Welcome to B-Movie Enema. This week, we enter week #2 of Russ Meyer Month II. Admittedly, last week was a rough one, and not a very good way to get things started. It wasn’t very good. It was hardly sexy. It was 70 minutes of exceptionally loose structure and too much plot for what we need from Meyer.

I have a great deal more faith in this week’s selection. The year is 1965. I would argue this was maybe the most important year in Meyer’s career. In the first half of the year, his 1964 German co-production Fanny Hill made its way stateside. The movie’s success was likely boosted by 1964’s Lorna which proved to be so controversial that it grossed roughly a million bucks on a $37,000 budget. Shortly after Fanny Hill was released, Mudhoney made it to theaters. That is a great little flick.

Later, in the late summer of 1965, Meyer’s most influential film, Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! was unleashed to the world. It would inspire movies featuring bad ass women. It would act as a muse to the music industry for decades. Released one week later, but just before making Faster, Pussycat!, Meyer made another movie that would feature a roving gang of nogoodniks. That’s what we’re focusing on this week. This week’s movie, and the best title of all the films getting the review treatment this month by a wide margin, is Motorpsycho!

Motorpsycho will have some similar themes to Faster, Pussycat! like sex and violence. Whereas the more famous of the two featured three go-go dancers angrily fighting back against the world, this movie features a male motorcycle gang doing some pretty bad shit. This will also get into some revenge too.

This film has a few recognizable folks in it. First up, leading the entire cast is Haji. She’s best known for Faster, Pussycat!, but we’ve seen her in Beyond the Valley of the Dolls, Supervixens, and Demonioid too. Hell, she even had a small part in Ilsa, Harem Keeper of the Oil Sheiks.

The second recognizable person in this movie is Alex Rocco. Rocco would make his onscreen debut in this film, but would go on to have nearly 200 credits. His best-known role was as Moe Greene in The Godfather. Greene would work for 50 years until he passed away in 2015. We’ll also find Coleman Francis in this movie. If you’re a fan of Mystery Science Theater 3000, you know who Francis is. He mostly was known as an actor, accumulating nearly 40 credits. However, we Msties know him best as the writer and director of a trio of real stinkers – The Beast of Yucca Flats, The Skydivers, and Red Zone Cuba. All three were featured on the riffing show.

The origin of these incredibly influential and popular films from Meyer came about because of his constant fights with the censorship board. Anyone who made nudies was subject to these battles, but Lorna really tipped the scales for Meyer. While, yes, the movie would go on to great success and make a whole lotta cash, Maryland, Florida, and Pennsylvania sued the film for obscenity. Outside those states, though, the film did gangbusters and even played in some art houses. But the battle had taken its toll on Meyer. So he was looking for something more along the lines of thrillers and action films to focus on. He could still get his sexy ladies, but his films, at least for a short while, would move away from the more explicit sexual themes and push those a little more to the undertones of the films instead. It’s here that Meyer would really become a force to be reckoned with at drive-ins and downtown cinemas.

Also, as I mentioned last week, most of the movies picked this month for Russ Meyer Month II were due to their titles. OBVIOUSLY, Motorpsycho has an absolute bitchin’ title and had to make the cut. In fact, there is a Norwegian band that took their name from the movie. They watched a triple feature and discovered that Mudhoney already took their name from one of the films, and there was also already a band named Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! So, they went with the remaining available name, Motorpsycho.

Russ Meyer sure does know how to open a movie, huh? That is the very first frame of the film – a sunbathing Arshalouis Aivazian. Trying to get the attention of her husband fishing in a nearby stream, she jumps into the water and grabs hold of the line telling him he’s got the greatest catch of his life on the line. She ain’t wrong.

