Best Little Whorehouse in Texas
From AwardAnnals
| Film: | Best Little Whorehouse in Texas |
|---|---|
| Director: | Colin Higgins |
| Honors: | |
| Genres: | |
| Distributor: | Universal Studios |
| Find it: |
|---|
Reviews
Amazon.com
This is an energetic, but ultimately mediocre adaptation of the play, directed on Broadway by Tommy Tune. Burt Reynolds is the town sheriff and a regular patron of a local bordello. He wages a public battle to keep it open after it is targeted as the devil’s den by a television minister. Charles Durning was nominated for a Oscar for Best Supporting Actor, and there are some lively song and dance numbers featuring Dolly Parton as the madame of the Chicken Ranch. However, this becomes bogged down in too many serious moments for it to be more than a lightweight musical comedy. —Rochelle O’Gorman
Barnes and Noble
A rollicking, good-natured 1982 film adaptation of the 1978 Broadway stage smash, Whorehouse was tailor-made for the personas of top-billed Burt Reynolds and Dolly Parton. Burt, who had long appealed to rural and southern audiences, snugly filled the shoes of small-town Texas sheriff Ed Earl, an easygoing fellow under increasing pressure to close down a legendary local brothel known as “The Chicken Ranch.” Country-music favorite and newly minted screen star Dolly Parton was ideally cast as Miss Mona Strangely, the formidable proprietress of that august establishment. These enormously popular and gifted stars were very nearly upstaged, though, by character actor Charles Durning, whose showstopping number, “Sidestep,” remains one of the movie’s highlights. Even after two decades, everything about this mildly naughty tune fest still impresses: Parton’s numbers are uniformly good, especially “A Li’l Ol’ Bitty Piss-ant Country Place,” which gets the story off to a rousing, toe-tapping start. What’s often forgotten is that Whorehouse also contains the first screen rendition of Dolly’s 1974 hit song, “I Will Always Love You,” which Whitney Houston covered spectacularly in her 1992 film, The Bodyguard. A bubbly supporting cast includes Dom DeLuise, Jim Nabors, Robert Mandan, and Lois Nettleton. Colin Higgins, who had previously directed Parton in her breakout film, Nine to Five, stages comedy set pieces and elaborately choreographed production numbers with equal brio. This is one of those movies you can’t help but like, if only because everybody seems to be having so much fun. For high-spirited entertainment it can’t be beat—believe us, this is one Whorehouse you shouldn’t be afraid to patronize. Ed Hulse
