The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas (Universal) (1982)

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General		Extras
Category	Comedy	Theatrical Trailer
Rating
Year Of Production	1982
Running Time	109:31
RSDL / Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Language Select Then Menu
Region Coding	2,4	Directed By	Colin Higgins
Studio Distributor	Universal Pictures Home Video	Starring	Burt Reynolds Dolly Parton Dom DeLuise Charles Durning Jim Nabors
Case	?
RPI	$19.95	Music	Carol Hall Dolly Parton Patrick Williams

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s) German Dolby Digital 2.0 (192Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	2.35:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	2.35:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	English for the Hearing Impaired German Dutch Swedish Norwegian Danish Finnish	Smoking	Yes
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	Yes

    Has it really been twenty years? I suppose that when I first saw The Best Little Whorehouse In Texas I was of an age that would have been interested in the flashes of female anatomy, mild by today's standards of course, and not particularly put off by the musical song and dance routines. I probably even liked the American humour.

    Well, things have moved on a little and this film no longer appeals, at least to me. It was a fun bit of nostalgia but not much more than that.

    The story revolves around a whorehouse in Texas run by Miss Mona. Dolly Parton...ah...fills this role admirably. This little whorehouse is a place of good clean fun that has been plying its trade for many years. The opening segment shows the history, with many great costumes, in what is one of the most memorable sections of the film. Miss Mona's boyfriend is the local town sheriff (Burt Reynolds) and is turning a blind eye to the technically illegal activities at this establishment.

    Into this rosy world arrives a morals campaigner in the shape of Melvin P. Thorpe, a television personality. Melvin is played with great skill by Dom DeLuise. Our cast is rounded out by some other very recognisable characters. Jim Nabors (Gomer Pile) plays the deputy sheriff, Charles Durning the governor, and Robert Mandan the senator.

    Melvin decides that the whorehouse must be closed down and starts his campaign. He tangles with the sheriff but in the end gets his TV footage of the immoral dealings at the whorehouse and the end is in sight.

    All the actors play their roles very well. The acting is not at fault in this movie, it is just that the script is more than a little dated. I particularly like Dolly Parton - I don't think that she was really given the opportunities in films that she deserved; directors and probably audiences as well have typecast her rather unfairly.

Video

    The film is presented at 2.35:1 and is not 16x9 enhanced. There may be a problem with the ratio - the picture of the earth used in the opening studio identifier is not round, but squashed a little. Other scenes during the film also looked a little squashed, such as the sunset. This was subtle but visible when a round object was on screen.

    The picture was very soft throughout, and of about VHS tape quality. Shadow detail was acceptable and there was a fair amount of low level noise.

    The colours were muted. Considering the likely fact that many of the costumes worn by the women were probably quite brightly coloured, the saturation really was disappointing.

    This is a single layered disc and the grain present in the film master has negated any gains from the soft image and the bits saved due to the Dolby Digital 2.0 soundtracks. MPEG artefacts are present, particularly in the background throughout the film. The opening credits suffer from dot crawl. The MPEG artefacts go past pixelization at points to complete loss of fine detail such as the buildings in the shot at 6:04. Posterization is visible in the skin tones such as the sheriff's face at 35:08. The shimmering in the background has some interesting side effects - the painting in the background at 56:15 appears to be moving. I am not sure what is in the painting as the image is too soft.

    The film master is showing its age. The grain is quite distracting but there were relatively few scratches. There were a reasonable number of black and white specks.

    The subtitles appear in the black bar below the image. They are easy to read and accurate to what is being said.

    This is a single layered disc, so there is no layer change.

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    There were no problems with the dialogue quality nor with the audio sync.

    The music is very country and western. There are numerous occasions where the cast break into a song and dance routine, and one scene includes line dancing. This works perfectly for the film but may not be to everyone's taste.

    There were of course no surrounds and nothing from the subwoofer.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

Menu

    A static menu with no audio presented at 1.33:1.

Theatrical Trailer

    Running for 2:10 with an accompanying Dolby Digital 2.0 mono sound track this trailer is actually quite fun with a montage of images and inserts set to music.

    There does not appear to be a Region 1 version of this disc.

    I really was looking back through rose coloured glasses that were about 20 years thick when I put my hand up for this title. Still, it could have been much worse. Apparently this film was nominated for best film at the 1983 Golden Globe awards along with another nomination for best actress for Dolly Parton.

    The video quality is not good.

    The audio is a reasonable mono effort.

    A trailer is not much of an extra.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall