Cherry, Harry and Raquel (1970)
Whoa. My only previous exposure to the world of Russ Meyer was through Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! and Beyond the Valley of the Dolls -- both good films, true, but inadequate preparation for something like this. Moving from those two to a movie like this is like switching cigarette brands from Marlboro Lights to Lucky Strike non-filters. This is a Russ Meyer fever dream, something dredged up from deep within him and hurled at the screen in one undigested mass of breast-obsessed avant-porn. In many ways, it reminded me of Emanuelle in America... except that this film is actually pretty good. Meyer is a talented filmmaker, and he pulled out all the stops for this one -- crazy Dutch angles, rapid-fire editing pre-MTV, timeline-smashing jump cuts, what have you. It works well enough that one almost forgets that there's nothing holding this together; however, at some point the plot has to kick in, which leaves us with a perfunctory climax wherein everyone could have died and I wouldn't have batted an eye. Seriously... this movie's like 75 mintes long, and there's maybe 12 minutes of story. The rest of the film is Meyer's bizarre, free-form meditation on violence, drugs, fucking and the beauty of the feminine form (especially that last part). It's a film that seems like it may never end... but much of the time, I wasn't sure I actually wanted it to end.
Grade: B-
Whoa. My only previous exposure to the world of Russ Meyer was through Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! and Beyond the Valley of the Dolls -- both good films, true, but inadequate preparation for something like this. Moving from those two to a movie like this is like switching cigarette brands from Marlboro Lights to Lucky Strike non-filters. This is a Russ Meyer fever dream, something dredged up from deep within him and hurled at the screen in one undigested mass of breast-obsessed avant-porn. In many ways, it reminded me of Emanuelle in America... except that this film is actually pretty good. Meyer is a talented filmmaker, and he pulled out all the stops for this one -- crazy Dutch angles, rapid-fire editing pre-MTV, timeline-smashing jump cuts, what have you. It works well enough that one almost forgets that there's nothing holding this together; however, at some point the plot has to kick in, which leaves us with a perfunctory climax wherein everyone could have died and I wouldn't have batted an eye. Seriously... this movie's like 75 mintes long, and there's maybe 12 minutes of story. The rest of the film is Meyer's bizarre, free-form meditation on violence, drugs, fucking and the beauty of the feminine form (especially that last part). It's a film that seems like it may never end... but much of the time, I wasn't sure I actually wanted it to end.
Grade: B-
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