(1965)
2.5
Fred Beldin
Exploitation pioneer Russ Meyer helms this sweaty, swampy, hillbilly melodrama which bursts with bulging bustlines and black emotions. Though the director is famously obsessed with large-breasted women, with Mudhoney he most clearly displays his gift for choosing unique character actors with unforgettable faces. Craggy jowls and pop-eyed countenances abound, most memorably Princess Livingston as local madam Maggie Marie and tree-dwelling village idiot Mickey Fox. Mudhoney also boasts the first Meyer-related appearance of Stuart Lancaster, who would go on to figure in many of the director's best pictures in the decades to come. But it's Hal Hopper who runs away with the film, squeezing every last drop from the juicy villain role of Sidney. Despite his advancing age and thin frame, Hopper's menace is palpable and uncomfortably real, and his slow descent from belligerent drunk to violent lunatic is amazing to watch. There's a smattering of pneumatic blonde nudity thanks to a brassy prostitute and her beautiful deaf-and-dumb sister (Lorna Maitland and Rena Horten respectively), though in the end it will be the eccentricities of Spooner's bizarre citizenry and the sheer madness of Sidney Brenshaw that viewers of Mudhoney will remember.
releases for Mudhoney on AllMovie
Mudhoney (1965)
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Mudhoney
Russ Meyer
More
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December 17, 2002 |
