s slogan, which is hardly derogatory). Vixen actually gives happiness to everyone : her husband is a happy fulfilled man (“no one satisfies me like you do”, Vixen tells him after one hot night); her seduction of a client and then his wife mends their broken marriage.  And the  movie  doesn’t criticise her, nor does it give her a purgatory ending. Rather, the film ends with her apparently shedding her only fault : her racism.

Meyer succeeds in cramming a lot of political and social issues into the few non-sex scenes : the Vietnam war, the malaise of American blacks, differences between the US and Canada, the communist ideal (excellently and attractively laid out by the communist character, before he turns out to be a hypocrite). Meyer also succeeds in never taking a clear stance on most issues, the ambiguity providing fodder for after-movie reflection and discussion.

Oh and one last thing : Erica Gavin is hot! if you see this movie on the Arrow DVD, be sure to check out the new interview with her for some great insight on Meyer’s working ethics and the effect of “Vixen!” on her subsequent life. And she still looks hot, although in a very different way.