Monday, 14 September 2009

Cherry, Harry & Raquel!
(1970)

60%

AS LONG AS THEIR FLESH REMAINS FIRM…

Somewhat incoherent plotting but the girls are fetching and the thin drug smuggling plot allows for a lot of bloody gunplay amidst the playful carnality.

Where Russ MEYER gets so much right about human sexuality lies in his Carry On understanding of the essentially libidinous nature of women. And the difficulty men have in keeping up with their insatiable demands. Without this full appreciation, his films would fall as flat as a pancake. And for sheer fleshy exuberance, these girls cannot be beaten.

The film also begins with a political tract against the dangers of both censorship and of trying to control the lives of others through invidious resentment at their lack of anhedonia. It also begins (& ends) with a moral homily about the dangers the young are exposed to through the morally empty and, thus, thrill seeking nature of the capitalist West. MEYER's surreal flair for incongruous – yet somehow fitting – images is well to the fore here as well.

Common Law Cabin (aka How Much Loving Does A Normal Couple Need?) is a mess made by an apparent Russ MEYER impersonator who lacks the wit, style and imagination of the better artist he is pastiching. The usual preoccupations with the desert, sexism, racism, phallic & vulval objects and rapacious women are in evidence but never form a coherent whole that one can fully appreciate or relish.


Copyright © 2014 Frank TALKER. Permission granted to reproduce and distribute it in any format; provided that mention of the author’s Weblog (http://franktalker5.blogspot.com/) is included: E-mail notification requested. All other rights reserved.

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Science:



No science is immune to the infection of politics and the corruption of power.



Jacob Bronowski… (1908 - 74), British scientist, author. Encounter (London, July 1971).


Sleep of Reason:



The dream of reason produces monsters. Imagination deserted by reason creates impossible, useless thoughts. United with reason, imagination is the mother of all art and the source of all its beauty.



Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes… (1746-1828), Spanish painter. Caption to Caprichos, number 43, a series of eighty etchings completed in 1798, satirical and grotesque in form.


Humans & Aliens:



I am human and let nothing human be alien to me.



Terence… (circa 190-159 BC), Roman dramatist. Chremes, in The Self-Tormentor [Heauton Timorumenos], act 1, scene 1.


Führerprinzip:



One leader, one people, signifies one master and millions of slaves… There is no organ of conciliation or mediation interposed between the leader and the people, nothing in fact but the apparatus - in other words, the party - which is the emanation of the leader and the tool of his will to oppress. In this way the first and sole principle of this degraded form of mysticism is born, the Führerprinzip, which restores idolatry and a debased deity to the world of nihilism.