Enter the nogoodniks! A trio of bikers come tearing down the road. They decide to make a slight diversion from their original path toward Las Vegas. This leads the gang directly to that aforementioned bathing beauty. The leader of the gang, Brahmin, decides she just simply needs to be hassled. He goes up to her while she sleeps and begins kissing her. When she wakes up and realizes that this is not her husband, she appropriately freaks the fuck out. She calls for her husband, Frank, to come. Now… Kids, this is 1965. People back then looked a lot older than they were. So I have to assume that Frank is somewhere between the ages of 30 and 65. He’s just one guy against a trio of bikers and one of those bikers is a Vietnam vet.

Surprisingly, Frank gets a couple good hits on two of the bikers, Dante and Slick, but Brahmin is wiley and vicious. He kicks the lady’s old man right in the face with his boot and then beats the shit out of him. This, of course, means he can turn his attention back to Frank’s wife. We don’t see exactly what happens, but it seems very likely that Brahmin, and at least one of the other two, had his way with her.

We now shift focus to the Maddox couple, Cory and Gail. Cory is a veterinarian making a house call. Gail, played by Holle K. Winters, is slightly frustrated that Cory is so attentive to his patients. She decides to make her way into town to talk to a friend. Now, Gail is really really hot. Like, really hot. Unfortunately for her, those motorpsychos are heading into town and they are going to definitely notice her.

Cory, finished with his examination, breaks it all up. Brahmin knocks the doc’s bag out of his hand and Doc Cory pushes the gang leader off his bike. He spots Cory’s name on the back of his Jeep as he drives away. But, hey… Cory seems to be something of a badass and that’s awesome. Super-Vet! The doctor who has a prescription to kick your ass!

This quite heavily turns ol’ Gail on. She wakes up in the middle of the night to find that Super-Vet is not with her in bed. She finds him looking over some of his practice’s books. She tells him, all set to wonderful sexy lounge music, that she sure would like for him to come back to bed with her.

And, he does! Super-Vet! The doctor who has a prescription to nail his wife into oblivion!

The next day, Super-Vet goes over to see a rich patient’s pregnant horse. This rich client of his, Jessica, is all tits and sex drive, just like every Russ Meyer character. She’s played by Sharon Lee. She sure would like for Super-Vet to give her an injection of his very own Ivermectin.

I’m sorry… That was just gross. That’s just a foul joke. I should strike it from this review. But I won’t. Let’s just carry on.

Just as foul as that Ivermectin thing, the bikers are also making a house call – to see Gail Maddox. They are forcing themselves on her by making her dance. Slick is making long-distance calls to his mother. If Super-Vet was here, he’d destroy these losers, but, sadly, the blonde bimbo with the horse has him distracted.

What’s crazy, is Cory is actually making out with Jessica. He does admit to playing games with her. Partly, he was curious. Partly, he didn’t want to offend an important client. But all of that means he was especially late getting home to defend against the motorpsychos. The next time we see them, Gail has a bloodied nose and Dante and Brahmin are ready to get to business. Gail does knee Brahmin in the balls, but that only makes him that much more violent and forceful with her.

Cory is getting a refill on fuel when he sees the bikers riding back in the opposite direction. He rushes home. Gail is in pretty bad shape. She’s being taken to the hospital. He gets there before the ambulance drives off and he learns she’s been “criminally assaulted” which I think is 1965 code for “brutally raped”.

And, hey, it’s Sheriff Russ Meyer there on the right!

On the way to the hospital, Officer Russ asks if Gail knew anyone who rode motorbikes. A neighbor called him on a peace disturbance call and told the cops that there was a crazy party going on at the Maddox place. He arrived just after three hoodlums on motorcycles left. He kind of insinuates that she invited this behavior. Super-Vet gets super pissed at the remark calling out her bruises and cuts on her face.

Despite Copper Russ saying he’ll eventually catch the three bikers, Cory knows that justice will be too slow for his tastes.

Coming the other way, the Bonners, Ruby (Haji) and Harry (Coleman Francis), are riding along and in the middle of a fight. It’s clear that this is one of those convenience marriages. He likes having a stacked hot wife and she wanted out of the bayou. They do not get along.

