RUSS MEYER’S MOTOR PSYCHO! 1965 ALEX ROCCO HAJI 2004 JAPANESE FESTIVAL TRIBUTE EDITION DVD-R!

Motorpsycho or Motor Psycho is a 1965 action film by Russ Meyer. Produced just before Meyer’s better-known Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! (1965), the film explores similar themes of sex and violence but focuses on a male motorcycle gang rather than the female gang of go-go dancers featured in the later film. Motorpsycho also contains one of the first portrayals of a disturbed Vietnam veteran character in film.

• Haji as Ruby Bonner
• Alex Rocco as Cory Maddox
• Stephen Oliver as Brahmin
• Holle K. Winters as Gail Maddox
• Joseph Cellini as Dante
• Thomas Scott as Slick
• Coleman Francis as Harry Bonner
• Sharon Lee as Jessica Fannin
• Steve Masters as Frank
• Arshalouis Aivazian as Wife
• E. E. Meyer as Sheriff
• George Costello as Doctor

Russ Meyer, whose previous films had faced stiff resistance from censors, sought to create a more action-oriented film. The working title of the film was Rio Vengeance.

Haji was a nightclub dancer when she auditioned for the film. Meyer cast her in a smaller role but soon promoted her to one of the lead roles. She later recalled:

Russ worked with a five-man crew, and he took us all into the desert with snakes, lizards, and all kinds of danger. He thought if you were a guy, you could live in a tent out in the desert, but the ladies he treated better. We lived in a trailer. When you shoot in the desert, you come back with dirt in your eyelashes and hair. Our shower was a big barrel with a cork in it, set up on four sticks. You pulled the cork out, got wet, stuck the cork back in, soaped up, pulled the cork back out, rinsed off, and that was it!

Two actors were injured while filming a scene involving motorbikes and were hospitalized.

According to Meyer, the film went “through the roof” commercially, inspiring him to create a similar film with female bikers, Faster Pussycat! Kill! Kill!.