There has been a whorehouse just outside of Gilbert, Texas owned by Wulla Jean since before WWI. During the depression, they accepted chicken as payment for services resulting in the nickname, the Chicken Ranch. Wulla Jean passed away leaving her establishment to Mona Stangley (Dolly Parton). The Ranch has local support including Sheriff Ed Earl Dodd (Burt Reynolds) who comes over often to see her. Muckraking reporter Melvin P. Thorpe (Dom DeLuise) comes to do a series of expose on the Ranch. Mona promises Ed to shut down for 2 months but she recants for the traditional Thanksgiving game between Texas A&M and University of Texas. A Senator is caught as well when Thorpe barges in on the Ranch. Sheriff Dodd is under pressure and he tries to plead his case to the Governor (Charles Durning).

Dolly Parton and Burt Reynolds come in like an old married couple. She has always been a bit of a cartoon character to me. There are a few pretty catchy songs in this. It's a cute R-rated musical but not that funny. Jim Nabors and Dom DeLuise don't get as many laughs as I expected. It's a very light somewhat enjoyable Broadway-heavy musical.

I used to call this the "Who-House" because I couldn't believe that there would be a musical with the "offending" word in its title. It is what it is, however, an apparently true story of something that happened in Texas many years ago, and I can't help but go back and look at it for what works and what didn't.

Dolly Parton goes down Mae West territory here as Mona, the madame of the Chicken Ranch, and if both women have a tendency to come off as drag queens with real female body parts blatantly threaten to pop off the screen, it is not their fault. If there had to be a movie version of this long-running but somewhat odd late 1970's Broadway musical, then who better to play the female lead than Dolly Parton. Burt Reynolds seems to be an overabundance of ego here as the sheriff, played on stage by character actors rather than a leading man type. "As the World Turns" actor Henderson Forsythe originated the role, and on tour, none other than "All My Children's" Ray Gardner (Gil Rogers) played the part. But in Hollywood, glamor is the key, Burt was box-office king, so to cast someone less glamorous in the role would be an offense to the money men.

Actually, the two of them do share an amazing chemistry, but Burt's "I'm too sexy for myself" attitude always irritated me, and here it is blatantly obvious. Only in a few sentimental scenes does any sort of humbleness come out. Dolly really rocks the house with "Nothin' Dirty Going On", and even gets to sing a bit of her own real-life hit "I Will Always Love You" (long before Whitney Houston took it over). "Hard Candy Christmas" is a real heart-breaker.

I've always loved Charles Durning's "Side Step", a perfect song about political evasiveness still felt today, and his dancing and singing are picture perfect for his Oscar Nominated cameo. Dom De Luise is the epitome of creepiness for his "Watch Dog" reporter, and I just love to see him taken down a peg after declaring "Texas Has a Whorehouse In It!" The gay cult "Aggie Song" sometimes seems to just go on and on (and many of the football players seem truly uninterested in visiting the who-house!) and there are a few of the Broadway songs I truly miss, most notably "Dulcie Mae", sung on stage by the waitress character here played by Lois Nettleton. Stage and TV star Robert Mandan is amusing as another politician caught with his drawers down, and the wonderful Theresa Merrit is one of those character actresses that you just want to jump through the screen and hug.

I can't praise this movie, but neither can I praise the source it came from. The results are mixed on all sides, but there's much to love. You just have to sometimes dig deep to find it.

There is a commitment to authenticity in film production of "The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas." The people are fictional, in that no real-life sheriffs or governors or madams are depicted, but the movie is unafraid to use the names and likenesses of real, powerful Texas institutions to fill out the whorehouse clientele portion of its cast. Early on, Jim Nabors's goofball deputy explains one of the key plot points: the winning team of each year's famed football match between Texas A&M University and the University of Texas gets a free night at the Chicken Ranch, a house of ill repute west of Houston. To allege such a thing in a movie today would be impossible: the lawsuits would be swift and many. But here, it isn't just alleged—it's depicted in vivid detail and with the flamboyant abandon of a great movie musical. The sequence begins on the gridiron, with the trademarked logos of A&M and UT on proud display, and transitions to the victorious Aggies' locker room where the men do a gleeful choreographed routine and strip down to their bare asses right underneath the "Gig 'Em Aggies" sign. Soon enough they're at the Chicken Ranch, where a Senator looks on approvingly as the team and the employees dance and carry on in various states of undress. It's a very funny string of scenes, and it wouldn't have the same sense of stakes or impropriety if instead of the Aggies the team was some made-up, generic stand-in; in Texas, there is no stand-in for A&M. One wonders how the large and powerful Aggie alumni community feels about this film. The movie walks a delicate line regarding the morality of its subject matter. It satirizes politicians (Charles Durning shows himself to be a physical comedy genius in his single, show-stealing number) and condemns "gotcha" journalism (Dom DeLuise's TV investigator dandy even uses that exclamation),and these are easy targets, but its discussion of the whorehouse itself is confined to a limited set of debate parameters. The perspective of the whores themselves is mostly missing, as is the criticism of prostitution as a kind of slavery. In its place is the less troubling contest between the support of safer, legalized, pimp-free prostitution and the old-fashioned condemnation of it on religious grounds. Most modern theater- and film-goers take the former view when those are the only two options, and the movie does so as well with a compelling and well-meaning righteousness. What it lacks in nuance on the subject of paid sex, it makes up for with really touching character moments between Burt Reynolds's duded-up sheriff and Dolly Parton's dolled- up proprietress. Their relationship is kept on impressively equal footing, and it feels as real and lived-in as the footage of the Texas capitol, the small-town courthouse square, and the Texas A&M stadium.