Ed Earl Dodd, the Sheriff of Lanville County, Texas, has been in a 12-year relationship with Miss Mona Stangley, who runs the "Chicken Ranch", a brothel outside the town of Gilbert in his jurisdiction. He does not interfere with her business, which has been a fixture of the town since 1910, regardless of legality. Occasionally interrupted by Deputy Fred Wilkins, the pair have a pleasant arrangement as secret lovers. Almost everyone in town approves of Miss Mona, a public-minded citizen who regularly donates to charity and, except for her line of work, is decent and law-abiding.
Mayor Rufus P. Poindexter and insurance salesman C.J. Vernon inform Ed Earl that consumer advocate and television personality Melvin P. Thorpe, who moved to Texas from New Jersey six years earlier, has announced his intention to do an exposé about the Chicken Ranch on his weekly program The Watchdog Report. After visiting Thorpe in his downtown Houston studio, Ed Earl is shocked when Thorpe reveals to the audience during his show, "Texas has a whorehouse in it." While filming a segment in the Gilbert town square, Thorpe accuses Ed Earl of taking payoffs and bribes to protect Miss Mona's business. Ed Earl responds by insulting Thorpe and threatening to physically assault or even incarcerate him should he, his crew, or his chorus of singers named the Dogettes, ever reappear in Gilbert.
The Chicken Ranch is such an institution that the winner of the annual football rivalry between the University of Texas Longhorns and the Texas A&M Aggies on Thanksgiving Day traditionally comes to "celebrate" its victory as arranged by the alumni association of the winning school. Thorpe's negative publicity, coupled with the footage of Ed Earl insulting him, puts an undesirable spotlight on the place, so Ed Earl asks Miss Mona to shutter the property for at least two months until the TV attention subsides. She complies, closing the bordello to her regular customers but allowing the football players to have their party.
Thorpe and his crew sneak onto the property, break into the house, and catch the winning Aggies and State Senator Charles Wingwood, a 1949 Texas A&M University alumnus who represents the 19th Congressional District where the Chicken Ranch is located, on tape in mid-debauch. The next day, Ed Earl and Miss Mona have a fight over what happened. Mona chastises him for being unavailable to shield her during Thorpe's raid, even going so far as to call him childish and insult his standing; in turn, he responds, "It's a hell of a lot better than bein' a whore."
Without telling Mona his intentions, Ed Earl travels to Austin to appeal to the Governor of Texas. The politician, who will not make a decision on any issue without first seeing the results of opinion polls, listens to Ed Earl's eloquent appeal to keep the Chicken Ranch open. However, when the polls say a bare majority of Texans disapprove of the place, he orders the sheriff to close it down. While leaving the capitol building, Ed Earl confronts a jubilant Thorpe, yanks off his wig, and punches him out as a crew films the confrontation.
At his office, Ed Earl calls Mona to tell her to permanently close down the whorehouse, and apologizes for their earlier fight. After hearing the news, the sex workers leave the Chicken Ranch the next day. Miss Mona is disconsolate, until learning about Ed Earl's attempt to keep the brothel open.
As Miss Mona is departing the Chicken Ranch for the last time, Ed Earl stops her and proposes marriage. She turns him down, knowing that having a wife who had once been the madam of a notorious whorehouse would hurt his chances of running for the state legislature. Ed Earl insists he wants to marry her, regardless of what people will think or say. To make his point, he tosses her luggage into his pickup truck, then picks up Miss Mona and installs her in the passenger seat. They drive away together.
Deputy Fred becomes the new Sheriff, while Ed Earl and Miss Mona marry. Ed Earl later successfully runs for the Texas state legislature.
