Rowdy Girls (3 Stars)

This is another one of the films that I've discovered on my bookshelf that I haven't watched for more than eight years. According to Amazon's infallible memory I bought it on 28th July 2005, but it's no longer available now. It seemed strange to me that I've left a film starring Julie Strain unwatched for so long. I needed to refresh my memory.

I'm a big fan of hers, but this isn't one of her best films. It's a passable western adventure, but Julie seems out of character. She takes the side of men and she shoots women. That's not the Julie Strain I know.

The film takes place in Silkwater, a small town in Arizona. The rowdy women in the film title are Mick (Julie Strain), Violet/Viola (Shannon Tweed) and Sarah (Deanna Brooks). Mick is the partner of the outlaw Billy Poke, partner in love and partner in crime. Billy is a softy at heart. He doesn't like to kill people when he robs them, so Mick has to kill them for him.

Violet, who later in the film admits her real name is Viola, is an ageing prostitute who wants to get out of the business. I don't know how old she's supposed to be, but in the film she's played by Shannon Tweed who was 43 at the time and still looked sexier than most 20-year-olds. I have difficulty thinking of her as an older woman. Her lover has just robbed a bank, so she ties him to the bed, takes the money and runs away dressed as a nun.

Sarah is a girl from a respectable house who is due to marry a farmer in Silkwater, but that's not the life she wants for herself. She runs away and boards a stage coach headed to San Francisco. That's where the three girls finally meet. Billy and Mick hold up the stage coach in which Violet and Sarah are travelling.

Mick is a girl who likes to use a bullwhip in the bedroom for foreplay. That's my type of girl!

Violet is convincing in her disguise as a nun, but that's a disadvantage for her. Billy thinks she's a virgin and can be sold for a high price.

Sarah is the most devious of the three. She steals Violet's money, then seduces Billy and convinces him to travel to San Francisco with her. I know she looks beautiful, but how could any man choose Deanna Brooks over Julie Strain? What's wrong with Billy? Doesn't he like being whipped?

The film's rowdy girls never become a team. They prefer to side with the men in their petty little squabbles.

"Rowdy Girls" has a lot of wasted potential. The girls could have been sexier and the action could have been more brutal. I now understand why I haven't watched it for the last 13 years.