Severin Films co-founder and CEO David Gregory
One-of-a-kind American filmmaker Russ Meyer helmed such inimitable exploitation flicks of his era as Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! (1965), Vixen! (1968) and Beyond the Valley of the Dolls (1970), among many others. But passing in 2004 at the age of 82, the Meyer estate and the ownership and management of his legacy entered a difficult and legally challenging position. Meyer owned the rights to the bulk of his film library and from the beginning of his decades-long career, had handled the distribution of his film in each new exhibition format that made itself available to him over the years, from celluloid to videotape to DVD digitalization.
But after he passed, the Meyer library languished and his films entered a state of somewhat limited circulation. It didn’t help that the films never saw the benefits of the latest restoration techniques and newest means of distribution. And so, the presence of Meyer’s bosom-filled, sexy, satirical and often campy made-for-adults movies with which he is instantly identified began to slowly fade away from general view.
But thanks to a deal made between the lauded independent studio Severin Films and The Russ Meyer Trust, that is no longer the case and a number of Meyer’s films are now returning in gloriously restored physical editions.
Last week, Disc Dish’s Laurence Lerman caught up with Severin co-founder and CEO David Gregory, who has long wanted to add the Russ Meyer library to Severin’s line-up of cult and genre programming, which includes everything from Blaxploitation, zombie flicks and erotic thrillers to American drive-in indies, controversial documentaries and international horror pictures. It is Gregory who signed the deal with the Russ Meyer Trust in 2023 to restore and release five Russ Meyer films, the first three of which—Vixen! (1968), Supervixens (1975), and Beneath the Valley of the Ultravixens (1979)—were officially issued on 4K Ultra HD and Blu-ray on January 28.
Over the course of a lively telephone chat, Gregory talked about his own first encounter with the films of Russ Meyer, how Severin stayed true to Meyer’s ethos while restoring and crafting supplemental packages for each film, and how working with the Meyer trust on the deal yielded the new editions of The Vixen! Trilogy and two more Meyer titles that are slated for release in early March: the biker gang movie Motor Psycho (1965) and the sex comedy Up! (1976), co-written by Roger Ebert.
And there may be more Meyer titles to come! Stay tuned…
Disc Dish: We haven’t spoken in many years—I think the last time was when you produced a featurette for the DVD release of The Rutles: All You Need is Cash a while back.
David Gregory: A long time ago!
Filmmaker Russ Meyer
DD: I’ve been seeing all the great coverage you and Severin have been getting for the restored version of Russ Meyer’s The Vixen! Trilogy over the past month.
DG: Yeah, it’s amazing, but it’s kind of what I had hoped for, honestly. What we were worried about is that Russ and his films would have only been considered as something for the exploitation ghetto. Which, of course, he is–Russ Meyer is one of the premiere exploitation filmmakers. But he was also a leading American independent and there aren’t many like him, that’s for sure.
DD: He certainly fits into the scene in such a unique way. Back in the day, decades ago, I had always heard him and his reputation and seen stlls of his movies in catalogs and such, but the films themselves always seemed to be out of reach. Then they made it to VHS and later DVD, and that began to change, at least for me. And now, they’ll be introduced to a whole new generation of cinephiles.
DG: That’s the plan and so far, so good. The response has been pretty positive at this point.
DD: I was on the Severin site and smiled when I read where you talked about Severin being committed to uplifting the most provocative voices in entertainment. And certainly, Russ Meyer and his work would fit right in there. I think it’s so great that he is standing alongside such filmmakers as Jodorowsky and Argento and Greenaway in the Severin catalog.
DG: Absolutely.
DD: What’s your own personal history with the films of Russ Meyer? How did you discover him and what were your initial thoughts?
DG: I used to buy bootleg tapes from a shop in London called the Psychotronic Video Store. I was actually buying a bootleg copy of Pink Flamingos, and the guy had it on tape as a double feature with Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!. I bought the tape with Faster, Pussycat and, of course, I loved it. And that was around the same time that The Incredibly Strange Film Show with Jonathan Ross was airing in England [in 1988]. They would talk to various exploitation filmmakers and I saw the Russ Meyer episode and then I was really ready to dive in and find more.
