''Mondo Topless'' is a 1966

pseudo-documentary A pseudo-documentary or fake documentary is a film or video production that takes the form or style of a documentary film but does not portray real events. Rather, scripted and fictional elements are used to tell the story. The pseudo-documentary, ...

directed by

Russ Meyer Russell Albion Meyer (March 21, 1922 – September 18, 2004) was an American filmmaker. He was primarily known for writing and directing a successful series of sexploitation films featuring campy humor, sly satire and large-breasted women, wh ...

, featuring Babette Bardot and

Lorna Maitland Lorna Maitland, born Barbara Ann Popejoy (November 19, 1943), is an American film actress. She appeared in three Russ Meyer films: '' Lorna'' (1964), ''Mudhoney'' (1965), and '' Mondo Topless'' (1966). Biography Lorna Maitland was born in Gl ...

among others. It marked Meyer's return to color filmmaking following a two-year "

Gothic Gothic or Gothics may refer to: People and languages *Goths or Gothic people, a Germanic people **Gothic language, an extinct East Germanic language spoken by the Goths **Gothic alphabet, an alphabet used to write the Gothic language ** Gothic ( ...

period" of

black-and-white Black-and-white (B&W or B/W) images combine black and white to produce a range of achromatic brightnesses of grey. It is also known as greyscale in technical settings. Media The history of various visual media began with black and white, ...

"roughies" (most notably ''

Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! ''Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!'' is a 1965 American exploitation film directed by Russ Meyer and co-written by Meyer and Jack Moran. It follows three go-go dancers who embark on a spree of kidnapping and murder in the California desert. The ...

965 Year 965 ( CMLXV) was a common year starting on Sunday of the Julian calendar. Events By place Byzantine Empire * Arab–Byzantine War: Emperor Nikephoros II conquers the fortress cities of Tarsus and Mopsuestia. The Muslim resid ...

that were primarily marketed toward the

drive-in theater A drive-in theater/theatre or drive-in cinema is a form of movie theater, cinema structure consisting of a large outdoor movie screen, a projection booth, a concession stand, and a large parking area for automobiles. Within this enclosed area, c ...

circuit and deemphasized nudity and other sexual content in favor of exaggerated violence. While a straightforward

sexploitation A sexploitation film (or sex-exploitation film) is a class of independently produced, Low-budget film, low-budget feature film that is generally associated with the 1960s and early 1970s, and that serves largely as a vehicle for the exhibition o ...

film, the film owes some debt to the

French New Wave The New Wave (, ), also called the French New Wave, is a French European art cinema, art film movement that emerged in the late 1950s. The movement was characterized by its rejection of traditional filmmaking conventions in favor of experimentat ...

and

cinéma vérité Cinéma vérité (, , ) is a style of documentary filmmaking developed by Edgar Morin and Jean Rouch, inspired by Dziga Vertov's theory about '' Kino-Pravda''. It combines improvisation with use of the camera to unveil truth or highlight subje ...

traditions, and is known to some under the titles ''Mondo Girls'' and ''Mondo Top''. Its tagline: "Two Much For One Man...Russ Meyer's Busty Buxotic Beauties ... Titilating ... Torrid ... Untopable ... Too Much For One Man!" The film was banned in

Finland Finland, officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It borders Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of Bothnia to the west and the Gulf of Finland to the south, ...

Plot

The film presents a snapshot of mid-1960s

San Francisco San Francisco, officially the City and County of San Francisco, is a commercial, Financial District, San Francisco, financial, and Culture of San Francisco, cultural center of Northern California. With a population of 827,526 residents as of ...

before shifting its focus to

strippers A stripper or exotic dancer is a person whose occupation involves performing striptease in a public adult entertainment venue such as a strip club. At times, a stripper may be hired to perform at private events. Modern forms of stripping m ...

, particularly in the context of the city's incipient topless

go-go dancing Go-go dancers are dancers who are employed to entertain crowds at nightclubs or other venues where music is played. Go-go dancing originated in the early 1960s at the French bar Whisky a Gogo, located in the town of Juan-les-Pins. The bar's n ...

craze. (This seminal manifestation of the

Sexual Revolution The sexual revolution, also known as the sexual liberation, was a social movement that challenged traditional codes of behavior related to sexuality and interpersonal relationships throughout the Western world from the late 1950s to the early 1 ...

of the 1960s attenuated the coquettish tableaux and

swing music Swing music is a style of jazz that developed in the United States during the late 1920s and early 1930s. It became nationally popular from the mid-1930s. Swing bands usually featured soloists who would improvise on the melody over the arrangement ...

-underpinned élan of

American burlesque American burlesque is a genre of variety show derived from elements of Victorian burlesque, music hall, and minstrel shows. Burlesque became popular in the United States in the late 1860s and slowly evolved to feature ribald comedy and female nu ...

