On the surface it's not so bad -- until one sees a stage play. The movie is badly directed; it drags badly. Dolly Parton can't act, and Burt Reynolds is far past his prime as an actor. Even with the necessary bowdlerizations, the play can be fun to watch, but this movie isn't. The zany Dom DeLuise is just too foppish to pull off his role as "Watchdog" Melvin P. Thorpe; he just can't pull off the hypocrisy necessary for the villain character. The singing isn't very good, and the romance between Parton and Reynolds has no spark. Because of the subject the movie must be fun to view if it is to be effective; it isn't, so it fails.
There can be human interest in the story if one focuses on the 'working girls', but it doesn't appear in the movie. Above all, the hypocritical villain, the Melvin P. Thorpe character, which Dom DeLuise can't quite pull off -- and without an effective villain one has no sympathy for the 'working women' on the Chicken Ranch.
By far the best performer in the movie is Charles Durning, who does a superb job in "Sidestep" as the Texas Governor who lets the polls make decisions for him and pays his tribute to Fred Astaire. It's not quite Astaire's famous ceiling dance and his dance with a hat rack in >Royal Wedding< (definitely not a great movie, but at least RW has its moments). But that's about it. And Durning's routine is but trick photography.
I got to see BLWiT in a small live theater in the Midwest -- and it was an enjoyable experience, even if I had my trepidations in view of the cinematic performance.
This is one of few movie stories that compels a remake -- which statement is the definitive insult to the competence of the persons involved in making this turkey of a movie at the supposed "Chicken Ranch". Better yet, see it as a stage play.
There can be human interest in the story if one focuses on the 'working girls', but it doesn't appear in the movie. Above all, the hypocritical villain, the Melvin P. Thorpe character, which Dom DeLuise can't quite pull off -- and without an effective villain one has no sympathy for the 'working women' on the Chicken Ranch.
By far the best performer in the movie is Charles Durning, who does a superb job in "Sidestep" as the Texas Governor who lets the polls make decisions for him and pays his tribute to Fred Astaire. It's not quite Astaire's famous ceiling dance and his dance with a hat rack in >Royal Wedding< (definitely not a great movie, but at least RW has its moments). But that's about it. And Durning's routine is but trick photography.
I got to see BLWiT in a small live theater in the Midwest -- and it was an enjoyable experience, even if I had my trepidations in view of the cinematic performance.
This is one of few movie stories that compels a remake -- which statement is the definitive insult to the competence of the persons involved in making this turkey of a movie at the supposed "Chicken Ranch". Better yet, see it as a stage play.