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Up!
[Blu-ray 4K]
Blu-ray ALL - United Kingdom - Severin Films Review written by and copyright: Eric Cotenas (11th April 2025). |
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The Film
 Somewhere in the redwoods of California is the castle (actually a stock shot of mad king Ludwig of Bavaria's Neuschwanstein palace) of Adolf… Schwartz (If He Hollers, Let Him Go!'s Edward Schaaf) who keeps a naked Ethiopian chef (Deep Jaws' Elaine Collins) and a gimp-masked Headsperson (Flesh Gordon's Candy Samples) while paying Asian geisha Limehouse (Ilsa, Harem Keeper of the Oil Sheiks' Su Ling) to smother him with her genitals and short-order cook Paul (Blue Summer's Robert McLane) to dress as a pilgrim to whip and sodomize him. His money is the only thing that commands respect, and he apparently has a lot of enemies since Trooper Homer Johnson (Sleepwalkers' Monty Bane) cannot come up with a lead when someone slips a hungry piranha into Schwartz's bath (his screams drowned out by Nazi marching music). The town, however, finds distraction when rich troublemaker Leonard Box (Cyborg 2087's Larry Dean) tries to rape buxom stranger Margo Winchester (The Lost Empire's Raven De La Croix) and gets his spine snapped between her judo-toned thighs. Margo then shacks up with Homer who gets her a job at Alice's Cafe where she is sure to sell a lot of hot dogs. Even Alice (Foul Play's Janet Wood) cannot help but notice her nice can when husband Paul is ogling it; of course, Alice is testing out oversized marital aides with truck driver Gwendolyn (Linda Sue Ragsdale) whenever she passes through town. The thought of a killer in their midst still lingers in sex-addled minds, however, and Margo seems determined to whip the entire town into a horny frenzy including the killer. Coming at the tail end of director Russ Meyer's run of Bosomania films starting around 1968 with Vixen - a period that also included his two studio works Beyond the Valley of the Dolls and The Seven Minutes, 1976's Up! posits a murder mystery that is actually the least interesting aspect of it. The first act roughly a half our of sexual and violent vignettes featuring the main characters as introduced by the film's Greek chorus (Eat at the Blue Fox's Kitten Natividad) running naked through the woods and gyrating on fallen tree trunks breathlessly reciting dubbed prose cobbled together from multiple sources by a pseudonymous Roger Ebert, and she appears about twenty minutes later after we have finally learned how the characters are related to one another and "relate" to one another even more to reiterate the list of suspects; however, while this gets the audience no closer to narrowing down a suspect, each iteration by the chorus of the characters further reduces them to archetypes rather than people, casting certain ones in an increasingly unflattering light and underlining the misogyny and racism inherent in the film's positions of authority with Homer actually becoming more human as his image falters while the more immutable (and "respectable") ones betray inner rot – Paul is "founding father, husband, punisher, lover" – from the killer as "least likely suspect" to the one they wished to protect from corruption or the red herring hulking woodsman Rafe (Gymkata's Bob Schott) whose gargantuan appetites are a source of amusement for the locals until they turn from food and drink to rape in a hysterical climax involving axes and chainsaws. While the murder mystery itself was a dud, the lengthy sequence revealing the killer and their motivation is simultaneously suspenseful and laugh out loud hilarious. Unlike Tinto Brass (All Ladies Do It) whose fetishistic works have been compared to those of Meyer's, Meyer does not associate sexual harmony with happiness, as even the film's married characters here who have happily accepted their partner's partners into bed with them are still screwed up in other ways. Performances are generally over-the-top with only de la Croix's Mae West-esque delivery, Natividad's sprightly chorus standing out, and Wood's understated sweetness standing out. It would be three more years before Meyer made another film with the less impressive Beneath the Valley of the Ultra-Vixens, but perhaps Meyer was having a hard time pivoting in a new direction after stripping everything down to the bone with Up!. 
