So it's a sad irony that her husband,who boasts that the B-Bar-Lazy-T has `the best matrons and the best sires,'must confine his boast to the non-human mammals on the ranch. `Iwant some Gothic ranch action around here! I want some desire under theelms! I want to see some smoldering blazes down at the old corral!' It'shilarious.
`Come on, goddamit,' she yells at the cowboys, Burt and Kurt. She's one of manycowgirls in the movie, women who like to be in the saddle, and to be thesaddle. In one scene, the ladyof the house tries to light a fire with the ranch hands. But their boredom takes other amusing forms as well. And when the rustlingproblem appears, they treat it as sport like hunting a predatory animal. Theyhave everything they could want, so they're bored. We also sympathize with the rustlers because the ranchers are wealthy,socially prominent and dominant everything the rustler's aren't. Naturally, your sympathies lie with the rustlers, because they're theunderdogs. The `bad guys' are rustlers, down and outyoung men who poach cattle just to get by, pay their rent, and eat. Jeff Bridges acts just like JeffBridges.However, hands down, this is Slim Pickens' movie. Clifton James and particularly Elizabeth Ashley are great fun.Curt and Burt, played respectively by Harry Dean Stanton and RichardBright, are more or less adequate.
To tell the truth, the rest ofthe movie is occasionally disappointing, although Sam Waterston wasfascinating to watch, showing a promise which sadly never fulfilleditself.
More than a clown,he's a one-man show, as much of a scene stealer as, say, a vaudevillianin a movie full of Shakespearan actors. In this (and in the other two films Imentioned) we get to see another side of M. And in some respects, in many of his other movies, SlimPickens always seemed a kind of updated Andy Devine, western comicrelief but not much else. Every time he's IN the movie, he's the one you're watching tosee what he does, because you know it'll be something you'll remember.I've learned over the years that it's the supporting players who makethe movie. And thespeech he gives at the end was another of those earth-shatteringmoments that stick with you like flies to mayonnaise. Strangelove and Blazing Saddles, he'dlive forever in my memory simply for the scene in Rancho Deluxe wherehe describes his dream of being in Egypt in the days of the Pharaoh,and expresses consternation at having that dream disturbed. If he'd never done anyother films, except perhaps Dr. Never mind the movie, Monsieur Pickens' performance in this film is asignificant event in the history of cinema. Jack and Cecil always stay a step ahead of their pursuers, not realizing that their luck must run out sometime.
When Brown realizes he cannot trust his two inept ranch hands, he turns to the grizzled former rustler Henry Beige (Slim Pickens) to find the cattle thieves. Frustrated that someone is killing his cattle, John hires a pair of ranch hands, Burt and Curt (Richard Bright and Harry Dean Stanton), to find the rustlers. Both Jack and Cecil hustle and rustle their way in the world by targeting cattle owned by wealthy ranch-owner John Brown (Clifton James). Cecil is of Caucasian and Native American descent seeking his own path in life away from his grumpy cowboy father (Joe Spinell). Jack left his wealthy parents because he resented their posh lives. Jack McKee (Jeff Bridges) and Cecil Colson (Sam Waterston) are bumbling drifters who make a living by rustling cattle in the wilds of Montana. Two drifters, of widely varying backgrounds, rustle cattle and try to avoid being caught in contemporary Montana.