{"id":31,"date":"2023-12-14T05:53:26","date_gmt":"2023-12-14T05:53:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ericagavin.com\/wp\/?p=31"},"modified":"2025-02-01T08:54:24","modified_gmt":"2025-02-01T08:54:24","slug":"all-about-the-vixen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ericagavin.com\/wp\/all-about-the-vixen\/","title":{"rendered":"Vixen!"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Almost from the day she began dancing at the Losers, Erica had been hearing about Russ Meyer from Haji and Tura Satana. Haji\u2019s long association with Russ Meyer began with her starring role in his 1965 biker-chick film Motorpsycho!<\/em> A year later Tura starred as one of the most formidable leading ladies in screen history in the cult classic Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!<\/em><\/h4>\n\n\n\n
BY STEVE SULLIVAN
EXCERPTED FROM GLAMOUR GIRLS<\/em> #16  SPRING 2002<\/h6>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThey kept saying, \u2018don\u2019t you think Erica should meet Russ? He’d just love her.\u2019 But I never responded; I didn\u2019t really know much about him. Then while sitting in the lobby of her dentist waiting for an appointment, Erica picked up the May 16, 1968 issue of Variety<\/em> and saw this ad:<\/p>\n\n\n

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\u201cWhen I saw that ad, it just clicked in my mind. The ad had legitimized to me what Haji and Tura had been saying. I\u2019d never seen any of his films. I didn\u2019t know he was the one who made The Immoral Mr. Teas<\/em>, which was playing at The Vista Theater, up the street from where I grew up, near where Hollywood Boulevard and Sunset intersect. The ad was pretty tame, and I had no idea what kind of movie it would be. When it said \u2018the female fox\u2019, I didn’t interpret that in a sexual way. I\u2019d never even heard the word \u2018vixen\u2019 before that.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Erica made an appointment and did a reading with Meyer\u2019s right-hand man George Costello.  \u201cHe had interviewed more than three hundred women.  Russ was out of town.  At the end of the interview, George said, kind of embarrassed, \u2018before you leave, could you take your top off?\u2019  Well, I knew I\u2019d have to do that on screen, and he had to see.  So I said, \u2018yeah, sure!\u2019  After you take your top off every night at the club, it\u2019s almost like brushing your teeth.  He said he\u2019d discuss the candidates with Russ, and I might get a call back.  I had no idea whether I would.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThen, all of a sudden, they called me back. I met with Russ, and he said [imitating Meyer\u2019s voice], \u2018well, George thinks that because your bosoms aren\u2019t as big as most of my girls, maybe women can relate more to you. And it would be a twist.\u2019 It’s funny, Russ can be so crass at times, but at other times he can be so gentle and sweet. She was hired, and the most celebrated chapter in Erica\u2019s journey was about to begin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAbout two weeks after I was hired, we began filming.  First, with everyone cast, he got us all together and screened Faster Pussycat<\/em> for us, so we could see what kind of work he did.  Next thing I knew, I was leaving town.\u201d It was a Greyhound bus ride of a few hours north to the small town of Miranda, just below the Oregon border. Then she was driven about ten miles down a dirt road to a cabin owned by a friend of Meyer\u2019s. \u201cWe were out in the middle of nowhere. Those woods just went on and on forever.\u201d Filming ran from around the end of June 1968 into early August.<\/p>\n\n\n

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\u201cThe shoot ran for four and a half weeks.  We had one or two rehearsals with George, just reading over the lines.  I had no clue of what I was in for.  It\u2019s actually only now, looking back, that I can realize the impact of that film.\u201d<\/h5>\n\n\n\n