Video
Self-distributed theatrically by Meyer in 1976 and reissued as "Up! Smokey" in 1978 to cash in on the CB radio craze according to the commentary, Up! was distributed on Meyer's own video label in that tell-tale clamshell with the red cover art and then on laserdisc through a deal with Image Entertainment in 1999 as part of a double feature with Cherry, Harry and Raquel! – with which is shares some thematic and stylistic parallels – and this NTSC video master was what was licensed to Arrow Films in the United Kingdom in a PAL-converted DVD in 2005, followed by a 2006 twelve-disc, eighteen film Russ Meyer Collection and later 2011 thirteen-disc, nineteen film reissue. Up! was also one of a handful Meyer titles licensed to DVD in France as well where it was retitled Mega Vixens. Severin's 2160p24 HEVC 1.85:1 widescreen HDR10 4K UltraHD and 1080p24 MPEG-4 AVC 1.85:1 widescreen Blu-ray discs – the latter also available separately – are identical in encode and content to the editions 4K/Blu-ray combo and Blu-ray editions simultaneously released by Severin stateside. Newly restored in 4K from the original 35mm camera negatives with the audio a composite of a few 35mm prints, the image is absolutely immaculate after the opening credits opticals and a few timestamp intertitles and dissolves. The landscapes are teaming with greenery and rustic textures while bare skin is also flawless (Meyer employed softcore/hardcore starlet and credited associate producer Uschi Digard as body make-up artist). The detail and resolution also greatly aide the performances of the characters, some of which were always over-the-top campy playing to the camera in exaggerated wide angle while others like McLane come across better with understated facial expressions. More so than the older video master, Meyer's color schemes are more obvious including the deliberate use of "lavender" blood for the piranha bath scene. The close-ups of the Headsperson are particularly striking in the contrast of skin, metal zippers, black leather, and wooden ruler in extreme close-up. For all of the concern through the years after Meyer's death about the preservation of his films, this 4K restoration is a stunner. 
Audio
The DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 mono track is also very impressive despite being a composite of multiple sources thanks as much to careful cleaning as the original mix of cleanly-recorded dialogue and post-dubbing – and some particularly striking layering of CB radio voices – along with some pointed use of sound effects until the hysterical climax. Songs contributed by actor Larry Dean are also more audible in the mix. Optional English SDH subtitles are also provided. 
Extras
The film is accompanied by a brand new audio commentary by film historian Elizabeth Purchell who provides plenty of background production history on the film and Meyer's promotion of it in pre-production as well as the shoot – noting that Ebert wrote the Greek chorus dialogue while Digard wrote Schwartz's German dialogue – as well as the cooperation of the citizens of Miranda, California (where Vixen was also shot and Purchell's theories on why Meyer returned there) and their reaction to the film once screened for the fire department's charitable benefit. Purchell also discusses the film's queer sexuality – and Meyer's defense of both his lack of interest in gay sex and his defense of its depiction here when interviewed by The Advocate along with Purchell's suggestion that Meyer is not negatively depicting gay characters as much as lampooning S&M, along with McLane's roles in the omnisexual underground oddity Barbara and the landmark gay film A Very Natural Thing. The commentary also includes discussion of the film in the context of his career, including his studio works and the aborted three picture deal with Fox that included the Boileau-Narcejac book "Choice Cuts" (which was adapted much later by Paramount as Body Parts). "No Fairy Tale... This!" (18:06) is an interview with actress De La Croix who recalls being noticed eating a salad by casting director Samantha Mansour (The Hearse), the questions Meyer asked her at the audition – where she notes that she was not asked to undress – Meyer running the shoot like a "camp" and harrowing behind the scenes stories of her drowning and rape scenes, as well as Meyer getting around shots that she refused to do with doubling from the waist down by actress Foxy Lae. She also recalls doing press with Meyer after the film and how he disliked and disbelieved her more spiritual and gentler side, preferring to see her as the character he created. The disc also includes a radio spot (0:31) for the film. 
Overall
While Russ Meyer may not have been satisfied with Up!, it remains an energetic and amusing work of "Bosomania" with some novel elements.
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