Bad Girls (1994)

Four prostitutes join together to travel the Old West.

Director:

Jonathan Kaplan

Writers:

Al Ruddy (story) (as Albert S. Ruddy), Charles Finch (story)

Stars:

Madeleine Stowe, Mary Stuart Masterson, Andie MacDowell

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Madeleine Stowe	...	Cody Zamora
Mary Stuart Masterson	...	Anita Crown
Andie MacDowell	...	Eileen Spenser
Drew Barrymore	...	Lilly Laronette
James Russo	...	Kid Jarrett
James Le Gros	...	William Tucker (as James LeGros)
Robert Loggia	...	Frank Jarrett
Dermot Mulroney	...	Josh McCoy
Jim Beaver	...	Pinkerton Detective Graves
Nick Chinlund	...	Pinkerton Detective O'Brady
Neil Summers	...	Ned, Jarrett Gang
Daniel O'Haco	...	Roberto, Jarrett Gang
Richard Reyes	...	Rico, Jarrett Gang
Alex Kubik	...	Yuma, Jarrett Gang
Will MacMillan	...	Colonel Clayborne

Storyline

When saloon prostitute Cody Zamora rescues her friend Anita from an abusive customer by killing him, she is sentenced to hang. However, Anita and their two friends Eileen and Lilly rescue Cody and the four make a run for Texas, pursued by Graves and O'Brady, two Pinkerton detectives hired to track them. When Cody withdraws her savings from a Texas bank, the women believe they can now start a new life in Oregon. But Cody's old partner Kid Jarrett takes Cody's money when his gang robs the bank, and so the four so-called "Honky- Tonk Harlots" set out to recover the money, with the Pinkertons hot on their trail.

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Plot Keywords:

prostitute | prostitution | brothel | western town | small town | 

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Taglines:

It was a dangerous time to be a woman. And a good time to have friends.

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Genres:

Action | Romance | Western

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Motion Picture Rating (MPAA)

Rated R for western violence

Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English Spanish

Release Date:

22 April 1994 (USA)

Also Known As:

Belles de l'Ouest

Filming Locations:

Alamo Village - Highway 674, Brackettville, Texas, USA

Box Office

Budget:

$25,000,000 (estimated)

Opening Weekend USA:

$5,012,200, 24 April 1994, Wide Release

Gross USA:

$15,240,435

Company Credits

Production Co:

Twentieth Century Fox, The Ruddy Morgan Organization

Technical Specs

Runtime:

99 min

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.78 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

The video release of this film contains a few frames of nudity that did not appear in the theatrical release.

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Goofs

A wad of hundred dollar bills seen briefly is obviously twentieth-century money.

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Quotes

William Tucker: Once the money gets back to Agua Dulce I reckon you're going to be pretty big heroes in these parts.
Cody Zamorra: We ain't heroes.

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Alternate Versions

An unrated video version featuring additional footage is available in the USA.

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Connections

Referenced in The Winner: Broken Home (2007)

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Soundtracks

Lorena
Music by J.P. Webster (as Joseph Philbrick Webster)
Lyrics by Henry De Lafayette Webster
Sung by Robert Loggia

User Reviews

Opportunistic, meretricious, girl-power nonsense

A girl-power western for the MTV generation, Bad Girls blatantly rehashes plot elements from The Wild Bunch and Unforgiven but lacks the depth of characterisation, the moral seriousness and the real feeling for the Western's history that made those films such outstanding examples of the genre. Director Kaplan seems to think he's pulling off some revisionist coup by putting women in the central roles, but he offers only lame stereotypes which combine the hoariest of old Western cliches (they're prostitutes!) with the emptiest of post-feminist attitude-striking (they're the Spice Girls on horseback!). The real offence of the film, though, is its opportunism and dishonesty. These foxy chicks are ostensibly rebelling against the oppression of women, specifically their objectification as sexual objects. But as they kick ass Buffy- or Xena-style, the camera lingers on thier hot bods as it would in any soft porn exploitation flick. There's even a lesbian subtext to titillate the most jaded of gentlemen's palates. What purports to be some kind of feminist fable in fact has the sexual politics of your average issue of Loaded magazine. Better seek out the surreal Freudian poetry of Nicholas Ray's Johnny Guitar (1954) or the down and dirty realism of Maggie Greenwald's The Ballad of Little Jo (1993) for Westerns that have something substantial to say about sex and gender.