Director: Russ Meyer

Russ Meyer worked during World War 2 as a combat cameraman. When he came home, he got a job shooting Playboy centerfolds. Russ found mainstream pornography to be largely joyless, and his films can be seen in part as a reaction to that.

At a glance, Meyer’s work might be disregarded as pornography itself. It may be more accurate to say he creates nudist adventure flicks. He’s often given credit as a master if not the founder of the sexploitation genre, setting his movies in a world where nudity and sex are far from taboo. While the women of his films are cherished as sexual icons, they often defy the fragile and submissive stereotypes of the type. Likely inspired by his own single mother, these women tend to be ruthless and stop at nothing to achieve what they want.