What happened with the BEST LITTLE WHOREHOUSE movie?

[FOAnatic]

Posted: 10/4/06 at 12:22pm

I've never seen it but I remember someone writing about how it was nothing like the musical. Apparently Dolly rewrote most of the score and there were plot changes.

Is that true?

[jimnysf]

Posted: 10/4/06 at 12:33pm

Yep. Dolly wrote/used her own songs for the most part. I hated the film. It was like "Smokey and the Bandit Go To The Whorehouse".

[FOAnatic]

Posted: 10/4/06 at 12:34pm

Which makes me wonder what will come of the "9 to 5" stage adaptation with Dolly at the score's helm.

[BrodyFosse123]

Posted: 10/4/06 at 12:38pm

The original Broadway production was written by Larry L. King (no...not THAT 'Larry King') and Peter Masterson (Carlin Glynn's husband; she played Miss Mona in the original Broadway production; yes...he's also Mary Stuart Masterson's father). The film-version was written by Larry L. King and the film's director Colin Higgin.

Since one of the original writers of the show's book was also involved with the screen adaption, I'm sure any and all changes to the plot were creatively agreed upon.

Dolly only contributed 2 songs to the film's score: "Sneakin' Around" (a duet for her and Burt Reynolds) and one of her old classics (written years before the film), "I Will Always Love You".

An appropriate amount of the show's score was kept, though unfortunately, some good ones were not, such as "Doatsey Mae", "Bus from Amarillo", "24 Hours of Loving" and "Girl You're a Woman".

Phew...I know too much about this. Ugh!

[NathanLaneStalker]

Posted: 10/4/06 at 12:42pm

I liked the movie. Although the stage show was 1,000 percent better!

The movie was like the show in some ways but wasn't a faithful stage to screen adaption.

the only problem I had was them adding I Will Always Love You. Yes, it's a great song and it fit the scene but what was wrong with Bus from Amarillo?...NOTHING!

[jimnysf]

Posted: 10/4/06 at 12:43pm

There was another song, a solo by Burt Reynolds that appears in some of the TV prints but not the theatrical or DVD versions. It was a sin that she was allowed to cut "Bus From Amarillo". That is the best Mona song in the show.

[BrodyFosse123]

Posted: 10/4/06 at 12:48pm

The song Dolly wrote and which was cut from the theatrical print of the film is "Where Stallions Run", which was sung by Burt Reynolds.

[jimnysf]

Posted: 10/4/06 at 12:51pm

"sung by Burt Reynolds"

"sung". Now that's debatable.

[MrMidwest]

Posted: 10/4/06 at 12:53pm

I think it's an entertaining enough movie, even if it doesn't work in the same way as the show, which is better. I read once that more scenes with the younger characters were shot, but cut. I'm not sure if that's true or not, though.

[BrodyFosse123]

Posted: 10/4/06 at 12:54pm

Fair enough. 'Performed' by Burt Reynolds.

Woof!

Posted: 10/4/06 at 12:56pm

As it so often happens, they felt it important to have "Big" stars in the film and so to get Burt Reynolds (a #1 box office draw in those days)to play the sherriff they added a romance between he and Mona and a duet for them. There was talk at the time that they had pursued Willie Nelson for the role-- how wonderful would THAT have been?

"I Will Always Love You" was a big hit (again) for Dolly after it's inclusion in the film. In hindsight, they would have been much better off sticking to the original score, but at the time I think studio heads thought that a film with Burt & Dolly singing NEW Dolly Parton songs was a sure-fire hit.

[jimnysf]

Posted: 10/4/06 at 12:58pm

I saw the film the day it was released at the Rivoli Theatre on Broadway. The show was still running then. There were several cast members at the Rivoli that day. I overheard them on the way out lamenting that the film was not going to help keep the show going and if I recall correctly, the show closed a few weeks later. For good this time. It had already "closed" and the show went to Boston for a few weeks, then came back to Broadway to the Eugene O'Neal Theatre but did not last there.

[ErinDillyFan]

Posted: 10/4/06 at 1:08pm

I saw both the stage and the movie versions in the 80s. I remember it being as faithful as most screen adaptations, I haven't seen either in over 20 years, so I can't give specifics. It is very common to have a new song or two written for a movie and favorites dropped for time. This doesn't bother me as much as most people it seems. I like to see re-interpretations. My wife and I have made a hobby out of seeing films and the remakes back to back to compare them. The only stage to film I really have a problem with is Guys & Dolls for dropping the best song from the show "More I cannot wish you"

Posted: 10/4/06 at 1:18pm

Say what you will, but cute guys dancing around in towels and jock straps does it for me every time!

