LORNA (1964) ** ½

Lorna (Lorna Maitland) is an impossibly stacked, hopelessly bored housewife trapped in an unsatisfying relationship with Jim (James Rucker) who yearns for some excitement in her dreary life.  She gets more than she bargained for when an escaped convict (Mark Bradley) has his way with her while her hubby is at work.  At first, she tries to fight him off, but it doesn’t take long before they’re playing house together.  Predictably, it ends in tragedy when Jim comes home early and finds them in the throes of passion.

Lorna is a prototypical Russ Meyer movie.  It was a transitional film for Russ, seeing him moving away from the nudie-cuties of his early work and heading into his southern-fried gothic melodrama phase.  It doesn’t quite have all his hallmarks yet (the editing isn’t nearly as rapid-fire as it would later become), but there are certainly shades of his future greatness here.

Meyer’s eye for beautiful compositions (both of the female form and the landscapes of nature) is as strong as ever.  The cinematography is crisp, and the film is quite gorgeous to look at.  I also enjoyed the narrative device of the fire and brimstone preacher (Jim Griffith) who narrates and casts judgment upon our characters.  

Maitland is good at projecting her character’s isolation, yearning, and loneliness.  She holds her end of the film.  Bradley is sort of a bore as her husband, but Hal Hopper has his moments as Jim’s drunk co-worker.

I said earlier Lorna is a transitional film.  Like most transitions, not everything is quite worked out and fully formed.  For example, the scenes of Lorna’s cuckold husband getting made fun of at work isn’t nearly as hard-hitting and involving as the stuff with Lorna and the convict.  It all ends in a typically violent, highly moralistic Meyer fashion.  I can’t say it’s totally successful, but it’s interesting seeing Meyer forging the building blocks that would become the foundation of his entire career.