Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! (1965)


director: Russ Meyer
release-year: 1965
genres: thriller, arthouse, cult, sexploitation
countries: USA
languages: English

Most famous as Tarantino influence, Faster, Pussycat is supposed to mark a pivotal advance in both violence and female impoliteness in film.

Or maybe just some dull sexploitation.

A introductory voice-over welcomes us to violence and sex, and then jumps to go-go dancers in sparkly bikinis, and then girls racing down a desert highway. Some Velvet Underground-y growl rock gives way to a trumpet as one of the girls jumps out of her MG convertible and dives into a desert pond. The second and third girls show up shortly after, played in by some Pink Panther-y trumpets.

An MGA, most likely.

The dominant go-go dancer with breasts exploding out of her shirt watches while the two younger ones fight and roll around in the water for some reason. Then they move to the sand, where they fight and roll around for some reason. It cuts suddenly to them drag racing. The girls chatter in the desert about, I think, nothing at all, and dance. It's 7 minutes in and I'm not sure I'm going to make it to the end.

They are go-go dancers, after all.

All three of the girls have notably prominent breasts, and the camera likes to hang out on the ground looking up at them, with nothing but the wispy clouds of the desert sky to frame them. It seems somewhat more of a "these girls are scantily clad for their own enjoyment" than a "these girls are scantily clad for your enjoyment" situation, which was probably not taken particularly well in 1965.

It looks upwards at the men, too.

Some dude drives up with a bikini girl in tow. They ask if they can do time trials in their car. While the dude gets ready for his time trial, his girl starts dancing randomly with the other girls and forgets to time him. She looks uncomfortably young. They all decide to have a race, and it shows 4 straight minutes of identical clips of cars driving in circles. The main go-go girl cheats, wins, steals the guy's stopwatch, and then beats him to death.

His girlfriend doesn't care for murder.

They take his young girlfriend hostage and head down to the gas station, where the goofy dumb gas attendant struggles to open her tank cover while cartoony slide-whistles play over what might be an oboe. The attendant tells them about a wealthy loner living somewhere nearby in the desert, and they speed off with intent.

Finally, a purpose.

The main go-go sneaks up to the rich guy's house, where he's monologuing from his wheelchair about "hurtin' and pain" at his big Lennie of a son while he snuggles a little kitten. They teleport outside to point a shotgun at her and insult women's ability to vote and democrats. She walks away to take a naked shower from a water tank while the men hang around making sexist comments.

He does not flaunt his wealth.

The young girl runs off while they're watching Lennie do his Rocky Horror impression. She runs and finds a guy to help him, but that guy is rich wheelchair man's other son and drives her right back.

T-t-t-t-t-t-t-touch me.

All the sexist men and all the girls have lunch together. They slap each other and fight and monologue about various unrelated topics, seldom acknowledging anything any other characters say. The young girl runs away again. There's a drawn out car chase with a lot of crying. There's a flurry of disputes, leading to head go-go girl killing blonde go-go girl with an impressively long knife throw.

Not even a throwing knife.

The remaining two girls run over the old man and all of his riches come flying out of his wheelchair. Lennie guts the french go-go girl while the main one collects the cash.

It may or may not be intentional.

The final girl tries to squish Lennie with her car, but Lennie is stronger than cars and benchpresses the whole vehicle away.

I wanna be diiiiiirty.

There's one more car chase and some karate before the young kidnapped girl manages to mow the final go-go girl down with a jeep. It cuts to credits without any attempt at a wrap up.

The obsession with trains is never explained.