cinema obscura: The Director's Cut of Colin Higgins' "Best Little Whorehouse..." (1982)

Back in the day, I interviewed Burt Reynolds on the Charlotte, N.C. set of what would become (arguably) his worst movie, "Stroker Ace."

It was 1982 and Burt's "The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas" had just opened. He was very high on it and, after the interview, he put on a cassette of "Whorehouse" outtakes - all musical stuff, including a different song written for the opening credits by by Dolly Parton - "Chick-Chick-Chicken Ranch" - in lieu of "20 Fans," and a soulful solo by Burt called "(Where) Stallions Run" which never made it into the truncated theatrical release. I've never quite grasped why studios "tweak" their musicals by editing out ... music - song and dance numbers.

Anyway, in 2002, when Universal released Colin Higgins' film on DVD, advertising "outtakes" among the bonus features, I fully expected those outtakes to be the amazing stuff that filled Burt's VHS tape. Wrong. The outtakes were the kind of blooper reels that Burt regularly screened for Johnny Carson's and Mike Douglas' TV audiences during the 1970s and '80s - you know, stuff of Charles Durning flubbing his lines, Dolly coming on like Mae West and Burt breaking up over some Dom DeLuise gaff. Strictly mundane. What happened to all the musical goodies?

Surprisingly, not even "(Where) Stallions Run" made the disc - surprising because the song was reinstated for the film's TV broadcasts, presumably to fill it out after more randy material was excised by the TV censors.

In his comments on the film on Amazon.com, Greg M. Pasqua reports that "over 30 minutes of film was cut from the Director's print" prior to its release in '82. (The release print of the film clocks in at 115 minutes.)

Among the missing numbers include two by Parton - "A Gamble Either Way" and "Stallion's Ways," both of which appear on Parton's "Burlap and Stain" album. I'm not certain if "(Where) Stallions Run" and "Stallion's Ways" are different numbers or the same song reworked by Parton.

Pasqua reports that an entire subplot from the play, involving the hiring of a shy girl (Andrea Pike) who grows into a woman during the course of the storyline, was elminated, along with one of the show's better-known songs, "Girl, You're a Woman," inspired by that subplot.

"Also," writes Pasqua, "smaller roles from the Broadway show were cut, including the abbreviated role of Angel (Played by Valerie Leigh Bilxer), the whore who wants to see her little boy for Christmas, and other scenes involving Dolly and the whorehouse girls. Longer cuts of the big musical numbers also exist ('The Aggie Song,' '20 Fans' and 'Little Bitty Pissant Country Place'). All of these would make for a pretty good Special Edition."

Agreed.

And now that the 2002 DVD is out-of-print, it would be great if Universal finally releases the director's cut on DVD - or at least include the deleted and unused musical numbers as outtakes. My advice: Just call Burt.

Note in Passing: Other songs from Carol Hall's stage score that were eliminated from the film include "Watch Dog," "Doatsy Mae," "No Lies," "Good Old Girl" and "The Bus From Amarillo."