Review of The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas (1982) by Spencer S — 14 Oct 2012

First off, this film is in no way perfect. It's actually quite mind boggling if you watch it, because you sincerely wonder what the thought process was behind making this film. It isn't a bad concept or even a less than entertaining one, but it's just so haphazard and deliberately strange that to put it on the big screen doesn't make any sense, to me at least.

This film pulled in the most money at the box office for a musical in the eighties, and led to an Oscar nomination for Charles Durning as the Texan Governor. It features the incomparable voice of Dolly Parton, who wrote several songs herself, including her already highly lauded "I Will Always Love You," later to be covered by Whitney Houston in The Body Guard.

The songs are pretty catchy and it's very enjoyable to see some down home Southern stereotypes milked to showcase the same airy performances we've seen a thousand times already. What isn't enjoyable is the casting for some of these parts.

Burt Reynolds singing alongside a Madame while only wearing a blanket as a bottom? Bandit, you're better than that. And Dom DeLuise what in tarnation were you thinking? Wearing a bowl cut wig, and cha-chaing around in the most obscene outfits while singing about promiscuity? You belong in a Mel Brooks film, sticking out your tush and cha-chaing there! The only person perfectly suited seems to be Jim Nabors as a cloddish sheriff's deputy reminiscent of Barney Fife.

Durning gives a very off color and yet highly entertaining turn as the governor but didn't deserve an Oscar nomination for his less than ten minutes screen time. I think the Academy was just surprised to see the negotiator from Dog Day Afternoon sing about corruption and dance a little side step.

What is truly strange is the use of sex as a vehicle to move the plot along, though it's pretty tame when it comes to the music and showing the town of simple Southern folk in contrast. There could have been a lot subtler and less errant ways of showing promiscuity and prostitution than throwing in several shots of the women's bits as it were.

Even more troubling is that though they do go the distance with the nudity it ends in a morality tale, which is so bedrift of sense that it ends remotely anticlimactic. It's not the worst musical ever, but it's a pain to sit through; Sodom and Gomorrah it is not.