Cherry, Harry & Raquel!

Sex and violence in a desert town as sheriff Harry (Charles Napier) gets involved in bushwhacking and murder. More breasts and bloodshed from Russ Meyer, with minimal plotting interrupted by staccato clips of naked women frolicking in the dunes. It's obviously a bad picture, but it does have Napier and he's worth watching in just about anything. I loved Pauline Kael's assessment of his rock-solid stature in her review of "Citizen's Band" (she called him "an erotic Steve Canyon"). To me, he's a kinky Brian Keith, a mountain of brawn and straw-blond hair. He has criss-cross scars on his face and a smile that has a maniacal bend (like Nicholson's Joker without make-up) and his sex scene with Raquel--or is that Cherry?--in the sand is really something to see (and one of the few times the film is not chopped up to provide deeper meaning in the subtext). *1/2 from ****

Harry Sledge (Charles Napier) is a small-town sheriff who doubles as a drug runner for an old, rich pervert. He gets involved with the old man's woman, plus another big-breasted girl. Meanwhile he stalks a rival indian dealer in the desert. The film features typical great dialogue, masterful editing, photography and wonderful sex scenes. It also has some great action scenes and is surprisingly bloody. Charles Napier gives one of his best performances. It's a very entertaining 70 minutes.

Russ Meyer is a genius at cutting films. And from other examples of his work you can tell he had the whole multi, jump cut vision in his head. Shooting plenty of coverage to get the whole hyper-active, ceaselessly interesting story told. But Cherry, Harry and Raquel was completely shot when the lab ruined over half the footage. Meyer was forced to improvise and Uschi Digart became the scene padding "Muse". The afterword narration becomes a completely overboard retelling of the whole movie. But for all those sad concessions to losing whatever Meyer might have made of this story, it's one of my favorites. Charles Napier absolutely rules. He must have double the muscles in his forehead and scalp than the ordinary mortal as evidenced by some of the mugging he does in this flick. Meyer's kinetic film cutting was far ahead of it's time. The climactic final shoot out is just bloody and macho and totally hilarious stuff.

Try as I might I can never get as enthused about 'Cherry, Harry and Raquel!' as much as I am about nearly every other Russ Meyer movie I've seen. It starts off well enough with an impassioned plea against censorship superimposed over a background montage which includes two buxom babes rubbing their breasts together. It looks like it is going to be Meyer at his most outrageous, but sadly it gets very dull very quickly. The script is just simply not up to Meyer's usual high standards, either plot-wise or dialogue-wise. It's co-written by Meyer with Tom Wolfe, though don't get excited it's not THE Tom Wolfe of 'Electric Kool Aid Acid Test' fame. Now THAT could have been something! Anyway, legendary tough guy character actor Charles Napier plays Harry, a corrupt sheriff involved in the smuggling of "the mind bending narcotic" marijuana. His partner is played by another Meyer regular, the fabulous Franklin Bolger. Napier and Bolger almost single-handedly salvage this mediocre movie, which almost comes to a standstill every time Cherry (Linda Ashton) and Raquel (Larissa Ely) are on screen. This was their first and last Meyer movie, and it's no mystery why, they just aren't up to the standards set by Tura Satana, Haji, Erica Gavin or Kitten Natividad. If anyone of those actresses were substituted for Ashton or Ely this movie might have really sizzled. Another legendary Meyer babe Uschi Digard IS on hand for naked dancing and posing against the desert locations, which is very striking and memorable, but Uschi, Napier and Bolger aren't really enough for me. I still find this one a great disappointment. I would only recommend it to a diehard Meyer fan. Others looking for an introduction into his astonishing oeuvre would be better to start with 'Faster Pussycat! Kill! Kill!', 'Beyond The Valley Of The Dolls', or 'Supervixens' (which may or may not be a sequel of sorts to this one, as Charles Napier plays a violent cop called Harry in both movies). All three of those are utterly brilliant and are among Meyer's best work.

Russ Meyer's career got raunchier as it went on and his 'more serious' early films as well as his comical later efforts both have their plus points. Cherry, Harry & Raquel comes almost in-between the two sides of Meyer's career and almost feels like a dress rehearsal for the likes of Up and Supervixens, as we get all the raunchiness of Meyer's latter day films but it's incredibly poorly strung together and unfortunately, unlike the later efforts, the result is a film that has a handful of interesting scenes, as well as a bucket load of rubbish and boring ones. At times it feels like Meyer shot a load of footage and just stuck it together. As the title suggests, the plot focuses on three main characters - unsurprisingly called Cherry, Harry and Raquel. Harry is a police sheriff with a sideline in drug smuggling, and a local apache has got wind of this, leading Harry to track him down. Harry also has an eventful love life, with no less than two luscious and buxom beauties to choose from - there's Raquel, a prostitute, and Cherry; a nurse.

Despite not being among his best work, Cherry, Harry and Raquel does feature Meyer's trademark style. We've got plenty of sex and nudity, as well as some fairly vicious violence, some good dialogue and Meyer's trademark fast editing. Most of the film takes place in the desert and this provides a good setting for the movie, and also helps to give the film it's most memorable moments - namely, Uschi Digard posing naked against desert backdrops. This is the first Russ Meyer film to star Charles Napier - the memorable actor who would go on to steal the show in Meyer's 1975 masterpiece Supervixens. He's not as good here as he was in Supervixens; but the performance is something of a landmark as Napier was one of the first men to do a full frontal nude scene. Naturally, Meyer doesn't let his audience down with his choice of actresses; Larissa Ely and Linda Ashton are both great (especially unclothed) and their screen time together is one of the best moments of the film. Meyer often tried to give his films a point and it usually serves only in making his films sillier and more bizarre - and that is the case here too; although the ending monologue will provide some laughs. Overall, this is probably the worst Russ Meyer flick I've seen so far and despite some positive elements - there really isn't much to recommend it for.