Director: Russ Meyer
Starring: Dolly Read, Cynthia Myers, John LaZar
Running Time: 109 minutes
Synopsis: Small-town musical trio Kelly, Casey, and Petronella (Dolly Read, Cynthia Myers, and Marcia McBroom) and their manager Harris relocate to Los Angeles. Kelly connects with her aunt Susan (Phyllis Davis) and claims a share of the family inheritance, much to the dismay of Susan's sleazy lawyer Porter Hall. Svengali-like promoter Ronnie "Z-Man" Barzell (John LaZar) rebrands the trio as the Carrie Nations and propels them to success. Multiple romantic entanglements and sexual relationships ensue, culminating in jealousies, controversies, and violence.
What Works Well: This definitely-not-a-sequel takes a scattershot approach to satirizing the cultural zeitgeist, and some of the garbage stinks rather than reeks. Hippies, squares, artsies, fartsies, drugs, free love, suppressed sexuality, overt sexual predators, sexual fantasies, boxers, lawyers, musicians, pornographers, murderers, greed, and jealousy are all lined up and targeted in a bewildering demonstration of talentless artistry saturated with gratuitous nudity.
What Does Not Work As Well: A generally excruciating example of the lunatics taking over the (20th Century Fox studio) asylum, Russ Meyer finally gets a large budget and diligently deploys it to expose his severe limitations. The Roger Ebert script is overstuffed with imagination and ambition, but generally surrenders to juvenile instincts and rarely finds the intended edge. The editing stays below the level of a student project, while the mostly amateur cast members (selected for physical attributes rather than any acting skills) emphasize the prevailing incompetence with blank-eyed performances and wooden line readings. Worst (but maybe also funniest) of all is a musical trio (two guitarists and one drummer) pretending to belt out a series of brass-heavy songs.
Key Quote:
Kelly: Why don't you lose your laundry, Porter?
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