Their car breaks down on the side of the road. He thinks she’ll help him change the flat tire on the truck. She decides to take a dump behind a bush instead. As he gets to work on the tire, the motorpsychos come by and decide to hassle the old man. By hassle, I mean they beat the shit out of him.

Ruby comes back to the truck and tries to de-escalate the situation by asking if they are going to help the old man change the tire. Dante just decides to honk one of her boobs instead. She slaps him. When he comes back to smack her around, Brahmin tosses the punk to the ground.

As if this whole situation can’t get much worse, Harry tells Brahmin and Dante that she’s Cajun. He asks them if they know what they say about French girls. They could take turns on her if they like. She tries to slap and kick Harry, but the bikers break it up. Slick found Harry’s shotgun in the back of the truck. When Harry tries to wrestle it out of his hands, the gun accidentally goes off and it kills Harry.

Ruby tries running away, but Brahmin uses the shotgun to shoot her in the back. He then shoots each of their bikes in the engine so they can steal the Bonners’ truck and make themselves a little harder to find. As they drive off, Cory comes the other way and finds Ruby who is still alive despite seemingly being shot. Ruby wakes up and Cory tells her she was shot but the bullet only grazed her forehead.

And, now, Ruby and Cory will team up to avenge her husband and his wife and get those motherfuckin’ greaseball bikers and give them what for!

I don’t mind saying that this movie is kind of fucking awesome. We have two people who are out for revenge. One is a badass veterinarian. One is a spicy-ass Cajum babe. It’s like the Russ Meyer version of Batman and Robin and I’m here for it.

If our two leads are essentially Batman and Robin, then the bikers are collectively the Joker. They are simply agents of chaos. They go from town to town and just do the absolute worst shit. They are also three very different guys. Brahmin is the brains and the most competent of the trio. Dante is the itchy trigger finger of the three. Slick is only interested in his tiny handheld radio. He just wants to groove to his hep beats, maaaaan. It’s great.

What’s also great is how often characters pass each other in the streets. The bikers, now driving Harry’s truck, need to get gas. When they take off, they cross paths with Cory’s Jeep. I love shit like this because Dante figures out that it’s the vet and the old man’s broad. Just then it hard cuts to Haji turned around in the Jeep and shouting that it was her old man’s truck. It’s cut well, it’s high energy, and it’s fun.

So this leads to a chase where the bikers decide to drive ahead and then stop and get out to shoot at the Dynamic Duo. Brahmin flattens the tire of the Jeep, While they aren’t able to stop the bikers, the one thing that they do accomplish is that Brahmin exhausts his ammo for the shotgun. They head off on the road and Cory says they are headed to a dead end as that direction only leads to a pit mine.

Cory then gets bitten by a rattlesnake and forces Ruby to cut the bite open and suck the venom out. Meanwhile, the bikers are considering how much in the middle of nowhere they are in the desert. Brahmin offers Slick and chance to cut out. Slick, only interested in music, decides to go and as he walks away, Brahmin shoots him with the reloaded rifle and kills him. He then asks Dante if he’d like to leave too, but he’s not as stupid as Slick was.

The bikers eventually run out of gas and have to hoof it. Dante thinks they are trapped in the middle of nowhere with no place to go. Brahmin says it’s quite the opposite. He points out where they will hide and wait for when Cory and Ruby eventually catch up to them.

Speaking of, Cory is recovering from the rattlesnake bite. He learns a little more about Ruby’s life. She grew up in St. Charles, Louisiana. She talks about her father running off. She met a sailor from New Orleans who only wanted her as a mistress, so she told him to get lost and she went out on her own from that point forward. She eventually went broke. That’s when she met Harry at a diner she was working at. He was headed to Los Angeles and she wanted to go with him. They married and the rest was history.

