Rancho Deluxe (1975)

User Rating:

6.6/10   

Director:

Frank Perry

Writer:

Thomas McGuane (writer)

Release Date:

14 March 1975 (USA)

Genre:

Comedy | Western

Tagline:

Oh, give me a home, with a low interest loan. A cowgirl and two pickup trucks. A color TV, all the beer should be free. And that, man, is Rancho Deluxe.

Plot:

Two drifters, of wildly different backgrounds, become cattle rustlers in modern-day Montana.

Plot Keywords:

Rustler | Montana | Native American | Investigation | Buddy

Cast

Jeff Bridges	...	Jack McKee
Sam Waterston	...	Cecil Colson
Elizabeth Ashley	...	Cora Brown
Clifton James	...	John Brown
Slim Pickens	...	Henry Beige
Charlene Dallas	...	Laura Beige
Harry Dean Stanton	...	Curt
Richard Bright	...	Burt
Patti D'Arbanville	...	Betty Fargo
Maggie Wellman	...	Mary Fargo
Joe Spinell	...	Mr. Colson (as Joseph Spinell)
Bert Conway	...	Wilbur Fargo
Anthony Palmer	...	Karl
Richard McMurray	...	Mr. McKee
Danna Hansen	...	Mrs. McKee

Runtime:

93 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.33 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Australia:M | Iceland:16 | Sweden:15 | UK:15 (video rating) (1986) | UK:X (original rating) | USA:R

Filming Locations:

Livingston, Montana, USA

Company:

Elliott Kastner Productions

Trivia:

'Jeff Bridges' met his wife, Susan Geston, during filming. She was working as a maid on a dude ranch.

Quotes:

Wilbur Fargo: [throwing open the doors to Jack and Cecil's place] Come in, Grandma, and see the floozies and the whore-mongers! Filth and evil are one subject I am slow to tolerate!
Jack McKee: Uh, that's two subjects.
Wilbur Fargo: You are in a dangerous country, boy...
[Jack fires a bullet into the wall above Wilbur's head]

Movie Connections:

Referenced in Who Killed 'Winter Kills'? (2003) (V)

Soundtrack:

Wonder Why You Ever Go Home

Sires and Maidens -- All Ready to Go

Rancho Deluxe is a rare delight. It's a Western with a modern twist. The `good guys' are the ranchers. The `bad guys' are rustlers, down and out young men who poach cattle just to get by, pay their rent, and eat. Naturally, your sympathies lie with the rustlers, because they're the underdogs.

We also sympathize with the rustlers because the ranchers are wealthy, socially prominent and dominant – everything the rustler's aren't. They have everything they could want, so they're bored. And when the rustling problem appears, they treat it as sport – like hunting a predatory animal. But their boredom takes other amusing forms as well. In one scene, the lady of the house tries to light a fire with the ranch hands. She's one of many cowgirls in the movie, women who like to be in the saddle, and to be the saddle. `Come on, goddamit,' she yells at the cowboys, Burt and Kurt. `I want some Gothic ranch action around here! I want some desire under the elms! I want to see some smoldering blazes down at the old corral!' It's hilarious. These guys are worthless. So it's a sad irony that her husband, who boasts that the B-Bar-Lazy-T has `the best matrons and the best sires,' must confine his boast to the non-human mammals on the ranch. When he takes his prize stud-bull to the county fair, the announcer describes it as having `tremendous thickness and length… This bull has it all: size, bone, trim and color. It just brings tears to my eyes.' One can almost see the tears of unsatisfied desire in his wife's eyes as well – that all the virile sires are bovine.

Slim Pickens, a former horse-thief turned cattle detective, is brilliant, funnier than ever. And then there are the scenes that provide a little social satire. Speaking of the Western love of pickup trucks, for example, one character denounces them as `a sickness here worse than alcohol or dope. It's the pickup truck death. And there's no cure for it.' I wonder sometimes if I don't recognize the disease right here in Flagstaff.

All in all, Rancho Deluxe is a very entertaining hour and a half.