“Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! is, beyond a doubt, the best movie ever made. It is possibly better than any film that will be made in the future. I first saw the film in 1966 at a local drive-in after being attracted to the radio ad that blared “It will leave a taste of evil in your mouth!” At the time, I was totally unfamiliar with Russ Meyer’s work, but after seeing Faster, Pussycat he became my lifelong idol … Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! is a violent gothic melodrama built around three psychotic go-go girls: Varla, Billie and Rosie. The film opens with an off-screen narrator lecturing the audience about the possibility of running into violent women (“One could be your secretary, your next-door neighbour”) and suddenly cuts to the three stars wildly Watusi-dancing in a bar as dirty old lechers cheer them on (“Go, baby. Go! Go! Go!”). As the credits begin, we hear a group called the Bostweeds sing the title song “Faster Pussycat” and we see Varla, Billie and Rosie cruising around the desert in their three separate Porsches, looking for trouble …”
/ From Shock Value: A Tasteful Book About Bad Taste by John Waters, 1981 /
“Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to violence.” YES! Russ Meyer’s life-changing exploitation masterpiece Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! was released on this day (6 August 1965) in Los Angeles sixty years ago. Pictured: Meyer’s remarkable trio of leading ladies: Lori Williams (Billie), Haji (Rosie) and Tura Satana (Varla). Excitingly, an in-depth documentary about Tura Satana is dropping soon.
