Russ Meyer directed this mondo film immediately after the commercial disappointment of his now classic Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! Despite being considerably less interesting than that earlier movie, Mondo Topless did far greater business at the box office. It seems pretty obvious to me that this was on account of its no messing high-concept - i.e. The promise of large breasts - and beautiful provocative promo posters. In the event, it is kind of a boring film to watch from start-to-finish unfortunately, but, as you can probably imagine, it still definitely has its individual moments.
Like all Meyer movies, this one has a pretty solid dependency on its female cast and it boasts quite a number of pneumatic girls. The standout for this viewer has to be Babette Bardot (she of the iconic posters), who we see driving her car in glorious twin-peaked profile on several occasions. And it's definitely always a bonus to see Lorna Maitland, who appears in some behind-the-scenes stuff from Lorna. If the film in general was to be broken down into its basic parts it would be dancing, narration and fast edits. The narration combines knowingly over-the-top nonsense from a male narrator and voice-overs from the various strippers about their personal lives, as we watch them bust some moves. Its all underscored too by a particularly relentless soundtrack of garage rock guitar instrumentals. Despite the presence of all these lovely women in states of undress, it does get a bit tedious after a while though, given the overall sameyness of so many of the routines, the high-speed edits taking us from one girl to the next and the relentless soundtrack. Still, it wouldn't be a Meyer film if it didn't look good and this one is no different on that score, with loads of well composed static shots and a constant accent on making the women look great. There's a particularly fabulous shot of one of the girls booging on down, as an incoming train fires towards the camera at speed - its ideas like this that really show Meyer's unique eye in full splendour. So, overall, not the most engaging watch in truth but if you like buxom women and you like to see them photographed really nicely, well, this one is certainly worth a look at least.
Like all Meyer movies, this one has a pretty solid dependency on its female cast and it boasts quite a number of pneumatic girls. The standout for this viewer has to be Babette Bardot (she of the iconic posters), who we see driving her car in glorious twin-peaked profile on several occasions. And it's definitely always a bonus to see Lorna Maitland, who appears in some behind-the-scenes stuff from Lorna. If the film in general was to be broken down into its basic parts it would be dancing, narration and fast edits. The narration combines knowingly over-the-top nonsense from a male narrator and voice-overs from the various strippers about their personal lives, as we watch them bust some moves. Its all underscored too by a particularly relentless soundtrack of garage rock guitar instrumentals. Despite the presence of all these lovely women in states of undress, it does get a bit tedious after a while though, given the overall sameyness of so many of the routines, the high-speed edits taking us from one girl to the next and the relentless soundtrack. Still, it wouldn't be a Meyer film if it didn't look good and this one is no different on that score, with loads of well composed static shots and a constant accent on making the women look great. There's a particularly fabulous shot of one of the girls booging on down, as an incoming train fires towards the camera at speed - its ideas like this that really show Meyer's unique eye in full splendour. So, overall, not the most engaging watch in truth but if you like buxom women and you like to see them photographed really nicely, well, this one is certainly worth a look at least.