Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!

Simply A Masterpiece

I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

It's a good bad... and worth a popcorn matinée. While it's easy to lament what could have been...

Russ Meyer's Up! is a nasty black comedy. Totally X-rated. In RM's later years there was something mentally ill about his fantasies. This film is masterful in it's kinetic editing together of a plethora of pervasive perversions. I think the photography is some of the best in his career. Kitten Natividad is one of my favorite parts of the film. She opens up the film as the story's Greek Chorus,(obviously the pen of Roger Ebert)she then opens up her legs with an incredible close up of her Brillo Pad-esque pubic hair. She reminds the audience over and over of the convoluted murder mystery of Adolf "Hitler" Schwartz. Adolf's sex dungeon is one of RM's freakiest and grotesque scenes. I absolutely love Candy Samples aka Mary Gavin as the Headsperson. I love her S&M black leather hood with a zipper on the mouth, "Headsperson,an abyss of gluttony," proclaims Kitten in one of the film's best montages. Like Beyond the Valley and Supervixens, this film is so 'punk' before the fact. Oddly, I think RM was so untouched by 'hipness' of the times. Watching Up! one can imagine pretty clearly why the Sex Pistols wanted Russ Meyer and Roger Ebert to make their movie. This film has an intentional nasty bad attitude in a fun way. Another thing that I love about Up is all the queer overtones. All the men have huge fake penises in this one (perhaps to match the giant tits?). The film opens with Hitler bottoming for his well hung hustler Paul (played by Robert McLane, who was in the queer 'Love Story' A Very Natural Thing 1974). The lesbian scenes are depicted as good and erotic and the male on male scenes are depicted as degrading and perverse. RM was old school and openly homophobic but oddly ALL of his films show an eroticism to men in a lesser degree to the women. RM still fetishizes male muscles, buttocks and torsos and sometimes even the penis... Just an interesting observation. Also, there are lots of shots of feet, his films are great if you have a thing for feet and shoes. All in all, I really like this one. I thought it was better than Supervixens, which is one people always seem to talk about.

It's clear from the outset that Up! is going to be in extremely bad taste - and the rest of the film certainly doesn't disappoint! This film was made later in Meyer's career and is more along the lines of Supervixens and Beyond the Valley of the Ultra-Vixens rather than Beyond the Valley of the Dolls and Vixen - and that's OK with me. Naturally the plot doesn't make a lot of sense and seems more like an excuse for lots of buxom women to take their clothes off - and again, that's OK with me! There is a slim plot line in this film - revolving around the murder of a man named Adolf, who looks a lot like Hitler. This plot is rather inconsequential, however - a buxom blonde narrator pops up ever now and then to remind us the film has a murder backdrop, but it's hardly the main focus of the film. The film really focuses on the absolutely stunning Margo Winchester, a sexy lady who waltzes into town shortly after the murder and gets into a scuffle with a man who tries to pick up her up, and ends up killing him. The local cop gets her out of trouble, and she takes a job at a local cafe...Russ Meyer endows his film with a truly surreal style, and that helps to ensure that Up is the hilarious fun time that it is intended to be. As is usually the case with Meyer films, it is not the plot or the style of the film that is the main standout, but the beautiful lead actress and this film is certainly no different as it features the hottest of all Meyers stars, Raven De La Croix. This girl is absolutely amazing and pretty much makes the film worth watching on her own, the fact that the rest of it is so good only increases the appeal of Up. The narrator idea comes off as being a bit corny, but it fits in well with the style of the film and the way that the topless girl telling the story goes about her business never fails to amuse. The fact that the film stars a Hitler look-alike might make you think that Meyer has some sort of point to make - but if he did, I didn't catch it. It all boils down to a hilarious ending that sees the women show off their assets, and it turns out that nobody is quite what they seem - the final revelation is the best! Overall, Up isn't my favourite Meyer movie, but it's a very good one and comes highly recommended!