DD: So, in 2023, after years of the films essentially being out of circulation, you approached The Russ Meyer Trust by reaching out to the organization’s head, Janice Cowart, and made a deal to restore and release a handful of films in the catalog. And restore them you did—they are all absolutely gorgeous! How was your experience dealing with Ms. Cowart? Was it enjoyable?
DG: I don’t know if I would call the initial negotiations “enjoyable.” She was quite rightly very careful about who she partnered with on these films. She wanted to make sure they were done right and she wanted to make sure, as Russ would have done, that they were marketed correctly and packaged correctly. This was all very important to her, and she was thinking “What would Russ have done?” if he was around in the 4K era. So, there was lots of discussion and us making a case that Severin was the right home. Once she was on board, everything went well and everything has been good since then. We’ve been on the same page on everything and we run everything by her to make sure it’s what she would have wanted. I went up to the house, which was very special to me because I originally saw it in The Incredibly Strange Film Show where it was covered in all of Russ’s memorabilia. It’s not there anymore, but to see the layout was great.
DD: Let’s talk about some of the bonus features on the discs, which include a healthy handful of archival pieces along with some newly produced ones. Leading the way is an excellent commentary by Vixen! star Erica Gavin along with the featurette “Entertainment or Obscenity,” which details the film’s being banned in Cincinnati and its ongoing censorship battles there. Great stuff.
DG: It’s still banned to this day in Cincinnati! It’s fascinating. Marc Edward Heuck, who’s the subject of that featurette, has one of the prints with the police impoundment tag still on it. I love that we were able to do a bonus on the censorship of Vixen!, because Russ ran into that his entire career. He almost welcomed it, because he saw the publicity potential in fighting the moralists who were against his kind of stuff. He knew what he had was not obscene and he believed that, “This is America—people should be allowed to see boobs. These are the kinds of films I make and they should not be off-limits to adults.” This is what Russ was always battling and he kind of enjoyed it in a way.
DD: Spoken like Russ Meyer! Okay, there’s no denying that a number of his films contain some notable violence, vulgarity and racist bits and other transgressive behavior. Have you heard from any of the aforementioned younger generation of cinephiles—people in their twenties, let’s say—and their opinions on the Meyer oeuvre?
DG: We haven’t gotten their feedback yet, but interestingly the people who book the films theatrically have said that there has been some pushback, particularly on Vixen!, because of some of the content of the film. Of course, the film is a product of its time and it dates the film. But Russ clearly was being provocative—he was putting these things in there to get a reaction.
Russ Meyer and the author (l.) at the 1987 Video Software Dealer’s Association (VDSA) convention in Las Vegas in August, 1987.
DD: I thought that trickier material was too cartoonish and heightened overall to be taken seriously, no?
DG: Yeah, exactly. But there was certainly resistance from some audiences. I think that would have pleased Russ, who probably would have taken it one step further and prompted some kind of debate.
DD: One hopes that they also saw the need for transgressive material on films of yesteryear to be made available.
DG: Severin is kind of used to that, particularly as we deal with lots of films from the Sixties and Seventies when exploitation pushed the boundaries of what was acceptable. But in this case, you really see there is also a tendency to note how unique they are. Nobody else was doing Russ Meyer movies—they were very specific and he was very much an auteur.
DD:: What do you think Russ would have thought of the whole idea of his films being restored and re-issued?
DG: He would have done exactly the same himself. That’s why Janice is in constant contact with us about making sure that we’re doing it the way Russ would have done it. The only difference is that Russ probably would have also done the actual distribution and taken the orders himself. But he definitely would have been on the cutting edge of the technology. The fact that he owns the majority of his films himself and controls the film elements is very unique in our experience. As soon as the new technology came in, he would have had the luxury of upgrading the films, putting them in a new format and taken the orders when they came in. In addition to being an incredible filmmaker and a great photographer, he was a very smart businessman. He would not have rested on his laurels and said, “Let’s see how this whole thing turns out.’ He would have been there and on top of it all. And he would have loved it.
Vixen!, Supervixens, and Beneath the Valley of the Ultravixens are currently available through Severin Films and other online dealers.
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