Un cow-boy en colère

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.

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.

Entertaining Western/comedy in which follows the misadventures of a misfit group of rogues and hustlers involving them into multiple antics . This eccentric funny Western set in Colorado of 1908 deals with Sam Longwood (Lee Marvin) , a scout who has liven better days , passing through aware his former gold-mine colleague named Jack Colby (Robert Culp) , now is a politically ambitious magnate , who ran off with all the gold from a mine they were prospecting several years earlier . Sam revives his old feud being helped by his other pals from that time , a wacky half-breed named Joe Knox (an improbable Indian Oliver Reed) and a roguish old man named Billy (Strother Martin) . Very funny Western about some helpless adventurers who hatch a plan and attempt to rob a fortune to a former swindler who now supports Taft presidential election . As they confront Jack Colby asking him the thousand dollars he previously took . After being thwarted in this attempt , they, and a likable young prostitute with rambunctious temperance named Thursday (Kay Lenz) scheme a variety of get-rich , well-concocted plans , as robbery of proceeds from big boxing match for raising funds to President Taft campaign . They also abduct Colby's spouse , Nancy Sue (Elizabeth Ashley) , who is coincidently Sam's old flame , but they learn that she is not the sweet woman that Sam had known .

Delightful Western parody with considerable silliness in which the grifter frontiersman Lee Marvin and the American Indian Oliver Reed steal the show using his wits , breaking all the rules and kicking virtually every cliché in the pants , as they relentlessly rob , run , and make jokes ; furthermore adds sparkle other actors . It is developed up and down with not much plot , some grotesque moments and in other side contains bemusing and funny scenes . Amiable but sometimes lumbering Western satire goes on and on about the same premise . Seemingly endless list of character players includes a good support cast as Elizabeth Ashley as an adulterous wife , Strother Martin as an inept botcher old man whose double-crosses habitually misfire , Kay Lenz as a wanna-be young whore and Sylvia Miles as a stubborn Madame . The film follows in the wake of ¨ Hallelujah trail (65) ¨ by John Sturges ¨ Support your local sheriff ¨ and ¨ Support your local gunfighter ¨ by Burt Kennedy ¨Waterhole¨ by William A Graham and of course ¨ Blazing saddles (74) ¨ by Mel Brooks , all of them are engaging Western satire and pretty amusing . Colorful cinematography by the Mexican Alex Phillips and lively , jolly musical score by John Cameron , full of mirth and amusement .

The film is well produced by AIP's Samuel Z. Arkoff and professionally directed by Don Taylor . None of Don Taylor's later movies have topped this one for sheer belly laughters . Don was an actor and director as TV as cinema , he played one of the leads in the Army-Air Force production of Hart's play, "Winged Victory¨ . Returning to civilian life , Taylor resumed his work in pictures with a top role in the trend-setting crime drama ¨The naked city (1948)¨ and played successful films as ¨Destination Gobi¨ , ¨Battleground¨ and ¨Stalag 17¨. In later years Taylor became a film and TV director , being nominated for an Emmy for his direction of an episode of "Night Gallery" (1969). Don met his wife Hazel Court when he directed her in a 1958 episode of "Alfred Hitchcock presents" (1955). Taylor was an expert filmmaker on adventures genre as ¨Adventures of Tom Sawyer¨ , Terror as ¨Damien : Omen 2¨ , and science fiction as ¨Island of Dr. Moreau¨, ¨Escape from Planet of Apes¨ and ¨The final of countdown¨. Rating : Good , 6,5 . Acceptable and passable Western/broad comedy fare although could have been funnier and better viewed in big screen . The movie will appeal to Lee Marvin and Oliver Reed devotees who will want to check out their excessive and comical performances .

I do not know enough about Director Don Taylor but I can assure you that after watching THE GREAT SCOUT & CATHOUSE THURSDAY I hope I do not have to suffer the torture of watching another mindless piece like this.

Taylor completely misuses an ageing Lee Marvin apparently trying to revive the role of Kid Shelleen in CAT BALLOU - without the booze; a statuesque and lively young Kay Lenz as Thursday, who for no discernible reason seems to be in love with old and frail looking Marvin, by then clearly affected by all the heavy drinking; Sylvia Miles having lesbian designs on Lenz seven years after servicing strapping John Voight in MIDNIGHT COWBOY; and Robert Culp in tow looking for $60,000 which Marvin does not care for - he wants Lenz, unfit though he seems for the part of making her happy. Throw in a few great looking jallopies competing with horses for space on the road in the late 19th century. Oh progress - why do you spoil everything?

It used to be just gunslingers, innocent souls getting in the crossfire and hookers livening things up but this bad old West has snakes in glass jars, Strothers Martin ready to pull the rug, Ollie Reed running around making faces and bulbous bulging eyes in the best tradition of no known Indian tribe...

Does it make any sense to you? Me neither.

Cinematography is sloppy, script nonsensical throughout, supposedly looking to recapture Marvin's glory day in screwball Western CAT BALLOU (1965) with expletives modernizing it to match 1976 lingo.

Single worst sin: a completely miscast Reed as an Indian with a Harvard background who just runs around with women's scalps in his inside pockets (wow, a novelty - I had never noticed those in Indian clothing before!)

Hysterical throughout. Everyone gets to shout, holler, yell, at various points in the flick... but definitely NOT hysterically funny!

Overlong, too. Despite superior cast, fair warning: best avoided. 5/10.

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.