[best12bars]

Posted: 10/4/06 at 1:44pm

I thought the casting of the movie was fine, and as a film it was "good enough" for the general movie audiences of the day. And don't forget Charles Durning even got an Academy Award nomination for his show-stopping, "side-stepping" turn as the governor.

I did the show several years later with Becky Ann Baker (formerly Becky Gelke of the original cast), and it was then that I realized how much heart they had cut out of the film. Particularly when it came to the "girls." They were not just chorus/atmosphere as they are in the film. Two of them (Angel and Shy) were nicely fleshed out (as far as supporting characters go), and the others all had "identities" as people, not just as a generic group of eye candy.

By reducing the whores in that whorehouse to "furniture" they took away our care and our chance to empathize with any of them. And that was the real shame.

So we got The Dolly & Burt show, instead. Not bad... but not "Whorehouse" either.

[Gothampc]

Posted: 10/4/06 at 2:27pm

Isn't this the movie where Dolly & Burt have a 10 minute conversation on God and the universe that slows down the movie to a snail's pace?

[NathanLaneStalker]

Posted: 10/4/06 at 2:29pm

Yes! I ALWAYS skip that scene.

[elmore3003]

Posted: 10/4/06 at 2:40pm

It went to hell as soon as Pete Masterson and Tommy Tune were taken off the project.

[NathanLaneStalker]

Posted: 10/4/06 at 2:41pm

TT should've choreographed the movie.

[blaxx]

Posted: 10/4/06 at 3:23pm

The only stage to film I really have a problem with is Guys & Dolls for dropping the best song from the show "More I cannot wish you"

You mean the worst? I can't think of another song in the whole show that is so oddly placed and slows it down so much as that one.

[ErinDillyFan]

Posted: 10/4/06 at 3:42pm

"The only stage to film I really have a problem with is Guys & Dolls for dropping the best song from the show "More I cannot wish you"

You mean the worst? I can't think of another song in the whole show that is so oddly placed and slows it down so much as that one.

Obviously, the people making the film felt the same way. I think it is a beautiful song that ties the characters together and helps make some other the scenes make more sense. There aren't very many songs that express the fatherly type of love better than that.

[best12bars]

Posted: 10/4/06 at 3:46pm

blaxx---I guess "heart" and "sentimentality" between a father and daughter have gone out of fashion then.

Sorry to hear that.

[MisterRussell]

Posted: 10/4/06 at 4:12pm

I always thought that certain roles were cast well, while others were horribly miscast.

Dolly Parton, in and of herself, was not a bad choice for Mona. She certainly can sing and she was far from hard on the eyes!

Ah, then there's Burt. Just wrong as Ed Earl Dodd. There is indeed a secret "relationship" between him and Mona, but not specifically a sexual one. The ambiguity of said relationship only adds shading to their characters.

And with Burt, you have to have Burt's Buds, meaning the also woefully miscast Dom DeLuise and Jim Neighbors. Someone with a reign on Burt and his cronies would have realized that Dom just HAD to be let go. And what a missed opportunity for Neighbors, the good-ole-boy Gomer Pyle, who could have been cast as Melvin P. Thorpe instead! Essentially the villain of the piece, it might have led to a late-career re-assessment of Neighbors as an actor, had he pulled it off.

Durning was of course, a pro and an asset. The only cast member who was on a par with the casting of Dolly.

In re the girls and guys of the company, I wholly agree with the comments previously posted.

[CATSNYrevival]

Posted: 10/4/06 at 5:19pm

when do guys dance around in towels and jock straps? do I need to go rent this movie?

[blaxx]

Posted: 10/4/06 at 5:21pm

Sorry to thread-jack again, but I really have nothing against the song or its content, I agree is beautiful. But I personally believe that the second act of the show at that moment does not need another ballad, especially about a relationship that hasn't changed much since act one - it would be different if he was singing about Sky or his views on their romantic relationship that would make her re-consider.But it is not until she realizes that it was Sky who brings the gamblers to the mission that she realizes what he's really like.
Anyways, I just think that the show could've done without it, and nothing personal against the song itself, and my humble opinion only.

Updated On: 10/4/06 at 05:21 PM