-era striptease and its immediate derivations in favor of a pruriently libidinous style generally informed by contemporaneous

rock Rock most often refers to: * Rock (geology), a naturally occurring solid aggregate of minerals or mineraloids * Rock music, a genre of popular music Rock or Rocks may also refer to: Places United Kingdom * Rock, Caerphilly, a location in Wale ...

and

soul The soul is the purported Mind–body dualism, immaterial aspect or essence of a Outline of life forms, living being. It is typically believed to be Immortality, immortal and to exist apart from the material world. The three main theories that ...

rhythms; at this juncture, dancers generally remained partially clothed below the waist, although this would evolve in subsequent decades.) The strippers' lives are earnestly portrayed as they reveal the day-to-day realities of

sex work Sex work is "the exchange of sexual services, performances, or products for material compensation. It includes activities of direct physical contact between buyers and sellers as well as indirect sexual stimulation". Sex work only refers to volun ...

, ruminate over their respective bra sizes and articulate their preferences in men, all voiced over while dancing topless to an instrumental surf-style soundtrack. Throughout the film, the narrator talks about the performers as if their "topless movement" is a subculture of the broader

counterculture of the 1960s The counterculture of the 1960s was an anti-establishment cultural phenomenon and political movement that developed in the Western world during the mid-20th century. It began in the early 1960s, and continued through the early 1970s. It is ofte ...

, somewhat tangential to the unbridled cultural transmogrifications of the

beatnik Beatniks were members of a social movement in the mid-20th century, who subscribed to an anti- materialistic lifestyle. They rejected the conformity and consumerism of mainstream American culture and expressed themselves through various forms ...

and

hippie A hippie, also spelled hippy, especially in British English, is someone associated with the counterculture of the 1960s, counterculture of the mid-1960s to early 1970s, originally a youth movement that began in the United States and spread to dif ...

movements of the epoch.

Cast

* Babette Bardot as Bouncy * Pat Barrington as Herself (as Pat Barringer) * Sin Lenee as Lucious * Darlene Gray as Buxotic * Diane Young as Yummy * Darla Paris as Delicious * Donna X as Xciting * Veronique Gabriel as Herself (''Europe in the Raw'' footage) * Greta Thorwald as Herself (''Europe in the Raw'' footage) * Denice Duval as Herself (''Europe in the Raw'' footage) * Abundavita as Herself (''Europe in the Raw'' footage) * Heide Richter as Herself (''Europe in the Raw'' footage) * Gigi La Touche as Herself (''Europe in the Raw'' footage) * Yvette Le Grand as Herself (''Europe in the Raw'' footage) *

as Herself (''Lorna'' screentest footage)

Production

Meyer made the film after his "gothic period" - four dramatic movies he did in black and white, starting with ''Lorna'' and going through to ''

''. It was shot to cash in on the San Francisco "topless boom" of the 1960s.

Documentary traditions

The title ''Mondo Topless'' derives from the series of "mondo" films of the early 1960s. The first and most successful of these was ''

Mondo Cane ''Mondo Cane'' (a somewhat coarse Italian expletive, literally ) is a 1962 Italian mondo documentary film and directed by the trio of Gualtiero Jacopetti, Paolo Cavara, and Franco E. Prosperi, with narration by Stefano Sibaldi. The film ...

'' (''A Dog's World''). The purpose of these films was to bypass censorship laws by presenting both sexual and graphically violent material in a documentary format. ''Mondo Topless'' shares some stylistic similarities with

Jean-Luc Godard Jean-Luc Godard ( , ; ; 3 December 193013 September 2022) was a French and Swiss film director, screenwriter, and film critic. He rose to prominence as a pioneer of the French New Wave film movement of the 1960s, alongside such filmmakers as ...

's collaborative effort, ''Le plus vieux métier du monde'' (''The Oldest Trade in the World''). ''Mondo Topless'', like most other Meyer films, drew much of its inspiration from the more relaxed European attitudes toward sex, and was followed by a host of imitators.

Reception

Author Jimmy McDonogh later wrote, "How is this movie to be taken? An intense magnification of a completely negative sexual mythology? Or only a frenetic drone, an unrelenting meditation on nothingness best put into words by Pat Barringer, the dancer on the electrical tower: 'All that you're doing is a dance it has no meaning whatsoever...'" Roger Ebert wrote ''Mondo Topless'' "is in some ways quite an interesting film, especially for the light it sheds on Meyer's attitude to his big-busted actresses" which mostly features "topless dancers in incongruous situations... The film's real interest is in its sound track, which consists of tape-recorded interviews with the dancers. They talk about the hazards and advantages of having large bosoms. There seems to be something subtly sadistic going on here; Meyer is simultaneously photographing the girls because of their dimensions, and recording them as they complain about their problems ('I have to have my bras custom-made'). This sets up a kind of psychological Mobius strip, and the encounter between the visuals and the words in ''Mondo Topless'' creates the kind of documentary tension Larry Rivers was going for in ''Tits''."RUSS MEYER: King of the Nudies Ebert, Roger. Film Comment; New York Vol. 9, Iss. 1, (Jan/Feb 1973): 35-46. ''Filmink'' noted the film "intersperses a LOT of footage of topless dancing with surprisingly interesting first-person accounts of their work and life and makes one wish Meyer had made more documentaries in his career." Police raided a cinema in Cincinnati where the film was being screened.Film-Makers' Man Shurlock Is the Last Movie Censor By Bob Thomas. The Washington Post and Times-Herald 6 Aug 1967: E3.

References

External links

*
Review of film
at the Spinning Image
''Mondo Topless''
at BFI {{Russ Meyer 1966 films Films directed by Russ Meyer 1960s English-language films Mondo films Films set in San Francisco