By Lee Pfeiffer
Any retro movie lover would be forgiven for thinking there would be a multitude of pleasures in The Great Scout and Cathouse Thursday, a 1976 Western comedy top-lining such considerable talents as Lee Marvin, Oliver Reed, Robert Culp, Kay Lenz, Elizabeth Ashley, Sylvia Miles and the always watchable Strother Martin. Sadly, the film is a complete misfire with nary a true guffaw to be found throughout. The movie is directed by Don Taylor, who helmed some fairly good films including Escape From the Planet of the Apes, Damien: Omen II and The Final Countdown. However, comedy is not Taylor's strong suit, as evidenced by the over-the-top elements of the movie. The quasi plot finds Marvin as Sam Longwood, an eccentric plainsman who is partnered with Indian Joe Knox (Oliver Reed) and Billy (Strother Martin) in an attempt to track down their former partner Jack Colby (Robert Culp) who fled with the haul the gold hoarde the four men had discovered years before. Colby has used the stolen loot to establish himself as a respectable politician. Sam, Joe and Billy concoct a scheme whereby they will blackmail Colby into returning their share of the money by kidnapping his wife Nancy Sue (Elizabeth Ashley), a loud-mouthed and obnoxious woman who has had romantic ties to Sam in the past. For reasons far too labored to go into, the trio of men are also accompanied by a seventeen year-old prosititute named Thursday who is seeking to escape the clutches of her former madam (Sylvia Miles).
The film has boundless energy but the non-screenplay leads the characters to dead-ends. Taylor inserts numerous slapstick comedy bits that bring out the worst in Marvin, as he goes into his over-acting mode routinely. Most embarrassing is the bizarre casting of Reed as a Native American. Cursed by having to wear a mop-haired wig and grunting "Me Tarzan, You Jane"-style dialogue, Reed does the most harm to the image of the Indian since the massacre at Wounded Knee. The film lurches from extended fistfights to boring chase sequences, all designed to mask over the fact that the script is a bland, pasted together conconction. There is also a jaunty musical score by John Cameron that is played so incessently, you'll be tempted to keep the remote on "mute" mode. The only people to emerge relatively unscathed are Lenz, Culp and Martin, who provided whatever wit and charm the film boasts. On paper, the project probably looked promising, but in terms of any genuine laughs...well, they went that-a-way.
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