Up! (1976)

User Rating:

6.3/10   

Director:

Russ Meyer

Writers:

Roger Ebert (writer)
Russ Meyer (writer)

Release Date:

7 December 1983 (France)

Genre:

Comedy

Tagline:

Meet Margot the Magnificent Superchick!

Plot:

This kicks off with the murder of one Adolf Schwartz (who bears a striking resemblance to another famous...

Plot Keywords:

Piranha | Rape | Surrealism | Nazi | Male Frontal Nudity

Cast

Edward Schaaf	...	Adolph Schwartz
Robert McLane	...	Paul
Elaine Collins	...	The Ethopian Chef
Candy Samples	...	The Headsperson (as Mary Gavin)
Su Ling	...	Limehouse
Janet Wood	...	Sweet Li'l Alice
Linda Sue Ragsdale	...	Gwendolyn
Raven De La Croix	...	Margo Winchester
Monty Bane	...	Homer Johnson
Marianne Marks	...	Chesty Young Thing
Larry Dean	...	Leonard Box
Bob Schott	...	Rafe
Foxy Lae	...	Pocohontas
Ray Reinhardt	...	The Commissioner
Kitten Natividad	...	The Greek Chorus

Also Known As:

Over, Under and Up!
Russ Meyer's Up
Up! Smokey

Runtime:

80 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color (Eastmancolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

UK:18 (video rating) (2005) | UK:18 (video rating) (1998) (1999) (cut) | UK:X (original rating) (cut) | Australia:R | Finland:K-15 (DVD) (2006) | Finland:K-18 (video) (199?) | Italy:VM14 (DVD) | Canada:(Banned) (Ontario) | Canada:18+ (Quebec) | France:-16 | New Zealand:R18 (cut) | USA:X | West Germany:18 (cut)

Trivia:

Kitten Natividad's lines were dubbed by another performer.

Quotes:

Rafe: Double-chili, heavy mustard, behold the onion.

Movie Connections:

References Psycho (1960)

Up Movie Review from The Massie Twins

Outrageously gratuitous and excessive in every sense of the word, Russ Meyer's Up! cleverly mixes busty babes, bloody violence, blouse-busting femme fatales, and well-endowed vixens into an erotic comedy of epic proportions. The fact that the plot is a murder-mystery that no one cares to solve, a narration by Kitten Natividad is bursting with Shakespearean poetry explaining characters no one cares to profile, and unimportant timeframe titles keep popping up as each scene starts hardly matters; anyone watching Up! is clearly in it for the over-the-top exploitation and generous doses of female nudity.

Kitten Natividad is the Greek Chorus, a naked narrator who excitedly details the wide assortment of characters who frequent the various story lines. Frequently she'll recap events with slightly different clips of footage and plenty of elaborate, riddle-filled, lyrical observations. Adolf Schwartz (Edward Schaaf), a depraved Nazi warlock and S&M fetishist, is brutally murdered in his bubblebath with the deadly fish Harry the Nimrod. There are many suspects, courteously announced by Kitten, but little motive and fewer complaints. It's a baffling puzzle with only the clue of a black-leather-gloved culprit.

Meanwhile, Margo Winchester (Raven De La Croix) is viciously attacked during a morning jog, and winds up accidentally killing her rapist. When the entire event is witnessed by local policeman Homer Johnson (Monty Bane), he coerces her into a few sexual favors to overlook the killing. Later, she gets work selling hotdogs at Sweet Li'l Alice's (Janet Wood) Cafe; in short order she's also "romantically" involved with Alice's husband Paul (Robert McLane).

As with most of Russ Meyer's X-rated voluptuous hellcat extravaganzas, the extreme sexual violence, overflowing testosterone and copious mounts of salacious nudity is done in such a jaunty manner that it's undeniably humorous. It's campy, pornographic, and wallowing in a sea of carnality, but effective in its mission of unrefined eroticism and gung ho extravagance. When Alice and Margot discover their bridled, steamy bisexuality when consoling each other with a sensual hug seconds after barely escaping a traumatizing sexual incursion, it's obvious that the whole ordeal is a well-planned setup for a spicy, fleshly girls-only encounter.

The film opens with ludicrously happy music, changing over to dramatic, orchestral, country, classic rock, patriotic, swashbuckling and everything in-between, even delivering wittily-placed Beethoven. Painfully bad dubbing and poor sound effects round out notable technical aspects, although it's almost unfair to critique how the movie was made considering the reason for its creation. With a creative zipper-cam shot, oodles of random sex, a crazed ax-wielding lumberjack, bondage, lesbianism, constantly unsheathed bosoms, bottomless ecstasy and overload of chesty pulchritudinous and lots of unnecessary explanations and dialogue during the lengthy birthday-suit final chase sequence, Russ Meyer's Up! should definitely not be confused with Pixar's latest computer animated family film.

- Mike Massie