Mondo Topless

[Editor's Note: This review is part of the Bosomania!: The Sex, the Violence, and the Vocabulary of Russ Meyer feature at Not Coming to a Theater Near You.]

Early on in Mondo Topless, one of the numerous strippers that constitute the film’s subjects insists on the essential insignificance of her profession. “All that you’re doing is a dance,” she says, “it has no meaning whatsoever. It is entertainment and there is no other meaning than a dance.” It’s easy enough to apply her formulation to the film itself, but even taken on this simplest level – as little more than a device for delivering cheap titillation – Meyer’s picture, which consists primarily of a series of topless stripteases performed by real-life professionals, proves somewhat of a letdown. Which is certainly not to suggest that the film is without interest, but simply to note that the imagery on display has a difficult time standing up to the puffed up rhetoric of the film’s spoken text.


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