CHERRY, HARRY AND RAQUEL! (1970) ***

Russ Meyer’s Cherry, Harry and Raquel! is the only movie I can think of that starts off with a written plea for the tolerance of free love and sex immediately followed up by a long narration condemning the use and trafficking of marijuana.  I guess Meyer’s work is filled with contradictions, shameless moralizing, and even more shameless nudity.  It’s certainly a lesser work for Meyer, but it still contains enough of his hallmarks to make it worthwhile for fans.  There’s all the rapid-fire editing, Dutch angles, and shots of busty women making love and/or frolicking in the nude against far-reaching vistas that you’ve come to expect from the man.  The results are uneven and spotty, but I’ll be damned if there aren’t some flashes of brilliance here.

Harry (Charles Napier) is a corrupt sheriff who runs reefer out of a pissant desert town.  He keeps two women on the side, a sexy blond hooker named Raquel (Larissa Ely) and a fiery redhead nurse named Cherry (Linda Ashton).  Harry is delayed in the desert when he gets entangled in a vicious gun battle, and his ladies past the time by smoking dope and getting it on with one another.

Cherry, Harry and Raquel! is rather inconsequential and lightweight.  The fragmented, unstructured narrative is frustrating at times, but the highlights are pure Meyer.  Ely goes down on a guy while her wine goblet covers his phallus.  Napier finds Ashton buried in the sand before uncovering her breasts and balling her on the dunes.  Then there’s the scene of Napier fixing a flat tire intercut with a gynecological exam.  It’s bizarre, brazen, and totally Meyer.

I’m not saying it all works.  The random insert shots of Uschi Digard running around naked, showering, and suggestively eating celery doesn’t add up to much of anything, other than to help pad out the running time.  Then again, if you want to pad out the running time, having Uschi Digard roaming through the desert nude for no good reason whatsoever is a good way to go about it.  The overly violent shootout in the desert also feels a bit out of place.  I guess if anything, Meyer was trying to show everyone he could pull off a bloody gun battle just as well as Sam Peckinpah.    

Meyer took his comic book penchant for sex, violence, and overall outrageousness to the nth degree with his next film, Beyond the Valley of the Dolls later in the year.

AKA:  Megavixens.  AKA:  Three Ways to Love.