Originally, Larry L. King and Peter Masterson were going to write the screenplay and Masterson and Tommy Tune, who had directed the stage production, were to direct together. King recommended Shirley MacLaine, Dyan Cannon, Carlin Glynn (Masterson's wife, who had originated the role of Mona on Broadway) and Jill Clayburgh as the possibles to star but was told they were not a sufficient box office draw.[4]
When Dolly Parton was cast, King suggested Willie Nelson as a co-star and Universal executives met with him but in the end, Burt Reynolds was cast. Reynolds was paid $3.5 million and Parton $1.5 million.[4]
Reynolds wanted script changes and wanted to sing. Universal became nervous about giving the film to first-time directors and replaced Masterson and Tune with Nine to Five's Colin Higgins.[4]
Reynolds later said Parton "had two directors fired before we started – they were gone. Because I'd made so many movies and she hadn't, everyone thought it was me. Whether she was right or wrong in those decisions, it was amazing to me that she could do it."[5]
Higgins prepared for directing by watching old George Cukor films and Dr. Pepper commercials ("They have a lot of wonderful movement", said Higgins.[6])
Reynolds suggested to Higgins that Charles Durning be cast. "Colin is very smart, very commercial. They wanted Mickey Rooney, so I manipulated him a little. I told Colin, 'Mickey Rooney is a wonderful actor, but everyone knows that. You won't get any credit. Charles Durning can sing and dance and no one knows it, so you'll get all the credit.'"[5]
Adaptation
The book of the play was restructured to make it a vehicle for Parton and Reynolds.
The plot is basically the same as that of the stage production, with one significant difference. In the original, Ed Earl and Miss Mona had a one-night stand 15 years earlier, but in the film, they maintain an ongoing affair.
In August 1980 King wrote a letter to Frank Rich where he said:
Looks as if Hollywood is gonna really do a number on the Whorehouse movie. Word is that Stevie Phillips isn’t going to be allowed to produce it, Pete and Tommy are out as directors, and they’re bringing in some guy to re-write it so that it will fail to resernble anything of the stage show. The director, I hear, is to be one Colin Higgins; he is advertised as an English fag. Ned Tannen is alleged to have said... that all he wanted of Whorehouse was the title so he could make a film in which “Bert and Dolly screw their brains out.”... Burt Reynolds told Stevie and Pete he wants the movie to be “Smokey and the Bandit visit the Whorehouse.”[7]
The relationship in the film brings about not only the accusatory scene, when the sheriff – disappointed that Mona has broken her promise to close the Chicken Ranch down long enough for things to cool off – calls her a whore, but also the happy ending, when he proposes marriage to Mona even though that might endanger his chances to be elected as a state legislator. The epilogue comments state that he is elected anyway.
King later wrote, "Though I was fond of the screenplay Pete Masterson and I put together, let’s face it: even if the Universal nabobs and Burt and Dolly come up with a movie I hardly recognize, they can’t justly be accused of having tampered with Shakespeare or having done violence to Art. Whorehouse is an entertainment, pure and simple."[8]
Filming
Parton described her experience as "a nightmare."[9] She later wrote in her memoirs,
The wonderful time I had on Nine to Five had whetted my appetite for another movie. Whorehouse was a completely opposite experience. It was as if Nine to Five had been my first lover, sweetly seductive before and gentle and caring during our lovemaking. Whorehouse, then, was a rapist.[10]
Parton wrote Reynolds was in a bad mood during filming because he had broken up with Sally Field, alleging ,"Sometimes he would just walk off the set, unable to deal with things, and I would be called upon to go to his dressing room and try to cheer him up. That was a little like the blind leading the blind, since I was in an emotional and physical turmoil of my own."[11] She added, "On top of that, people were being fired right and left. In fact, at one point there was a bumper sticker circulating around Hollywood that read, HONK IF YOU’VE BEEN FIRED FROM “BEST LITTLE WHOREHOUSE"."[11]
For his part, Reynolds described Parton as "very self-deprecating, at least in public."[12]
Parton later wrote, "I’d like to publicly apologize to everyone on that film for any ill will and hurt feelings I might have caused"[13] and said the film was "a miserable, spirit-numbing ordeal."[14]
Much of Carol Hall's original Broadway score is performed. However, eight songs, "Girl, You're a Woman", "Twenty-Four Hours of Lovin'", "Doatsy Mae", "The Anglette March", "The Bus from Amarillo", "No Lies", "Good Old Girl" and "Finale", were omitted. Two additional Parton compositions appear: "Sneakin' Around", a duet with Parton and Reynolds, and a two-stanza rendition of Parton's 1973 composition "I Will Always Love You". The film version of "I Will Always Love You" — the original recording had been a U.S. country chart-topper for Parton in the spring of 1974 — was released as a single in July 1982, and again reached number one on the U.S. country singles chart. It was also a mid-level hit on Billboard pop and adult contemporary charts. An altered version of Hall's "Hard Candy Christmas", in which Parton sings both the chorus and the verses of the song (as opposed to the film, which is partially sung by the brothel ladies), was also released as a single, reaching the top ten on the country singles chart in late 1982.
