Lorna

With "The Immoral Mr. Teas," Russ Meyer was one of the pioneers of sex films... He knew, however, that the region would eventually want more than just naked ladies winning easily around the countryside, and went for a strong plot that contained a well-motivated but heavy sex scene...

Lorna is a frustrated housewife... She lives in a wasted riverside shack with a deadbeat but sweet husband... He works hard all day and studies all night, leaving her unfulfilled...

One day, while the husband is at work, an escaped convict bursts in on Lorna and rapes her... She is so enraptured by the experience that she becomes infatuated with him, but when her husband unexpectedly returns from work, she doesn't know what to do...

"Lorna" was one of the first films to show nudity in the context of strong sex... While there was nothing really explicit or graphic about it, it was truly shocking for its-time... Today, however, it is quite mild and dull...

Anyone who has seen a good number of Russ Meyer films knows that he always ends his movie with a moralistic message of sorts. Always, the message tells the audience that everyone is the wrong, even the protaganist(s). Everyone is concerned fundementally with their own problems and overlook the problems of others, but later those problems will come back and bite them in the butt. Lorna is no exception to this storyline.

But speaking about butts... Lorna has a nice one. And that's the point. The other half of the film is about women's bodies, but it's not porn. No, Russ Meyer was a Botticelli of sorts. His art is always an ode to the bodies of woman. His camera doesn't objectify the woman, instead makes her an object of admiration. So, just as Ayn Rand wrote books outlining the perfect man, Russ Meyer makes movies photographing the perfect woman, but alas, she always lives in an imperfect world, where she is always tempted by the lustful desires of both men and women, yet she still stands as a shining beacon of perfection in the often barren and impverished setting.

Lorna is a housewife in the middle of nowhere and her naive and oblivious husband can't satisfy her and can't get her out of the country and into the city either. Luther, an amoral co-worker, of her husband Jim insinuates that Lorna is cheating on him. Jim of course refuses to believe him, but at the very same time Lorna gets 'raped' (kind of in an Ayn Rand fashion for those who read The Fountainhead) by an escaped convict. She falls for him because he is able to satisfy her sexually.

Lorna is a rather short film (like most Meyer films of that time period), but the story does not require a longer film. Meyer splits his time well between Lorna's body and Jim's cluelessness. And every so often, a Man of God (that's how he is credited at least) corrolates the story with Lot in Sodom, providing an entertainign subtext that is actually well integrated into the story.

Just as all Greek mythology is all the same story repeated in different ways, Russ Meyer films take the same themes and reuse them, but Lorna proves to be exceptional in the delivery of that story, making sure that no character is pure evil; it always contrasts the black and white photography with the shades of grey represented in the behavior of the characters. It's a film worth viewing, as it is an archetypical Russ Meyer film, embodying all the aspects of his other films with amazing balance and clarity.

Lorna is about a married couple, in which Lorna, the wife, is left at home when her husband goes off to work each day. Lorna runs into bad company one day and things go wrong for her. Meanwhile, her husband is catching heat from his coworkers because they have convinced themselves that Lorna's husband does not satisfy her and that she longs for more loving than he has been giving her. What happens? Sorry not going to ruin it for you. Definite MUST SEE if you have any interest in Russ Meyer's films.

› Go to Amazon.com to see all 8 reviews  3.9 out of 5 stars