Vixen<\/em> is set in the Canadian bush country of British Columbia. Tom Palmer (played by Garth Pillsbury as one of those square-jawed but dimly oblivious leading men favored by Meyer) is a bush pilot who makes a living bringing in tourists for a vacation in the wilds. Away from home much of the time, he knows his bombshell wife Vixen likes to tease, \u201cbut she knows where to draw the line\u201d\u2014and as he speaks these trusting words to a client we see Erica frolicking with a rugged playmate who turns out to be a Canadian Mountie, ripping off her bikini top, and urging him to make love to her on the grass. Once the act is done, she declares, \u201cwe\u2019ve had our fun, now it\u2019s business as usual.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We can see immediately that this over-poweringly sensual, dark, heavy-lidded beauty is a seductress who knows exactly what she wants, will do anything to get it and afterward will move on without a moment of any human emotion other than lust and personal gratification. She\u2019s a racist, as demonstrated by her contemptuous comments toward Niles, the draft-resisting black friend of her brother Judd. And she\u2019s shameless, as seen when she mockingly offers her body to Judd and expresses interest in making it with a couple of girls.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Tom brings home a married couple on a fishing trip, and then the fun begins. Vixen sets out to tantalize the guy at the barbecue, suggestively dancing above him in her form-fitting miniskirt (as Meyer shoot from below to look up her dress). She picks up a trout from the barbecue, fondles it with arched eyebrows, kisses it, and then puts the fish inside her blouse, while fisherman Dave is watching with sweaty, gape-mouthed desire, his wife Janet quietly seethes, and good old Tom stupidly goes on cooking. The two couples go fishing the next day, and Vixen offers to show Dave a new spot where he \u2018can’t miss.\u2019 \u201cYou attract me\u2014and when I’m attracted, I respond,\u201d she murmurs heavily, unbuttoning her shirt. As they make love in the stream, she laughs in wicked, erotic pleasure. Vixen lives only for the moment, and the consequences be damned.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meanwhile, poor Janet (played by curvy blonde Vincene Wallace) is the sexually frustrated wife, unable to compete with Vixen for the attention of her husband, and utterly failing in her efforts to come on to their host. When the men go off for lunch, Vixen stays behind with the depressed Janet at the cabin. Slowly and sensuously, Vixen takes control, removing Janet’s bra and bikini bottom, and the suddenly aroused wife insists that Vixen strip as well. \u201cSo that\u2019s what my husband was after,\u201d cries Janet in examining her new pal\u2019s bare torso. \u201cNot bad, not bad at all!\u201d Vixen trembles as Janet caresses her body; they snuggle and caress each other at length, and share a lingering kiss. Just as Vixen is reaching a peak of passion, they hear the men return, and they scramble to get dressed.<\/p>\n\n\n

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    As if to underline the point that there is no depth to which Vixen will not sink, when brother Judd comes by to take a shower, she strips and joins him. She dares him to make love to her. \u201cYou’ve been asking for it,\u201d he notes. \u201cI certainly have, baby brother!\u201d<\/h5>\n\n\n\n

    As they finish up in bed, she appears ready to blow a gasket with conflicted emotions. Harrison Page, in the role of Judd\u2019s friend Niles, comes upon them, and is ready to join in the fun despite her ugly taunts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    The film\u2019s \u2018socially redeeming\u2019 climax comes when Tom\u2019s new guest, Mr. O\u2019Bannion, tries to persuade Niles to channel his rage over racism and the Vietnam War to join the newcomer in communism and hijack the plane to Cuba. Once in flight, O\u2019Bannion struggles to seize control of the plane from Tom. Niles, making his decision, rips the gun from the bad guy\u2019s grasp, and Tom knocks him out. The still-bitter Niles initially wants to return to Canada and remain free from draft charges, but he relents, and as they land in San Francisco, receives a smile from Vixen as he runs off. As a new tourist couple approaches the plane including a gorgeous brunette, Vixen licks her lips and grins salaciously at the camera at the conclusion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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    Filming with Russ Meyer \u201cwas work,\u201d she emphasizes.  \u201cWith Russ, you work.  You were with him 24\/7.  I lived in the same house with him for over a month, and it wasn\u2019t a big house.  But it was great.  There was such teamwork.  It was a summer camp, like a family.\u201d<\/h5>\n\n\n\n

    As on every one of Meyer\u2019s independent productions, the actors pulled double and triple duty. \u201cI did the clapboards for my scenes, I steamed my own dress, I put on my own makeup and did my hair, putting on my fall.  I painted my eyebrows to look more seductive.  I even carried a camera sometimes.\u201d Most of the time on the set, it was just Russ, myself, George Costello, Jim Ryan [another associate producer and Meyer\u2019s longtime friend to this day], Richard Brummer [the film editor, who also worked on the sound]. That was it, aside from the other actors playing the scene.\u201d Each actor came on the set for just a matter of days to shoot all of their scenes, then left.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \u201cRuss had to have the hots for the women he works with.  When you\u2019re working with anybody who\u2019s really passionate about something, you have to kind of fall in love with them.  And we can trick ourselves.  In a way, I fell in love with Russ, or else he wouldn\u2019t have been able to get what he got out of me\u2026 Russ was so intense\u2026  Had I known then what I know now, I would have been able to appreciate it more.  He protected me on the set, I knew no one was going to screw with me.  For the first time, I felt safe in the entire environment with Russ.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Meyer\u2019s style as a director was simplicity itself. \u201cIt wasn\u2019t like he explained what the character\u2019s motivation were or anything\u2014God, no! It\u2019s just, set up the scene, the camera\u2019s rolling, go. If you don\u2019t want to do it the way Russ wants it, you have to bring something to the table to change his mind. When I tried something different and he liked the way I did it, he\u2019d say, \u2018oh yeah, do that again!\u2019 Once I knew something worked, I kept bringing in more. I was trying to make Vixen not as much as a cartoon, but more like someone who could be your next-door neighbor. Sure, it\u2019s a little far out, but the emotions in different situations are real enough. Like when her brother tries to screw her, and she freaks out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \u201cMy perception of Vixen was that she was really troubled. She was a racist, yet also a moralist, and was fucking everyone in sight.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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