Russ Meyer Landmarks at Vagabond

The Russ Meyer Film Festival, which opened Sunday at the Vagabond, continues tonight with the hilarious “Mudhoney” (1966). Unspoiled by either sadism or obscenity, this 1966 expose of love among poor whites is the perfect dirty movie and a flawless piece of camp (probably on purpose). No one projects heterosexual male sex fantasies with greater gusto and resolute dedication than Meyer, who at heart is a puritan and who has always been a bigger tease than any burlesque queen. His world is populated with an abundance of pneumatic women carefully photographed to make them look as cantilevered as possible, dirty old men and blockhead heroes plus dialogue heavy with double-entendre.

Meyer this time mines that mythical territory of “God’s Little Acre.” A clod of a farmhand yearns for the bleached-blond niece of his employer, a sweet old boy, but she is married to the town drunk. Many of Meyer’s stories sound this simple, but his characteristic virtuoso camera work and editing express a vision of often considerable complexity. All the films in the festival are worth a look, most are fun, but the landmark of the series is the 1969 “Vixen,” which broke through to mainstream audiences and landed Meyer a contract at Fox to make the notorious “Beyond the Valley of the Dolls.”

“Vixen” depicts what has become for him a classic situation: a young, incredibly sexy backwoods wife (Erica Gavin) with too much time on her hands for her strong sexual drives not to get her into trouble. By now Meyer pictures had begun to look like good clean fun for adults, and with great disarming heartiness he tackles not only adultery, homosexuality and incest but also takes a couple of potshots at communists and racial prejudice. All prints are Meyer’s own, and he will be present each evening during intermission. For full schedule: (213) 387-2171.

Comeback Film: Watching the light-hearted and lively 1926 “Raggedy Rose” (at the Silent Movie Friday and Saturday at 8 p.m. with “Kid Boots,” starring Eddie Cantor and Clara Bow), it’s hard to believe that it was one of the final three films made for producer Hal Roach (now a robust centenarian) by Mabel Normand, who within four years would be dead at 35. It was part of a second unsuccessful comeback try for Normand, the premier silent comedian, in the wake of the William Desmond Taylor murder scandal and her well-known substance-abuse problems.

You would never suspect that the winsome, lovable Normand had a worry in the world as she plays a servant for a ragpicker but who winds up with a handsome millionaire (Carl Miller). Rags-to-riches heroines were a much-cherished staple of silent romantic comedy, but the emphasis here is on some impeccably staged slapstick sequences. (Quite possibly audiences wanted more from Normand by the mid-’20s than knockabout comedy.) Directed by Richard Wallace (with an assist from Stan Laurel). (213) 653-2389.

Naruse’s “Mountain”: “The Films of Mikio Naruse” continues Saturday and Sunday at 11:15 a.m. at the Monica 4-Plex with the director’s 1954 “Sound of the Mountain,” adapted from Japan’s only Nobel Prize-winning novelist, Yasunari Kawabata. Naruse (1905-69) was the Japanese cinema’s great pessimist, but he was also a stylist whose films possess an eloquent, even exhilarating redemptive beauty. The definitive portrayer of middle-aged business executives, So Yamamura--here he is aged for the part--can no longer avoid the unpleasant truth that both his adult children are in trouble. His spoiled son (Ken Uehara) is a wastrel while his neglected, embittered daughter has left her husband to return home with her small child. The primary, poignant relationship, however, is between Yamamura (whose own wife is an obtuse prattler) and his devoted daughter-in-law (Setsuko Hara), whom he must at last set free. With no loss of subtlety, Naruse manages considerable candor about sex. Comparing his mistress to his wife, Uehara tells his father bluntly: “One is a torrent, the other a lake.” For complete schedule: (310) 394-9741.

Black Talkies: Among the many films screening during the opening weekend of the 14th annual Black Talkies on Parade Festival at the Four Star Theater is the 1929 “Hearts in Dixie” (screening Sunday following a 2 p.m. screening of “Green Pastures”). Seen today, it seems an inescapable if not intended indictment of the chronic oppression and poverty of Southern blacks. Set in the immediate post-Civil War era, the film has a pastoral charm as an illiterate tenant farmer (Clarence Muse) comes to terms with inevitable change. The film, the first major studio all-black talkie, also marks the first major screen appearance of Stepin Fetchit as Muse’s son-in-law. Information: (213) 936-3533.