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.

1987 - HELLO AGAIN, Touchstone pictures garbage from the 1980's

This is the old Enoch Arden plotline, which was the basis for the Cary Grant film, My Favorite Wife, the unfinished Marilynn Monroe film Somethings Got To Give and the finished Doris Day film Move Over Darling.

The basic plot line has the wife who is presumed dead and her husband about to remarry when the wife shows up and creates all sorts of comedic complications.  Hello Again just adds the twist that the wife played by Shelly Long,  is brought back from the dead by her weird sister who happens to be a witch.

The director was Frank Perry who once upon a time made some interesting films like David and Lisa, Rancho Deluxe and The Swimmer.  His career ended with nutty films like Mommie Dearest and the you have to see it to believe it Monsignor.  Hello Again unfortunately can't even rate as a camp classic the film is the blandest of the bland.

 

The film is a show piece for the "comedic" talents of Shelly Long.  Shelly does hilarious things like bumping into furniture, knocking things over, eating dog snacks that she thinks are triscuits, and mugging shamelessly towards the end of the film.  Since this is a film aimed at women she is completely sexless and none threatening there is not an ounce of sensuality about her.

The entire cast is mostly made up  of TV actors.  The Touchstone Studio way was to keep the costs down, no super big name expense stars in their films.

The film is another attempt to sell a  mediocre film to the public with the hops of making a quick buck.

96 minutes, written by Susan Isaacs.