Reviewed by Colin Jacobson (December 30, 2024)
After 1968’s Russ Meyer’s Vixen and 1975’s Russ Meyer’s SuperVIXENS, 1979’s Russ Meyer’s Beneath the Valley of the UltraVIXENS completes a trilogy – well, sort of. In truth, the three movies share little more than their director and the presence of women with massive breasts.
A parody of Thornton Wilder’s Our Town, Beneath takes us to meet the inhabitants of “Smalltown USA”. Levonna (Kitten Natividad) seeks sex with her husband Lamar (Ken Kerr), but he only wants a delivery in the rear, a method she resists.
This failure to find common ground dogs their relationship. Levonna and Lamar seek ways to come together, an exploration that leads to lots of sex with others.
In other words, we get a Russ Meyer movie. Plot and characters remain inconsequential, so that synopsis really doesn’t matter much in the greater scheme of things.
As mentioned, Meyer’s three Vixen movies share parts of their titles and their focus on sex that involves buxom women. UltraVIXENS also brings a few minor characters from SuperVIXENS, but those reprisals don’t much matter.
Though some seem to view the 1968 Vixen as a broad satirical comedy, I don’t see much of that, as it acts more as a weird form of social commentary – with big boobs and lots of sex, of course. SuperVIXENS opted more clearly to deliver wacky shenanigans and parody.
Given its status as a riff on Our Town, Beneath more clearly follows this same path. Like the 1975 movie, however, viewers will struggle to find actual laughs or cleverness here.
Though at least Beneath offers a more consistent tone than did its predecessor. SuperVIXENS opted for some scenes of violence that felt out of place in a film that otherwise brought a smutty romp.
Beneath goes for goofy comedy from start to finish. Or I should say it attempts to do so, as the film never amuses.
Via the pseudonyms “B. Callum and R. Hyde”, Meyer co-wrote the screenplay with Roger Ebert – yes, that Roger Ebert. Beneath reunited the pair after their prior collaborations on 1970’s Beyond the Valley of the Dolls and 1976’s Up.
I never saw Up, but Dolls offered an inept experience. Beneath does little to improve on that model.
Actually, Beneath comes across worse in one domain: the attractiveness of its female actors. While Dolls boasted a dazzling array of beauties and the same held true for Vixen and SuperVIXENS, I find most of the women here to seem considerably less lovely.
Of course, that’s subjective, but despite an astonishing physique, Natividad simply wasn’t a pretty woman, and we find others who look downright odd and unnatural. Again, others’ mileage may vary, but I felt Beneath lost points in this domain.
This becomes significant because the prior two movies literally had nothing going for them beyond the sexy ladies. If that side of Beneath doesn’t work, we get left without much to sustain us.
Clearly Ebert’s talents as a film critic didn’t carry over to his stabs at screenwriting. Like SuperVIXENS, Beneath just seems idiotic, and it confuses cheap slapstick and tacky stereotypes for cleverness.
While it remains firmly softcore, Beneath does stretch sexual boundaries more than its two predecessors. The sex scenes don’t show anything terribly overt, but we get much more explicit nudity.
Can we call that progress? I guess, though it all comes in service of an otherwise pointless movie. Mainly a random collection of sex scenes in search of a plot, Beneath becomes a chore to watch.
