''Vixen!'' is a 1968 American

drama film In film and television, drama is a category or genre of narrative fiction (or semi-fiction) intended to be more serious than humorous in tone. The drama of this kind is usually qualified with additional terms that specify its particular ...

and

satiric Satire is a genre of the visual, literary, and performing arts, usually in the form of fiction and less frequently non-fiction, in which vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, often with the intent of exposing or ...

softcore Soft core or Softcore may refer to: * Softcore microprocessor, microprocessor implemented using logic synthesis and perhaps other circuits * Soft core (synthesis), a digital circuit that can be wholly implemented using logic synthesis * Soft roc ...

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

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 ...

and starring

Erica Gavin Erica Gavin (born Donna Graff; July 22, 1947) is an American film actress best known for playing the title role in Russ Meyer's 1968 film '' Vixen!''. Early years Gavin was born in Los Angeles, California, daughter of blacklisted actor Fred Gra ...

. It was the first film to be given an

X rating An X rating is a film rating that indicates that the film contains content that is considered to be suitable only for adults. Films with an X rating may have scenes of graphic violence or explicit sexual acts that may be disturbing or offensive ...

for its

sex scenes Sexual content has been found in Film, films since the early days of the Film industry, industry, and the presentation of aspects of human sexuality, sexuality in film, especially human sexuality, has been controversial since the development of the ...

, and was a breakthrough success for Meyer. The film was developed from a script by Meyer and Anthony James Ryan. The film concerns the adventures of the oversexed Vixen (Gavin), as she sexually manipulates everyone she meets. The story's

taboo A taboo is a social group's ban, prohibition or avoidance of something (usually an utterance or behavior) based on the group's sense that it is excessively repulsive, offensive, sacred or allowed only for certain people.''Encyclopædia Britannica ...

-violations mount quickly, including themes of

incest Incest ( ) is sexual intercourse, sex between kinship, close relatives, for example a brother, sister, or parent. This typically includes sexual activity between people in consanguinity (blood relations), and sometimes those related by lineag ...

and

racism Racism is the belief that groups of humans possess different behavioral traits corresponding to inherited attributes and can be divided based on the superiority of one Race (human categorization), race or ethnicity over another. It may also me ...

Plot

At a

Canadian Canadians () are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of their being ''C ...

wilderness resort, sultry and sexually assertive Vixen Palmer lives happily married with her husband Tom, a bush pilot and owner of a tourist lodge. The

hypersexual Hypersexuality is a proposed medical condition said to cause unwanted or excessive sexual arousal, causing people to engage in or think about sexual activity to a point of distress or impairment., according to the website of ''Psychology Toda ...

Vixen nevertheless seduces anyone within reach including a

Mountie The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP; , GRC) is the Law enforcement in Canada, national police service of Canada. The RCMP is an agency of the Government of Canada; it also provides police services under contract to 11 Provinces and terri ...

, a couple her husband brings home as clients – the husband first, his wife later, and eventually her own brother, Judd. The only person she will not have sex with is Judd's friend Niles, an

African American African Americans, also known as Black Americans and formerly also called Afro-Americans, are an Race and ethnicity in the United States, American racial and ethnic group that consists of Americans who have total or partial ancestry from an ...

Vietnam War The Vietnam War (1 November 1955 – 30 April 1975) was an armed conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia fought between North Vietnam (Democratic Republic of Vietnam) and South Vietnam (Republic of Vietnam) and their allies. North Vietnam w ...

deserter, whom Vixen verbally abuses with racist insults. A wealthy Irish tourist (who is really a Marxist

Irish Republican Army The Irish Republican Army (IRA) is a name used by various Resistance movement, resistance organisations in Ireland throughout the 20th and 21st centuries. Organisations by this name have been dominantly Catholic and dedicated to anti-imperiali ...

sympathizer) entices the couple to fly him and – against Vixen's protestations – Niles to the United States. In the air, he attempts to hijack the small

Cessna 177 Cardinal The Cessna 177 Cardinal is a light single-engine, high-wing general aviation aircraft produced by Cessna. It was intended to replace the Cessna 172 Skyhawk. First announced in 1967, it was produced from 1968 to 1978.Christy, Joe: ''The Comple ...

to Cuba, taking Vixen and her pilot husband as hostages. Niles is reluctant to take sides, but, after some altercations, Tom and Niles overwhelm the perpetrator. In return for his support, Tom helps Niles escape the US customs; as they are parting, Niles and Vixen conciliate. At the end of the film, her husband takes on another couple and Vixen smiles in a sinister and disturbing way, apparently planning to seduce them. The final slide reads "The End?".

