THE BEST LITTLE WHOREHOUSE IN TEXAS (1982) * You would have to think that pairing Burt Reynolds and Dolly Parton would yield something better than this, if equally inflated. Its heart is in the right place, I think, battling against the impinging self-righteousness of hypocrites like Jimmy Swaggart, but...it's just not any good. Somethings should never leave Broadway, and some should never get there; this is definitely one or the other. The plot, however historical, is stupid, none of the characters, however accurately drawn, are either appealing or interesting, none of the action is worth watching, the dances are awful but not quite bad enough to be amusing...almost all of the music reminds you of what would happen if Barry Manilow and Meatloaf got together on a bad day. I'll except the Reynolds/Parton duet, and especially Dolly singin' her classic "I Will Always Love You" from that blanket criticism, but I wish she hadn't tainted it by singing it here. Aw hell, it's too great to be tainted! In toto, less fun than your average McDonald's commercial. Jim Nabors and Barry Corbin have done infinitely better work on television. The only sense of decency, aesthetic or otherwise, generated by the entire thing was when it transpired that even hookers recoil in horror from having to sleep with anyone from Texas A&M.
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