Good Morning... and Goodbye! (1967)/The Wild Pussycat (1969) in the PNW

Details: Written by: Mortado; Category: The 1970s in Northwest Cinemas

This is a collection of media from the initial runs of "Good Morning... and Goodbye!" and "The Wild Pussycat" in the Pacific Northwest.

Click on images for larger versions.

Good Morning... and Goodbye! (1967)
“Good Morning... and Goodbye!” is one of those Russ Meyer fever dreams where suburban malaise curdles into something both pathetic and strangely operatic. The film staggers through its story like a drunk trying to convince you he’s sober, all bright colors and sweaty closeups masking the fact that everyone on screen is spiritually bankrupt. It’s a domestic farce stretched until it frays, a portrait of middle-aged desperation where lust is treated like a last-ditch survival instinct rather than a pleasure. Meyer shoots the whole thing with that trademark mix of cartoonish exaggeration and grim sincerity, as if he’s daring you to laugh at people who are clearly circling the drain.

The characters drift through their routines with a kind of hollow determination, clinging to affairs, fantasies, and self-help nonsense because the alternative is admitting their lives never amounted to much. The film’s world is sun-drenched but suffocating, a place where every attempt at reinvention looks cheap and every promise of renewal feels like a con. Meyer’s editing gives everything a jittery, restless pulse, as though the movie itself is trying to escape the claustrophobic boredom of its characters. What emerges is a cynical little morality play about the delusions people build to avoid confronting their own insignificance.

It’s not subtle, and it’s not trying to be. “Good Morning... and Goodbye!” is a blunt instrument, a sweaty, over-lit snapshot of American dissatisfaction dressed up as a sex comedy. But beneath the noise and the leering bravado, there’s a bleak honesty about how people flail when they realize their lives have stalled. Meyer doesn’t offer redemption, only the grim spectacle of people mistaking chaos for change. It’s messy, loud, and strangely human in its ugliness.

Director: Russ Meyer
Writer: Jackie Moran
Stars: Alaina Capri, Stuart Lancaster, Patrick Wright

The Wild Pussycat (1969)
“The Wild Pussycat” is one of those late sixties Greek exploitation curiosities that pretends to be a revenge thriller but mostly wallows in its own sleaze. The film moves with a kind of grim determination, as if it knows it doesn’t have the budget, the polish, or the moral compass to be anything respectable, so it leans into the grime instead. Everything feels slightly off-kilter: the acting is stiff in that way only regional cinema can manage, the dialogue sounds like it was translated twice before being spoken, and the whole production has the jittery energy of people trying to make something “bold” without fully understanding what that means.

At its core, the film is a study in obsession, but not the romantic kind. It’s the kind of obsession that festers, that turns people into caricatures of their worst impulses. “The Wild Pussycat” treats emotional damage like a performance, lingering on faces that look both numb and furious, as if the characters are trapped in their own private purgatories. The camera seems almost predatory, hovering over bodies and expressions with a voyeuristic hunger that makes the film feel more like a feverish confession than a narrative. There’s a sense that everyone involved is trying to exorcise something, but they’re doing it with cheap lighting, cramped interiors, and a script that keeps circling the same dark impulses.

The film’s cynicism is baked into every frame. It doesn’t believe in redemption, or justice, or even catharsis. It believes in cruelty as a kind of cosmic inevitability. The world of “The Wild Pussycat” is small, claustrophobic, and ruled by people who mistake domination for strength. Even its attempts at eroticism feel hollow, like the film is trying to distract you from how bleak its worldview really is. What emerges is a rough-edged, unsettling little artifact of sixties exploitation cinema, a reminder that sometimes the most revealing films are the ones that don’t bother pretending to be anything other than damaged.

Director: Dimis Dadiras
Writer: Giannis Tziotis
Stars: Kostas Prekas, Gisela Dali, Maria Foka
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September 15, 1970 ad (Seattle)