Il grande scout

This is American International Pictures mid 70s drive-in movie idea of Blazing Saddles meets Cat Ballou via Paint Your Wagon. Believe it or not, it is actually funny. Renowned for making budget imitation versions of popular genres or other blockbusters, AIP often just made their own remake of whatever was popular. Bonnie And Clyde? AIP make A Bullet For Pretty Boy or BoxCar Bertha or Bloody Mama, etc. Westworld? AIP make Futureworld. on it went. Until after Superman they made Meteor and went broke. Sad really because AIP had a place in pre Video and DVD Hollywood after Republic Pictures and Allied Artists also went out of the biz. GREAT SCOUT is a Lee Marvin western style 'romp' with an excellent cast. It imitates those initial films above (possibly also The Cheyenne Social Club) and adds some phoney animation (cartoon dots supposed to be a beehive attack) rude Native American Indians played by Oliver Reed (!) and Black Bart style gunslingers. It's all slight and silly. Cross reference the films mentioned and it is all no worse than something Ann Margret and Arnie and Kirk Douglas once made. GREAT SCOUT is a sitter for a cult revival on DVD.

I was pleasantly surprised by this film. I thought it would be pretty stupid but instead it was quite clever. This movie gave me the impression that everyone must have had a good time making it. Lee Marvin, Strother Martin and Englishman Oliver Reed, as half-breed Joe Knox(!), meshed perfectly. The women were lovely and not very dainty and Robert Culp was as usual, Robert Culp (it must be in his contract). Believe it or not, the story, convoluted as it is, makes sense and there is even an elaborate caper pulled near the end. A movie that should offend many people but is so good natured that it charms them instead.

An outstanding and irreverent comedy. Lots of belly laughs! Cannot understand why it is not available on DVD yet? Even though that pretty well sums up what I have to say, more is necessary if I want this to appear, so here goes.

Marvin, Reed, Crenna and Lenz all have a gift for comedy that was not always appreciated. Lenz is at her most fetching and can light up the screen and steal scenes, even from such veteran actors. Amazing also the way the old West stuff is still so applicable to modern life. Guess the dynamics of human nature and the relationship between men and women never change much. People a hundred years from now could watch this film and get the same laughs as the same absurdity in human situations will still exist then.

I saw this film when I was about 13 and remember laughing till I cried. I have never had the opportunity to see it again, because it never seems to be on TV and IMDB says it isn't available on DVD or video. I would love to see this movie again and find out if it has stood the test of time and memory.

Lee Marvin dusted off the rapscallion character he played in both Cat Ballou and Paint Your Wagon to star in The Great Scout&Cathouse Thursday. Marvin is the great scout at least by his lights and Cathouse Thursday is Kay Lenz.

It's 1908 and the scout's seen his best days gone by. But the sight of his old prospecting partner Robert Culp who is now running for governor of the state on a fortune that was started with the money that they prospected and Culp stole sends Marvin into action. Marvin contacts Oliver Reed and Strother Martin the other two partners and they formulate several plans for revenge.

The plan they eventually settle on is to kidnap Culp's wife Elizabeth Ashley who used to be with Marvin and hold her for ransom. Along in all of this is Lenz who is left over from a raid on a bordello she works at when Oliver Reed decides to keep her after he rescues the others. Lenz isn't crazy to go back there and be the special favorite of lesbian madam Sylvia Miles. In fact she comes in quite handy in dealing with Culp.

The Great Scout&Cathouse Thursday is a rollicking western with Marvin, Reed, and Martin all competing to see who can ham it up the most. I think Reed's scene in which he gets cured of the clap after being led down a garden path by Marvin is the best. Let's just say that Marvin was years ahead of his time in predicting the treatment.

The final fight scene between Marvin and Culp was borrowed from the John Wayne classic, McLintock. It still works in this film and provides a fitting climax.