MOVIE REVIEW : ‘MEATBALLS III’: KELLERMAN’S GOOD DEED

Every time Sally Kellerman is on the screen, “Meatballs III� (citywide) becomes more than just the inane and heavyhanded youthful sex comedy that it otherwise is. With her inimitable witty slinkiness, Kellerman is perfect casting as Roxy Du Jour, a porno queen who dies with her boots on, so to speak.

But they won’t let Roxy through those pearly gates to that big studio in the sky because she’s never done a good deed, so what more appropriate assignment than to send her back to earth to counsel a nerdy teen-ager, Rudy (Patrick Dempsey), on the rites of passage?

More Carole Lombard--and a bit of West, Harlow and Monroe thrown in for good measure--than Marilyn Chambers or Georgina Spelvin, Kellerman’s Roxy is an easygoing gal of whom it is impossible to believe that she is without goodness. No matter, for now she’s got her work cut out for her. Poor Rudy is a slavey for the summer at a lakeside dive that’s overrun by bikers and by college types, both groups equally obnoxious and determined to make the kid’s life as miserable as possible.

But they haven’t reckoned with Roxy, who’s invisible to all but Rudy and who possesses telekinetic powers that come in quite handy. What’s surprising is that, unlike the stupid sniggers and uninspired shenanigans that constitute the rest of the picture, the relationship between Roxy and Rudy develops with actual tenderness and sensitivity. In fact, Roxy is so protective--indeed, maternal--that Rudy soon has reason to think that it’s going to be just as difficult for him to lose his virginity than had she never materialized.

The likable Dempsey’s Rudy and Kellerman’s adorable Roxy, whose sex-goddess wardrobe is not always flattering, really belong in another picture. Except for them--and for Isabelle Mejias as the bright, defiant girl who Rudy can’t see for her punk look--�Meatballs III� (which, by the way, has no connection to its summer-camp predecessors) is beneath discussion.

It’s as if director George Mendeluk and writers Michael Paseornek and Bradley Kesden, in adapting a story by Chuck Workman, ran completely out of inspiration when they weren’t concentrating on Roxy and Rudy. It’s no wonder, then, that “Meatballs III� (rated R for much sexual innuendo) has been on the shelf three years, dusted off in this traditionally slack period between Easter and summer.

‘MEATBALLS III’ A Movie Store release of a Dalco production. Executive producers Andre Link, Lawrence Nesis. Producers Don Carmody, John Dunning. Director George Mendeluk. Screenplay Michael Paseornek, Bradley Kesden; from a story by Chuck Workman. Camera Peter Benison. Music Paul Zaza. Production designer Charles Dunlop. 2nd unit director Don Carmody. 2nd unit camera Henri Fiks. Film editor Debra Karen. With Sally Kellerman, Patrick Dempsey, Al Waxman, Shannon Tweed, George Buza, Isabelle Mejias, Ronnie Hawkins.

Running time: 1 hour, 32 minutes.

MPAA rating: R (Under 17 requires an accompanying parent or adult guardian.)