Parton wrote several new songs that were filmed but ultimately unused, including "Where Stallions Run" and "A Gamble Either Way". The former was restored for the ABC network television broadcast, as the film was too short for its time slot after the censors finished their edits and additional material was needed. "A Gamble Either Way" replaced "Girl, You're a Woman" and was sung by Parton after Mona interviewed "Shy" (Andrea Pike) for a job at the Chicken Ranch. The characters of Shy and Angel from the Broadway show were significantly reduced in the film; their footage was eventually removed entirely. "Down at the Chicken Ranch" was written for the trailer. Parton recorded two of the deleted songs, "A Gamble Either Way" and "A Cowboy's Ways" (a reworking of "Where Stallions Run"), and featured them on her 1983 album Burlap & Satin.
Musical numbers
"20 Fans" – Company
"A Lil' Ole Bitty Pissant Country Place" – Mona and Girls
"Sneakin' Around" – Mona and Ed Earl
"Watchdog Report" – The Dogettes
"Texas Has a Whorehouse in It" – Thorpe, The Dogettes and Watchdog Chorus
"Texas Has a Whorehouse in It" (reprise) – Thorpe and The Dogettes
"The Aggie Song" – The Aggies
"Courtyard Shag" (instrumental)
"The Sidestep" – The Governor
"Texas Has a Whorehouse in It/The Sidestep" (reprise) – Thorpe, Chorus and The Governor
"A Lil' Ole Bitty Pissant Country Place" (reprise) – Company
Release
Marketing
The film presented some difficulties for Universal, particularly with advertising. In 1982, the word "whorehouse" was considered obscene in parts of the United States, resulting in the film being renamed The Best Little Cathouse in Texas in some print ads, while television ads were either banned outright in some areas, or the offending word was censored; on WXYZ-TV in Detroit, the announcer on the station's "Now Showing" segment merely clicked his tongue to eliminate the offending word: "The Best Little [click, click] in Texas!" In Canada, the title was generally left alone in print, but televised trailers used a bleep censor over the word. During interviews, Parton sometimes referred to the film as The Best Little Chicken House in Texas.
Box office
The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas opened in 1,400 theaters on July 23, 1982, and earned $11,874,268 in its opening weekend, ranking number one in the United States box office, dethroning E.T. The Extra Terrestrial's six-week run at the top of the box office.[15] It was the biggest weekend for a musical film ever.[16] The film grossed $69,701,637 domestically.[3]
Critical reception
The film received mixed reviews from critics. On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 48% of 27 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 5/10. The website's consensus reads: "It has its moments -- and a couple of appealing stars -- but this misguided movie musical largely lacks the crowd-pleasing appeal of the stage version."[17]Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film two out of four stars, stating, "If they ever give Dolly her freedom and stop packaging her so antiseptically, she could be terrific. But Dolly and Burt and Whorehouse never get beyond the concept stage in this movie."[18]
The film and the original Broadway musical it was based on were spoofed in the 1982 pornographic filmMemphis Cathouse Blues,[22] which starred Annette Haven in the Dolly Parton role of the madam and Mike Horner in the Burt Reynolds role as the sheriff. Porn star Kay Parker, who played one of the sex workers in the film, had an uncredited bit role in The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas.
Legacy
The house used in the film is located at Universal Studios in Hollywood and can be viewed as part of the backlot tram tour. The inspiration for the set came from a real ranch house located outside Austin, Texas, which is featured in scenes from the movie.[23]
The house was shown in the Ghost Whisperer television series episode "The Lost Boys".
Hall, Carol. Vocal Selections from The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas. Melville, N.Y.: MCA Music, 1979.
King, Larry L. and Masterson, Peter. The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas. Music and lyrics by Carol Hall. French's Musical Library. New York, N.Y.: S. French, 1978. ISBN0-573-68111-2
King, Larry L. The Whorehouse Papers. New York: Viking Press, 1982. ISBN0-670-15919-0
King, Larry L (1999). Larry L. King : a writer's life in letters, or, reflections in a bloodshot eye. TC Press.
