Review of Immoral Mr Teas / Eve And The Handyman

Introduction

Russell Albion Meyer (1923-2004) was one of that great cadre of directors who worked as far outside the Hollywood system as it was possible to go and still be in California. You can rank him alongside fellow oddballs Herschell Gordon Lewis, William "One Shot" Beaudine and the legendary Ed Wood Jr. All made movies on pocket change, full of ingenuity, bad acting and a frequent disregard for the niceties of continuity. Of them all, Russ Meyer was possibly the most mainstream, making most of his movies in colour and having proper scripts (written by proper writers including movie critic Roger Ebert). A skilled cinematographer and photographer in his own right, his movies are technically superior to the works of the other directors cited above. The movies, however, remain classics of the exploitation genre inhabited by all those directors.

Exploitation pictures were the staple of the drive-in, aimed at adolescents and their dates throughout the 1950s and 1960s. Meyer outlasted the genre, working into the 1970s and beyond as the drive-in market vanished to be replaced by the seedy Grindhouse theatres beloved of Quentin Tarantino and Roberto Rodriguez.

While cartoonish violence was a staple of Meyers` output (as with much exploitation fare), he eschewed the traditional subgenres of horror and cod-social-comment to concentrate on his greatest love:

Tits.

Russ Meyer was the original breast man. All of his movies without exception delight in the mammary. Between 1959 and 1979 he made a whole series of crazed comedies populated by ugly, trailer trash ordinary folks and pneumatic Amazons. Cornerstoning the Meyer legacy is the "Vixen" trilogy, reviewed elsewhere on this site. This disc, however, is part of the second wave of Meyer titles - the lesser known and earlier movies

Stylistically, the two films on this disc are simple comedies. There is something reminiscent of the Lad Himself, Benny Hill in them. They are loaded with sight gags and musical cues rather than dialogue, and the violence of his movies post-Faster Pussycat is missing. Meyer of course goes further with nudity than the blessed Benny ever did. Meyer`s treatment of nudity in his films is redolent of the old-fashioned "stag film" genre (which predates modern p0rn but goes back as far as moving picture film does and further). I suppose the nearest thing the UK ever produced to Russ Meyer was George Harrison Marks.

The Immoral Mr Teas (1959) was Meyer`s directorial debut (although there is evidence of a "lost" Meyer film dating from 1950 called "The French Peep Show"). "Teas" was in fact banned by the British Board of Film Censors on its original release, and still merits an 18 rating for its wobbly bits.

Bill Teas stars as the cleavage-obsessed, titular character, a boater-hatted beardie who fantasises all day about naked and semi-naked women. Dialogue-free and accompanied by a voice-over, the movie is a series of sight-gag vignettes as Mr Teas goes through a normal sort of day as a door-to-door dental equipment salesman, thinking non-stop of sex as most red-blooded men of the late 1950s did.

Eve And The Handyman followed in 1961 (the intervening Eroticon, also 1961 is not included in this series of releases so far). Shot in San Francisco and starring Meyer`s Playboy Playmate wife Eve, who shadows the Handyman of the title (Anthony James Ryan) like a private eye. What follows is a series of unlinked gag sequences where the handyman goes about his day`s work encountering a series of busty beauties (all played by the curvaceous Mrs Meyer). This movie is even more Benny Hillish than Mr Teas as we`re treated to a whole bunch of visual gags including a lengthy gag riffing on the idea of a Tree Surgeon.

Video

Both movies were made in Eastmancolor and are transferred in their original 4:3 aspect ratio.

The thing that strikes you about Meyer`s work is just how colourful it is. He frequently uses single-colour backgrounds for shots, and the sheer in-your-face colour of some shots is quite striking.

On both movies there is quite a bit of print damage, particularly during the first few minutes, but considering that negatives and master prints have survived through the care of the director himself rather than storage under vault conditions, they look pretty damn good.

Audio

A very tinny mono mix reproduced as Dolby Digital 2.0

Features

There are two tv spots for the DVD collection and a trailer reel which is present on all the releases in this series. Unfortunately there are no subtitles.

Conclusion

Two charmingly silly nudie comedies from the master of sixties kitsch Russ Meyer. Made in the late 1950s and early 1960s, these movies are real documents of their age, depicting an era that is pretty much long gone - a USA that was very straight-laced and stick-in-the-mud but which under the surface bubbled with a barely contained subversiveness that would finally manifest itself in the psychedelic era.