Mondo Topless (Russ Meyer, 1966)

A bombastic and alliteration-loving narrator (All the President's Men's John Furlong) describes San Francisco, "the birthplace of the topless dance," before introducing us to a number of busty dancers with unclothed upper torsos, including "bouncy" Babette Bardot (allegedly half-French and half-Swedish), "buxotic" Darlene Grey, "rambunctious" Pat Barringer, "yummy" Diane Young, "luscious" Sin Lenee, "delicious" Darla Paris, and "exciting" Donna 'X', who shake their money-makers while listening to transistor radios and talk about themselves and their occupation in voiceover. Padding out the film is stock footage from Meyer's 1963 film Europe in the Raw, featuring the stage shows of Belgium's Veronique Gabriel, Berlin's Abundavita (wearing a mask with two feathers sticking up from either side, while Berlin is described as half under "cruel" Communist control); France's Denice Duval (who does a "muff dance" that apparently involves two kinds of muffs, though the more salacious one is not shown), Gigi La Touche ("the girl with the throbbing guitar," though she's clearly not actually playing her sparkled instrument at a few points), and Yvette Le Grand (who has a cowgirl outfit and uses a hobby horse and a tripod-mounted ball in her act); and Denmark's Greta Thorwald (alarmingly described as a "blonde Aryan beauty") as well as an appearance by Lorna Maitland, the star of Meyer's film Lorna, in this reviewer's opinion not one of his strongest films.

Most of Russ Meyer's films, from the immortal Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! to the Roger Ebert-scripted Beyond the Valley of the Dolls bear two things in common: gorgeous and sex-crazed women with spectacular breasts, and sex-starved and not overly bright men. Well, there's not much in the way of male presence in this movie, but plenty of pneumatic topless women for those who can't  get enough of same. It's almost enough to make up for the fact that the ladies' description of their life and career isn't particularly deep, although some of it is interesting, including one describing how she was rejected as a Playboy playmate because her breasts were deemed too large, another saying that drunken (male?) customers sometimes start undressing and dancing themselves, and still another saying she's got three kids!!! Bardot (who claimed to be distantly related to Brigitte and to have once modeled for Picasso!) gets most of the screen time, despite having a very tenuous grasp of the English language. Although, even the girls who speak it fluently don't deliver their own lines very convincingly. Meyer is quoted in Jimmy McDonough's superb biography Big Bosoms and Square Jaws as once saying, "A good actress! I'd rather have a big-chested stiff who can barely pronouncer her own name." That said, I'm sure the guys (and maybe even a few gals) who saw this film in the '60s weren't really concerned about that, and it more than accomplishes what it set out to do.