The Great Scout & Cathouse Thursday
| The Great Scout & Cathouse Thursday | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Directed by | Don Taylor |
| Written by | Richard Alan Shapiro |
| Starring |
Lee Marvin Oliver Reed |
| Music by | John Cameron |
| Distributed by | American International Pictures |
Release dates |
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Running time | 102 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
The Great Scout & Cathouse Thursday is a 1976 comedy film directed by Don Taylor starring Lee Marvin, Oliver Reed, Sylvia Miles and Kay Lenz.[1]
Synopsis
Sam Longwood, a frontiersman who has seen better days, has spent the last 15 years looking for his ex-business partner Jack Colby, who ran off with all the gold from a mine they were prospecting but also took the love of his life, Nancy Sue, as well. Sam, along with his two other partners- Indian Joe Knox and Billy, has finally found Colby and along the way they pick up a young prostitute nicknamed Thursday. But getting their money isn't going to be as easy as they think.
Plot
"Set in Colorado against the heated backdrop of the 1908 presidential election, The Great Scout & Cathouse Thursday focuses less on the pros and cons of William Howard Taft vs. William Jennings Bryan than the details of everyday life along the not-quite-civilized Western frontier. Specifically, the drinkin’, whorin’ adventures of craggy old prospector/gunslinger/thief Sam Longwood (Lee Marvin) and his whiskey-soaked, gonorrhea-ridden, half-breed partner Joe Knox (Olvier Reed).
Although soon to be reunited, the two have gone their separate ways as the film opens. While Reed sticks mostly to drinking with a sideline in whoring, Marvin has developed a more respectable career as a con man, working a scam with sidekick Strother Martin in which they dare gullible saloon-goers to touch the side of a glass jar containing a deadly snake, then show how it’s done.
Meanwhile, Reed kidnaps a police coach filled with prostitutes, assigns them all names to coincide with days of the week, declares “I have got the clap!”, then announces his plans to infect them all as part of a scheme to exact revenge on the white man. After grabbing his favorite prostitute, whom he’s named Thursday (Kay Lenz), Reed reunites with Marvin as they set about exacting revenge on Robert Culp, a now-respectable politician who stole Marvin’s wife (Elizabeth Ashley) and cheated Marvin and Reed out of money. Their solution: Kidnap Ashley and ransom her back.
And maybe rape her, as they claim is part of their plan at one point. Although they never make good on that threat, the film has a lot of uncomfortable jokes about rape. “You’re not going to rape me?” Lenz says to Reed at one point. Told, “No, ma’am,” she replies “Well why not?” But most of the action has less to do with rape and more to do with wacky chase scenes. After Reed gets cured of his affliction (the hard way), the pair, with Lenz, gets chased through town and ends up in a whorehouse. The film’s climax involves a complicated horse-and-motorcar jaunt through the hills, leading up to a round of fisticuffs between Marvin and Culp. But first there’s the matter of disrupting a boxing match with some badly animated wasps".[2]
Cast
- Lee Marvin as Sam Longwood
- Oliver Reed as Joe Knox
- Robert Culp as Jack Colby
- Kay Lenz as Thursday
- Elizabeth Ashley as Nancy Sue
- Sylvia Miles as Madam 'Mike'
- Strother Martin as Billy
References
External links
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