Mule Feathers

This low-budget film has been little seen over the years, though there have been home media releases from smaller companies. It is a western "comedy" with Rory Calhoun as a con man drifting into town disguised as a minister, with the intent of robbing the bank. He is aided and abetted by his talking mule (voiced by Don Knotts) with whom he also seems to have telepathic communication with, as he and the mule converse even when they are not together. But Rory (saddled with a makeup job that makes him look like a zombie) doesn't get involved much---he stands around observing as the wildly over-the-top crazy townspeople try to overthrow the town boss.

This is truly a ghastly film---it makes virtually no sense at all, the acting is horrible, and Rory Calhoun chews the scenery maniacally as if he is having fun mocking the director who was too dumb to realize this was happening. This film is about as close to unwatchable as a film with recognizable names can get.

The film has had multiple release dates listed from different sources, and therefore was apparently made somewhere between 1975 and 1978. And Don Knotts? How did he get involved in this mess? And how much did he get paid to sit in a recording studio for one afternoon? As the film has been so little seen, did he even know what the finished product was? Knotts completists, who want to see everything he ever touched, may wish to seek this out, but I would recommend to them that they pretend it doesn't exist.

Woe to the person who views this film.

The version that I rented (when looking for a humorously bad movie, mind you) had the gall to put Don Knotts on the cover of the box. What a joke. A disembodied Knotts provides the voice for a mule that occasionally appears during the movie, voicing perhaps 15 lines - a solid half hour of work for old Don. The rest of the movie is beyond incomprehensible - film quality that is beyond terrible, jump cuts everywhere, horrible sound, and no discernable story or point. Was it intended to be a comedy? The (near) presence of Don Knotts would seem to indicate that, but the dreary pacing and tone of the film suggests that Stanley Kubrick directed the film while hung over.

So while I had hoped to find something that could be ironically enjoyable, the experience of watching Mule Feathers just felt like being beaten mercilessly in the head with a board.