1975 - RANCHO DELUXE, western comedy about cattle rustling

This modern day (at least as modern for 1975) comedy is about a couple of cattle rustlers in rural Montana.  They have mostly been rustling from a rich cattle rancher named John Brown, one cow at a time.  The film involves Brown's attempts to catch the rustlers.

Rancho Deluxe is a comedy or to put it another way a very laid back comedy at times almost to laid back.  The film has been well cast with Jeff Bridges as a slacker cowboy, Sam Waterston as his Native American companion the typical white guy actor playing a role he shouldn't.  New York actor Clifton James is the Montana rancher John Brown and Elizabeth Ashley is his wife.  The actor who seems more like a western character than most of the cast in this film is Slim Pickens as a livestock detective.  Pickens is his usual amusing self.

 

There is funny stuff in this film but the humor is very low key.  The film has nice photography from William Fraker who was a top Hollywood cinematographer who excelled at filming in western settings.  The director Frank Perry was not a guy known for his comedic touch.  He had filmed David and Lisa, Doc, and The Swimmer.  Perry was also a director with a couple of camp classics in his filmography, Mommie Dearest and the insane Catholic priest drama, Monsignor two films that are certainly a lot funnier than Rancho Deluxe. 

 

Rancho Deluxe was written by the very quirky screenwriter Thomas McGuane the author of that weird Marlon Brando/Jack Nickelson film The Missouri Breaks. In the end for all of it's strangeness this film just doesn't quite hang together.

The running time is 93 minutes.