Lorna (1964)

Excellent but underrated film

Unshakable, witty and deeply felt, the film will be paying emotional dividends for a long, long time.

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

Worth seeing just to witness how winsome it is.

Sexploitation potboiler from director Russ Meyer is a fairly terrible opus concerning Lorna, the sex-starved young wife of a salt miner living in a shack on the riverfront, who contemplates leaving her milquetoast husband for her rapist, an escaped killer who caught her in the weeds just after a skinny dip. Meyer's familiar mixture of girl-peeping and deadly serious proselytizing will be tolerable to his fans, however the ugly beating of an innocent woman in the first reel sets a depressing tone for the picture. Script, direction and performances are all amateurish--there must have been better ways for male audiences of 1964 to find stimulation over this junk. Old-fashioned theme song and score, while not particularly clever, may be the movie's only plus. * from ****

Lorna signalled an important change of direction for director Russ Meyer. While it remained within the overall bracket that could be termed sexploitation it was quite a significant departure from the nudie cuties which had hitherto constituted his filmography. Unlike those, Lorna was shot in black and white but upgraded to 35mm. Even more significantly it also was his first feature to have synchronised sound, which allowed him to better engage the viewer and allowed him to tell an actual story with proper, interesting characters. With these ingredients it was the first of his films that truly showcased what he was all about and gave far more of an indication of his overall sensibilities, beyond his obvious love of large breasts.Like most Meyer films this one is as much a showcase for his lead actress as it is anything else. In this instance it is the buxom Lorna Maitland who takes centre stage. She plays a young woman who is bored with married life in a rural area. Her pathetic husband cannot satisfy her sexually and spends all his time working in a salt mine while taking verbal abuse from his two slovenly co-workers; one of which is a mean-spirited misogynist who we first see forcing his way into the home of a young woman only to then violently knock her about. While Lorna's husband is away on one of these details, she is raped by an escaped convict whose attack excites her, leading her to invite him home for an afternoon of further lust. Of course, this is not set to end well.I guess it should be said from the outset that the idea of Lorna being so receptive to being raped is a pretty outrageous and offensive one. It's certainly at best 'of its time'. Although I reckon if you see a few Meyer movies you begin to realise that his cinematic universe operates by its own hyper-real rules and content that would be somewhat dubious in other hands seems quite normal is his world of strong women and dumb men constantly at war with each other. Lorna was the first of his four black and white 'roughies' which culminated with his classic Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! (1965). Like a few of his films it takes the form of a melodrama, although unlike most it has little in the way of his soon-to-be typical distinctive comedy, in fact it's possibly the least humorous film he ever made. This may well be because it was written by James Griffith – who plays the part of a hell and brimstone preacher who appears periodically to commentate on the sins of the players – who also wrote the screenplay for the later Motorpsycho! (1965) which was another Meyer film with a decidedly darker tone.It is, however, as visually accomplished as films by Meyer would go on to become known for. Having said that, at this stage in his career he was more restrained in his visual approach and had not developed the manic fast editing style that would typify his later, more over-the-top efforts. This one is more indebted to noir than his others and the presentation is consequently a little more downbeat. Almost all of the lighter moments involve Lorna Maitland in a state of undress; the best of these is a scene where she takes a dip in a river. It's shot beautifully and is one of the most iconic moments of 60's cinematic erotica. Historically, the film itself was prosecuted for obscenity in some American states but cashed in big-time on the drive-in circuit and even played some art-houses. It's not surprising that it had this varying effect, as Lorna is simultaneously a pioneering and daring sexploitation classic which was certainly pushing the envelope at the time for what was permissible, yet at the same time it's very well made and certainly has artistic merit and ambition beyond its voluptuous leading ladies most prominent assets.

Lorna is an early Russ Meyer film, but features many themes that are common in his later films - sex and violence obviously, but we also have religion, morality and a surrealist element. The film is slightly similar to Russ Meyer's 1965 film Mudhoney in terms of style and plot, and the fact that both films star the buxom Lorna Maitland as well as the sleazy Hal Hopper. Russ Meyer would become famous for completely over the top sex films such as Supervixens and Up. This film is not as over the top as the aforementioned titles; but it's still firmly in Russ Meyer's style and there's plenty for sleaze fans to enjoy. As the title suggests; the film focuses on Lorna, the buxom and beautiful wife of Jim. Lorna is bored because Jim, despite being a nice guy, is not exciting enough for her. He goes to work one day and Lorna happens across an escaped convict, who proceeds to rape her. Excited by this man, Lorna takes him home and falls in love with him. Things come to a head when Jim returns home from work early...It's easy to pass a film like this off as 'trash' and it's certainly not an 'a-class' film; but there's actually a lot more going on here than meets the eye and Lorna has an advantage over later Meyer films in that it actually seems to want to make some points about love and infidelity. Aside from a bit of substance, Meyer has also given the film a good style; the clean black and white picture looks great and the film has a 'pulp fiction' feel to it throughout. The cast is very good too. Of course, the titillating Lorna Maitland is the main standout and she performs well. The film also features Hal Hopper who would also work with Russ Meyer on the later Mudhoney. It's a real shame that they weren't able to make more films together because Hal Hopper really fits Meyer's style and both of his performances for Meyer were excellent. The film flows well throughout and is constantly entertaining, which is definitely a good thing. It all boils down to a good and fitting ending and on the whole, I certainly would not hesitate to recommend Lorna to my fellow Russ Meyer fans!

Exploitative tale of rape, betrayal, and murder set in sordid shacks of the modern South. Incredibly endowed Lorna (Maitland) is wedded to straight-laced CPA-wannabe, but in the legal sense only. She meets up with an escaped convict (Hooper) who rapes her and makes her like it, but she eventually trots back to her man and receives some harsh treatment at the hands of misused garden tools. It all sounds pretty extreme, and it is, and carried off with unique style but sometimes hasty direction. Some lovely shots, brutal violence, and sexy Lorna add up to a cheezy, trashy feast. Not quite as good as the similar "Mudhoney", but much better than most of Meyer's 70s product.