Russ Meyer releases his "Black Snake"

Detroit, MI: Detroit Free Press, 1973. Vintage borderless black-and-white press photograph of the sexploitation auteur Russ Meyer, as he talks poses for the camera before the release of his film, "Black Snake" (1973). One article affixed to the verso, authored by Bob Green for the Chicago Sun-Times, exclaiming "Russ Meyer: King of the Pop Porn Circuit." Also visible on the verso is a rubber stamp of the Detroit Free Press, dated Feb. 18, 1973, where photographer John Collier was employed, and a rubber stamp for Collier himself. Faint cropping annotations to the recto.

"Black Snake" was one of Meyer's only blaxploitation films (one could argue "Vixen" was too), produced and financed solely by Meyer. Shot on location in Barbados, the film starred Anouska Hempel as "Lady Susan," a cruel plantation owner who dominates both black and white men with the aid of a black leather whip. Her dictatorship is tolerated only so long, and the slaves revolt.

Of the film itself, Meyer begrudgingly cast Hempel as the lead, after his original lead had fallen ill from an apparent overdose. While Hempel was popular in England, having appeared in "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" (1969), "Scars of Dracula" (1970), and "The Magnificent Seven Deadly Sins" (1971), the actress was not the typical voluptuous figure Meyer so often portrayed. The director even brought in a "bust" double for close-ups involving Lady Susan's torso. Ultimately, Meyer wrote off his own film as "a weak Mandingo." One positive note: actor David Prowse stars as Jonathan Walker, Lady Susan's husband, and he would go on to star as Darth Vader in "Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope" (1977).

8 x 10 inches. Faint creasing and tiny staple holes, else Near Fine.

[Book #139225]