Vixen Palmer (Erica Gavin) is insatiable. She is married to pilot Tom (Garth Pillsbury), but his job inevitably takes him away from home for long stretches, leaving poor ol’ Vixen sexually frustrated and looking to get with anyone within thrusting distance. This leads her on a series of sexual misadventures that involves mounting a mountie, menage-a-trois-ing a married couple to heal their broken relationship and even boffing her own brother. She draws the line at banging the draft-dodging biker black guy though. It all somehow inexplicably builds to an out-there scenario involving Tom’s plane getting hijacked to Cuba and a lesson on the evils of communism. Will Vixen get her happily-ever-after?

For those unacquainted with the gloriously gonzo, unhinged world of Russ Meyer, the ever horny Vixen and her bed-trotting adventures may prove to be something like a slap to the face. From the top heavy titillation that is Meyer’s “Bosomania” stock in trade to the crackerjack, innovative editing and pacing for which exploitation auteur Meyer is known, Vixen is a freewheeling fun romp under the covers, into the woods and into the air that is sure to please Meyer fans with its bawdiness. Made on the tiny budget of $70,000, Meyer really does make the most of his money, finding him at a tipping point in his career where he moved from the early nudie cuties and trashy melodramas he had first made his name with like The Immoral Mister Teas and Faster Pussycat! Kill! Kill! to more bonkers, over-the-top story-driven sex romps. Vixen proved to be such a big hit with Meyer that it basically set him on the path he would follow for the majority of the rest of his career. Vixen was also a milestone of a more dubious sort, being one of the first films to receive an ‘X’ rating and getting banned and confiscated in theaters around the country, a phenomenon which would not prove to be the last time for Russ. Interestingly Roger Ebert (who wrote Beyond the Valley of the Dolls for Meyer and remained life-long friends with Russ) called Vixen the quintessential Russ Meyer film. While I’m not sure I totally agree with that assessment (my money is on Supervixens personally… but more on that later), Vixen is definitely a hell of a fun ride and an essential viewing for folks who worship in the Church of Russ Meyer.

Severin has really done Meyer proud here with a stellar 4K restoration from the original 35mm camera negative. The grain levels are nice and even throughout. The colors really pop, and the black levels are clean and consistent. It really does look great. While the audio isn’t as revelatory, we still get a clear and distortion-free mono track with enough low end to make the film feel robust throughout the cavalcade of sexual escapades. We also get a nice selection of extras. First is an interesting little prologue to the film from its 1981 release decrying censorship. We also get a full-length audio commentary from Russ Meyer himself, and he is full of useful information about the film and entertaining anecdotes. We also get an audio commentary from Erica Gavin who seems to remember a great deal from the shooting of the film but isn’t as full of actual technical details and behind-the-scenes information as Meyer’s commentary. We also get interviews with Gavin and Harrison Page as well as an extended interview segment from the David Del Valle cult TV series The Sinister Image with Meyer and Yvette Vickers. Finally, we also get an interesting featurette with film historian/geek Mark Edward Heuck discussing the highly publicized obscenity case against Vixen on its release in Cincinnatti theaters. Lots of good stuff for the Meyer aficionado to sink their teeth into!

Vixen may not be Russ Meyer’s absolute all-time best film, but it is still a hell of a sexy, good time, and if you crave a fleshy, fun exploitation romp from the ’60s, there are few better than this sultry gem.