Back at the mine, Dante thinks something had to have happened because Cory should have been there by now. He wonders if he doubled back to get the fuzz. He suggests to Brahmin they should split. Brahmin just says they are to wait there for the chopper. Dante realizes that his ol’ pal is having a pretty significant Vietnam flashback.

Things aren’t exactly going well for Cory and Ruby either. Cory starts getting really chilled and possibly going into shock. Ruby has to help him with body heat. But while they sleep, Dante comes to try to steal the Jeep. It wakes her up and he tries to reason with her. He wasn’t the one that shot her. He wasn’t the one who shot Harry. She could clear his name with the fuzz or, at the very least, stay quiet about things so he can just leave and never come back.

He comments on how she is a pretty groovy chick and that he could really go for her if she just kept her mouth shut. She uses this to her advantage. She says that he doesn’t want to kill her, he wants to make love to her, and she opens her dress. In one way, this works because he drops the bar that he had to change the tire, but in the other way, it backfires because he begins trying to rape her.

Good for her, though, Cory’s knife is nearby and she uses it to stab and kill Dante.

The next morning, the Jeep’s tire is fixed and Cory and Ruby continue on. On the way, they find Slick’s body. So they know they only have Brahmin left. They get to the mine but can’t find him. Cory doesn’t see him by Harry’s truck and is unsure where Brahmin went. Brahmin, from his tactical position, ends up shooting Ruby in the chest. They hide and Cory says Ruby needs a doctor and a hospital and asks to let them go and he’ll let Brahmin go.

Brahmin goes on and on about how he knows they are Commies and their asking to remove their wounded is the oldest trick in the book. It’s very clear Brahmin is completely out of his mind. Cory realizes he does have something he can use to fight back. Where they are bunkered to protect against Brahmin shooting at them, Cory finds some dynamite.

As Brahmin gets ever closer to where they are hiding, Cory lights the dynamite and throws it right where Brahmin will stand to find them. As he stands over them ready to shoot them both dead, the dynamite explodes, exploding Brahmin with it.

Motorpsycho is a pretty darn good flick. It’s not needlessly complicated… for the most part. It’s a little weird that Brahmin is a completely whacked-out vet with bad flashbacks. It’s a little more straightforward if he simply just was a psychopath, but whatever. It’s fine. In some ways, I take that to be that much more interesting because this is 1965. Vietnam was, what most people don’t fully realize, a 20-year war. We mostly think of it as a war that took place from about 1966 to maybe about 1973, but it really went from 1955 to 1975. Then, on top of that, we don’t see too many movies about the effects on the soldiers until the late 70s. So, in many ways, this movie is ahead of its time in dealing with a broken war veteran.

I digress… The movie is only 73 minutes long. That means it is paced just right for a very personal revenge plot. It’s actually paced similarly to what a TV movie of the early 70s would have been. But the simplicity of there being three bikers causing trouble, they like to rape and pillage and be general nuisances, and they raped a guy’s wife who decides to do something about it. He’s later joined by a babe who was also part of a separate attack and they have to deal with the bikers. That’s it. Nice and simple, but it also has an edge to it.

This is in that era of Mudhoney and Faster, Pussycat! that Meyer had these really interesting characters. What makes, say, Haji (or even Alex Rocco as Cory for that matter) a sexy character is that she’s not a perfect person in this movie. Ruby has some character issues. So does Cory. I don’t know if I want my veterinarian to be a revenge-minded, at times domineering when it comes to having Ruby suck the venom out of his leg, nut. However, Cory is definitely standing up against a threat to people’s safety. It’s not like Brahmin and gang only messed with him. They messed with everyone they encountered.

Still, the movie’s plot knew exactly how long its welcome would be good for. At 73 minutes, it knew it was time to explode the bad guy. And then it did. That’s what you call good filmmaking and this is an excellent bounce-back from last week’s disappointing first entry.

Next time, join me for the next entry in Russ Meyer Month II as we play a game of Finders Keepers, Lovers Weepers!