City Slickers II: The Legend of Curly's Gold (1994)

Shortly after their first western adventure, Mitch Robbins and his friends discover a treasure map that belonged to their late trail guide Curly and set out to discover its secrets.

Director:

Paul Weiland

Writers:

Lowell Ganz (characters), Babaloo Mandel (characters),

Stars:

Billy Crystal, Daniel Stern, Jon Lovitz

1 nomination.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Billy Crystal	...	Mitch Robbins
Daniel Stern	...	Phil Berquist
Jon Lovitz	...	Glen Robbins
Jack Palance	...	Duke Washburn
Patricia Wettig	...	Barbara Robbins
Pruitt Taylor Vince	...	Bud
Bill McKinney	...	Matt
Lindsay Crystal	...	Holly Robbins
Beth Grant	...	Lois
Noble Willingham	...	Clay Stone
David Paymer	...	Ira Shalowitz
Josh Mostel	...	Barry Shalowitz
Jayne Meadows	...	Mitch's Mother
Alan Charof	...	Mitch's Father
Kenneth S. Allen	...	Annoyed Man in Library

Storyline

The second part of City Slickers begins after the death of Curly. It is the 40th birthday of Mitch Robbins and the day begins quite good until he returns home (after a hard day at the radio station) and finds his brother Glen, the black sheep of the family, in his sofa. Nevertheless he is about to have a wonderful birthday-night with his wife when he discovers a treasure map of Curly by chance. Together with Phil (from the first part) and unfortunately with Glen he tries to find the hidden gold of Curly's father in the desert of Arizona instead of attending a meeting in Las Vegas. The adventurous journey reveals many surprises until everything seems to be over when the map gets lost...

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Plot Keywords:

map | treasure | treasure map | gold | birthday | 

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Taglines:

They're back in the saddle!

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Genres:

Adventure | Comedy | Western

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Motion Picture Rating (MPAA)

Rated PG-13 for a comic sex scene and off color humor

Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

10 June 1994 (USA)

Also Known As:

City Slickers II

Filming Locations:

Arches National Park, Moab, Utah, USA

Box Office

Gross:

$43,522,360 (USA)

Company Credits

Production Co:

Castle Rock Entertainment, Columbia Pictures Corporation, Face Productions

Technical Specs

Runtime:

116 min

Sound Mix:

Dolby

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

The horse that Billy Crystal rode in this movie is called Beach Nut and he is the same horse that Crystal rode in the first City Slickers.

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Goofs

During the Stampede scene, while Mitch is trying to save Glen. If you listen closely you can hear the sound of rotors of a helicopter they're using to make the horse run.

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Quotes

Clay: Great buckets of bull shit. It's Curly come back from the dead!

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Connections

Featured in The Fine Art of Separating People from Their Money (1998)

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Soundtracks

"The Godfather Waltz"
Composed by Nino Rota

User Reviews

Amusing – but really just a retread of the original's jokes with less conviction and energy

Now turning 40, Mitch Roberts is at ease with himself and full of confidence. He is doing well at work his marriage is good and he is happy. His friend Phil is causing him some trouble as he has Mitch's old job but isn't working well and further stress arrives for Mitch in the shape of his deadbeat brother Glen. However the trio get excited when Mitch discovers a map to hidden gold in the lining of Curly's hat. But can the group recover the gold successfully? Is it even real? And is Mitch just imagining that Curly has come back from the grave to haunt him?

I saw this years ago in the cinema and had vague memories of it as being pretty good. I saw it a few nights ago on TV and have to say that my memory has not served me well. The plot here is silly – any excuse to get three wise-crackers out on horses again in the wild west. The way they manage to rope Jack Palance back in doesn't really work and hurts the feel of the film. In the original Palance worked but here it feels like he's been shoehorned into it and that he's forced to over egg the cake.

The film has a few good lines and laughs but too often it just repeats jokes from the first film to lesser effect. It's a shame because the film is freed from the sentimental soul searching that bogged down the latter stages of the original. However it does nothing with this freedom. I'm sure I remembered this as a comic adventure yarn, again I was mistaken. The same old jokes but it lacks a soul or a centre. The original may have been a little sentimental but it complimented the comedy for the most part – here that is missing, and it hurts.

Crystal delivers his lines with vigour and is funny – I always find him funny! But at times he does look like he's on autopilot. Stern is also just treading the same old material over and is only so-so. Kirby decides not to return so Lovitz replaces him and actually does alright. However his brand of humour isn't as good as Crystal and the two don't gel – although he does get some good laughs. Palance tries again but the Oscar magic isn't there and I couldn't help feel he took away from his original role somewhat.

Overall this is amusing at best but really pales against the original (which wasn't a classic itself). The action isn't up to much and the comedy only delivers a few laughs, preferring instead to retread as many of the original's jokes as possible.