Mention the name Russ Meyer and the thing that immediately pops into people minds is “big tits.” This truly independent filmmaker built a career and made a fortune thanks to his preoccupation with oversized bosoms. What some people forget is that Meyer was a very talented photographer and editor.

BIG BOSOMS AND SQUARE JAWS is a briskly paced, highly entertaining read that covers Meyer’s life, his films and the supporting players in his life. Jimmy McDonough does a great job of balancing facts and enthusiasm. At times this book reads like a very well written fanzine in that it doesn’t approach the subject matter with dull, scholastic seriousness. It’s obvious McDonough had a great time writing the book and especially interviewing the Meyer starlets. To give you an example, here’s an example picked at random:

Uschi. Two syllables that evoke sweet dreams. There, beneath a ravenous grin that somehow managed to be more pornographic than old 42nd Street in all its glory, lurked a fleshy, sun-baked carcass with more curves than the Coast Highway — the sort of filthy figure that could even make a macrame dress look inviting. To a pimply adolescent, encountering an image of Uschi Digard for the first time was akin to the thrill of seeing Godzilla: taller than the tallest skyscraper and breathing fire.

McDonoughs prose propels the narrative forward, thrusting the reader into Meyer’s crazy, comic-book world. But as fun as this book is to read, it is a very comprehensive and thorough look at Meyer’s life. With a lot of autobiographies, I just scan through the first few chapters devoted to the persons parents and childhood. But the tale of Meyer’s upbringing, his first camera and his experiences during WWII were actually pretty engrossing and are well integrated with the themes of the rest of the book.

The part of the book I most appreciated was the focus on Meyer’s filmmaking techniques. Meyer was an auteur before the term became popular, producing, directing, shooting, editing and distributing his own films. His cinematography and editing is remarkable even today. He may have been obsessed with breasts, but for most of his career he had the filmmaking chops to support his predilections. The ending of the book is depressing as hell as Meyer succumbs to mental illness and is reduced to a drooling caricature of the man he once was. His estate is taken control of by his secretary and his films are now in desperate need of restoration. It’s an incredibly downbeat ending to this colorful story. The book is backed up with a comprehensive filmmography with a lot of detail on each film including when they have been released on home video and which ones are still available.

If you are a Russ Meyer fan, you probably already own this book (and if not, you should). But I would also recommend it to anybody with an interest in cinema that transcends the mainstream. This book covers a lot of film history that you won’t read about elsewhere and it also serves as a very compelling morality tale.