SpoilersBoy, did I ever have trouble writing a review for UP. This is my third attempt and hopefully my last one. Having seen every Russ Meyer film now, I can say without a doubt that UP is Meyer's most erratic film (and that's saying a lot!). So much so that I really believe everyone involved in the making of UP were either on drugs or drunk, because the film simply doesn't make any sense whatsoever. They were obviously winging it as they went along. The dialogue, though at times brilliantly funny (screenplay was co-written by film critic Roger Ebert!), is totally nonsensical. The characters and their motives don't make any sense and the use of a one-woman Greek chorus (played by Kitten Natividad) is repetitive and quickly becomes annoying. How many times did have to be remimded of who killed Adolph Schwartz? According to an article, Russ had to shoot the one-woman Greek chorus bits because nothing made any sense and she was included to tie-up all the characters and actions. Oddly enough, even with the one-woman Greek chorus, UP still doesn't make any sense: Paul dressed as a Pilgrim; the time at the bottom of the screen (why?!?!); Margo who starts talking like Mae West; the one-woman Greek chorus naming suspects of people who obviously have nothing to do with the killing of the Adolph Hitler look-alike Adolph Schwartz; after the chainsaw scene, Margo and Alice become "friends" but the next scene, Alice wants to kill Margo; the whole conversation between Margo and Alice when they run around in the forest at the end contradicts everything that we just saw in the film, like when Alice says Paul is into young boys and yet we saw Paul making out with her and Margo and a couple of other women throughout the entire movie; Margo's real "official" identity at the end, etc. It's all so disjointed, it's nearly impossible to follow. It looks like Russ and company forgot to shoot many scenes that would have given the film a more cohesive feel to the entire loony proceeding but as it is now, it's a near total mess. And it also looks like they ran out of money when they were shooting the last scene, when Margo, Alice and Paul confront each other, as it suddenly stops right then and there. And to make things more hard to take, UP, like so many late Russ Meyer films, is an overindulgent and way too boisterous movie. Questionable moments in UP, like the rape scene at the bar, where Rafe, the big silent lumberjack rapes not one but two women at the same time, come to mind. At one point, as Rafe rapes Margo, men at the bar gather around him and cheer him on. One of the men in the crowd is Russ Meyer himself, eagerly slapping the big lumberjack's butt in agreement. This scene is oddly disturbing AND comical. Disturbing because it is rape. Comical because that scene, like the entire movie itself and like all Russ Meyer films made after BEYOND THE VALLEY OF THE DOLLS, was made to look like a cartoon. Russ Meyer is to adult films what Tex Avery was to cartoons. All the women have big breasts. And all the men sport huge prosthetic phalluses. The whole thing is so animated and exuberant and over-the-top, with the loud ponderous music playing endlessly, that any semblance of reality is nonexistent. The rape scene is really filmed like a cartoon, with tons of screaming and men with axes in their stomachs that spew blood all over the place and yet they walk away like nothing had happened. So even if some scenes are sorta questionable, Russ makes them so unbelievable that they're not as shocking as they could have been (or should have been). Besides, after the opening scene, where we see Paul (with a fake wad) humping the Adolph Hitler look-alike (Hitler in a sex scene? Ick! And two men having sex. A first in a Russ Meyer flick!), everything that follows sorta looks quaint. But those overindulgent moments still leave a bitter after-taste.But even with all the negative things going against UP, there are some moment of brilliance here and there, and the film is goofy, spirited and so contented in being a bad movie that it almost seems pointless to put it down. Russ has corraled a great cast of unknowns actors that are totally game. I particularly like Janet Wood, as Alice. She had great comic timing and is beautiful. She and Robert McLane, who plays her husband Paul, make a cute couple. Margo, played by Raven De La Croix, was okay and seems to have a lot of fun but she's not much of an actress. Sex scenes are numerous in UP. More than any other Russ Meyer films, except for ULTRA-VIXENS. And there isn't a single impotent men in the entire picture (another Russ Meyer first), so everyone is having a good time. Some scenes are beautiful and sensual but they are hardly hot enough to be a turn-on. It's hard for me to believe anyone got turned on by any of the mostly cartoonish sex scenes.So, to recap: half of UP is truly terrible, trashy and sloppy. But the other half is actually fun, spirited and at times quite original. Like I said, it's not easy to review this film.

My personal favorite of Russ Meyer's films. The script, by Roger Ebert (!), is loaded with brilliant sexual dark humor. For example, the opening sequence finds an aging Adolph Hitler lookalike being whipped by a stud in a Pilgrim outfit; meanwhile, "Hitler" is tortured (erotically) by a variety of buxom ethnic babes ("Ah! Limehouse!"). Later, the Pilgrim really gives to Adolph what the rest of the world always wanted to give him - and sticks it to him good! And the ending wraps up a murder mystery by rising to outrageous absurdity. Along the way, our Greek Chorus narrator (Kitten Natividad) keeps us UP to date on the proceedings. Beautifully photographed (Meyer's best acheivement, I think). See what I call "The Indian Flip," and learn something new to do with a light socket. An absolute must for - as someone said - you know who you are...