Production

Erica Gavin was a dancer in clubs who knew women who had acted in other Meyer films. She answered an advertisement seeking actors for ''Vixen'' and was cast. Meyer recalled, "Bravely I went up to the location for Vixen without a leading lady and left a couple of my henchmen to try to find somebody. It's always difficult. But Erica had a curious quality about her. She didn't have the greatest body, you know. She didn't have the up-thrust breasts like the others." The film was shot in

Miranda, California Miranda (formerly Jacobsen's) is a census-designated place in Humboldt County, California. It is located northwest of Phillipsville, at an elevation of . The ZIP Code is 95553. The population was 520 at the 2010 census. The name Miranda was ...

. Many of the opening scenes were filmed in Victoria, BC, Canada. During the film, assistant director George Costello had a relationship with Gavin, which led to the end of Costello's professional relationship with Meyer. Erica Gavin, on the other hand, went on to shoot one more movie with Meyer. Meyer said the sex scene between Vixen and her brother "was the best of them all. She rica Gavinreally displayed an animal quality that I've never been able to achieve before – the way she grunted and hung in there and did her lines. It was a really remarkable job... I've done a lot of jokey screwing but there's something about Erica and her brother that was just remarkable... treally represents the way I like to screw."

Reception

The film was a huge box office success. Meyer later attributed this to the fact "it was so frank for its time. And a lot of it had to be attributed to Erica Gavin. She had a quality that also appealed to women. And women came in great numbers."Russ Meyer: Ten Years After the 'Beyond' Ebert, Roger. Film Comment; New York Vol. 16, Iss. 4, (Jul/Aug 1980): 43-48,80. Meyer later elaborated:

I think an awful lot of women would have liked to have been able to act like Vixen a few times in their lives. To have an afternoon in which they could have laid three guys, have an affair with their best girl friend, that would straighten a lot of people out... Everything she ixentouched was improved. She didn't destroy, she helped. If there was a marriage that was kind of dying on the vine, she injected something into it which made it better... I think that every man at one time or another would thoroughly enjoy running into an aggressive female like Vixen... She was like a switch-hitter. You show this girl as being like a utility outfielder: she could cover all the positions.SEX, VIOLENCE AND DRUGS ALL IN GOOD FUN! Berkowitz, Stan. Film Comment; New York Vol. 9, Iss. 1, (Jan/Feb 1973): 47-51.

Meyer said he used sex in the film to make points about racial bigotry and communism.

Critical reception

The ''

Los Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' is an American Newspaper#Daily, daily newspaper that began publishing in Los Angeles, California, in 1881. Based in the Greater Los Angeles city of El Segundo, California, El Segundo since 2018, it is the List of new ...

'' called the film "good clean fun for adults... may well be Meyer's best film to date". The ''

New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...

'' called it "slick, lascivious."

Roger Ebert Roger Joseph Ebert ( ; June 18, 1942 – April 4, 2013) was an American Film criticism, film critic, film historian, journalist, essayist, screenwriter and author. He wrote for the ''Chicago Sun-Times'' from 1967 until his death in 2013. Eber ...

called it "the quintessential Russ Meyer film... Meyer's ability to keep his movies light and farcical took the edge off the sex for people seeing their first skin-flick. By the time he made ''Vixen'', Meyer had developed a directing style so open, direct and good-humored that it dominated his material. He was willing to use dialogue so ridiculous... situations so obviously tongue-in-cheek, characters so incredibly stereotyped and larger than life, that even his most torrid scenes usually managed to get outside themselves. ''Vixen'' was not only a good skin-flick, but a merciless satire on the whole genre."RUSS MEYER: King of the Nudies Ebert, Roger. Film Comment; New York Vol. 9, Iss. 1, (Jan/Feb 1973): 35-46.

References

External links