Harold Chasen

Huh - well I suppose it might be good to let them know that several of the sets were damaged in the same way - maybe they have a QA problem they'd like to know about.

zombeaner

Well, all are fullscreen, 2.0 audio with no subs. The extras are fantastic, here is the homepage for the set at Arrow

joe_b

Watched Vixen today - holy cow.

Just sampling Meyer's commentary for it currently and noticed the film audio is out-of-synch during most of it. Is this just a case of poor editing or is there something wrong with my copy?

melih69

Thanks OP. Just placed an order yesterday. It's a blind buy but from what I hear on here I think I am going to enjoy this set :-)

Brian T

It's a flaw in the disc. Mine has it too. It may be on one of the other ones as well. Meyer's commentaries are interesting, but sadly they were recorded when he was getting on in years (and starting to lose it), so there's a lot of repetition from one commentary to the next, derailed trains of thought, suspect anecdotes, and the usual dirty-old-man sex talk. They're informative, of course, but collectively they made me wish he'd recorded them back in the 80's instead of later in life. The pussycats track on FASTER, however, is a blast, as all three ladies are still pretty sharp.

VIXEN is a key picture in Meyer's filmography. The unrelated "sequels" are the products of a vulgar old man, but VIXEN showcases his entire worldview at it's cockeyed best, as well as his one-of-a-kind approach to editing and dialogue. COMMON LAW CABIN (see my clip on an earlier page of this thread), FASTER PUSSYCAT and GOOD MORNING AND GOODBYE are also rich in the same kind of angry, rapid-fire dialogue (minus the chronic racial material) that makes VIXEN such a standout.

joe_b

^ Thanks for all the info - Common Law Cabin looks wild. I think I'll start back with Mr. Teas and go forward from there. After BVD, I was eager to see Erica Gavin again, so I skipped ahead in the chronology. :P

Watching the trailer reel on the Vixen disc made me want to have an all night marathon. Best to pace myself, though .

PopcornBandit

Got my replacement set today. It arrived in excellent condition. Kudos to Amazon UK for their amazing customer service.

Stephen El

Thanks to Brian T for the heads up on this. I gave up years ago on finding affordable decent non-bootleg DVDs of the Meyer films. To get 18 in a set and pay less than $2.50 each is just amazing. I first saw Faster Pussycat Kill Kill fifteen years ago with a friend who owned a local record store. I think he paid $50 or $75 for a VHS copy of just that movie direct from Russ Meyer's company through mail order.

Brian T

That was pretty much the only way to see them back then, unless an indie video store was nearby with copies on hand, or you could find bootlegs of those same tapes, which were often as highly priced as the originals. There were decent laserdiscs of LORNA, FASTER PUSSYCAT and the VIXEN FILMS (which is where the commentaries in the U.K. set originate), but like everything else, they were mainly available only through Meyer's company (in fact, they're still sold there!).

In trying to maintain control of his films right up to the end of his life, Meyer missed a lot of opportunities to gain an even wider audience by licencing them out to companies with the clout to get them in stores at reasonable prices, but I suppose he's from that era of do-it-yourself exploitation (most of the movies in this set were made with crews of less than ten people, not including the actors), and since he owned the rights to nearly everything he did (lucky man!), it seems to have meant he could only trust himself to release them on home video formats. Thank god he lived long enough to do a few audio commentaries, and that Arrow was able to source some exceptional vintage and contemporary supplemental features and interviews. Interesting that it was the British who put most of this stuff together (even the vintage stuff), instead of Americans (considering the "all-American-ness" and cultural specificity of Meyer's output), but then again, Meyer never gave anyone in the states a chance, nor have the controllers of his estate. The Incredibly Strange Film Show episode that's on one of these discs, another British program, is essential viewing as well.

The U.S. DVDs of Meyer's DVDs surfaced recently at the flagship stores of a couple of major music store chains here in Toronto (but not at their satellite stores in the burbs, for the most part), priced around $26 each, but the packaging on them just looks so cheap and awful that it's tough to picture a lot of people buying them (especially if they do a little research about the transfer quality). But while the library remains under the control of Meyer's later-years assistant/nurse and her lover, who's actually so proud of his awful DVD sleeve designs that he puts his own name on the front of every DVD (!!), we probably won't see the films given the treatment in Region 1 that they've already received in Europe. Rule Britannia etc. etc.

Seriously, check out the Russ Meyer website for a perfect example of how NOT to market the man and his legendary films. All expense was spared, apparently.
http://www.rmfilms.com
Sadly, they probably still make a decent buck selling Meyer's stuff, yet they still make you download an order form and mail or fax it to them, for god's sake.

Anyways, just for kicks, here's what passes for metaphor in a Russ Meyer film. Gotta love it:

<object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/sv2aq0KKqvs&hl=en_US&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/sv2aq0KKqvs&hl=en_US&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>

lewisb73

Luckily, back in the pre-dvd days, I had found a local rental place that actually had all of his older films on VHS for rent, Id called inquiring about BVOD, and when he mentioned having his other films, I was pleased.

Cant wait for my set to arrive... hopefully today

NoirFan

She might be my favorite Meyer girl - she's an almost elemental force of nature in Vixen!

DVDSRFUN

Got this in the mail the other day. Watched Faster Pussycat...Kill!Kill! and Mudhoney so far. Some unique/fun stuff for sure!

Watched on my CyberHome region-free/NTSC->PAL player I picked up at Target a few years ago. I thought I read somewhere on here the PS3 supported PAL, but I get a format not supported message (latest firmware).

Brian T

Great news for anyone who missed out on this fantastic deal! Amazon U.K. have now topped it. Current price of £17.99 is an absolute all-time low. That's about $27 U.S. for EIGHTEEN films with the best available transfers and copious supplements; even less once they remove the VAT for overseas customers.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B000FAOAX8/

Get it while you can.

SethDLH

Thank you! Picking up this weekend for sure.

Quatermass

Finally bought this set. $29.08 shipped.
Thanks for the update.

zombeaner

Dang, I thought I got a good deal when I bought them one at a time for $9 each!

drmoze

Wow. Just ordered. $28.10 shipped. Sweet.

alfonsosoriano

Totally forgot about this deal...haha

HOSALE

The price is continuing to drop. I just purchased it on 1 April at 1030 hours Pacific Time for 15 pounds, 31 pence plus 3 pounds 8 pence shipping, total of 18 pounds, 39 pence including shipping, with VAT removed automatically.

Blind buy for me, but after checking out some of his films on Youtube, the dialogue was so crisp and entertaining, I had to get it.

Thank you OP. In for one.

Trevor

Just in time for the DVDTalk B-Movie Challenge!

alfonsosoriano

$30 US...I'm definitely in.

SethDLH

Ordered along with the Coffin Joe set for $46.xx shipped! Great deal for about 25 movies! Thanks again for bumping this thread!

mdnitoil

Big thanks for this one as it fell way off of my radar! $29.08 shipped.

Sessa17

What a deal, I always forget to buy this. $29.08 shipped for the best these movies have looked.

Greg.

I've never ordered any imports before (mainly because I don't yet have a region free player), and just have two quick questions. How long does it take to ship an order overseas, and is there ever any complications? And are the prices always this cheap on Amazon UK? Just scrolling through some of the bestsellers while doing a quick price conversion, and I'm in shock at how cheap some of the DVDs are when compared to their US counterparts (particularly the box sets).

Thanks again OP for the heads up, I'll probably order the set along with some other things in the coming days.