Touches You

the audience applauded

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

I liked it better than I would have once I realized that it was actually written by a film student I knew. This formerly devout, still a sweetheart guy was talking big with a typical male swagger of the mid-60s, but when I watched it with my eyes open to a certain character conflict, I could see that Billie, who in a sense is given nothing, is actually given quite a bit as a character. After the rape, she is not blissful about being raped as much as she's "imprinted", her first opportunity to fall in love. She sort of is undecided about whether she's been raped or not; she thinks so, and can't even get her father to care. She makes them pay attention by roping them in together: that's a statement they ought to pay attention to!'and they do. Since I knew the guy, I began to realize the conflicts were his own. He was caught between the expectations of the macho world and his own desire to see it go better than that, to show more love and respect for a woman. He was kind of caught between a rock and a hard place. Male society was unforgiving, not only of gay tendencies but of serious heterosexual tendencies, such as love. This guy was a secret lover of slow love songs: death to a macho reputation. I remember how they used to talk. Anyway, when I'd watch it with a little mercy on the guy, I'd see things in it that you can't say are successfully conveyed since they are so hidden in the cold-blooded bravado and bluster, but they are there if you look for them, understanding what guys were up against then. I hated rape, and I still do. As a believer in Jesus Christ, if I had been inclined to say it was OK, I'd know that it was sin, and certainly not doing unto the other as you would have them do unto you. If it makes you feel better, the guy got his own panties in a twist in a terrible, unjust situation in the latter part of the decade! So, there you go. He should have not made a movie that was even ambiguous about something so destructive to another person. But in making Billie fall in love with him, he dignifies her sort of under the typical hard-boiled movie's radar. It is not my favorite movie, but the actual screenwriter will always be one of my favorite people.

There's a difference between a film ABOUT misogyny and a film that endorses it. This is, unfortunately, the latter. When the rape victim tries to press charges, she's told by James Whitmore, with a total lack of irony, that she is so pretty that no jury would find her rapist guilty since they'd all want to rape her themselves. In the end when the "hero" rides off into the sunset, having just successfully stolen gold from the United States Army AND having taken advantage of his rape victim a second time, Roger Miller sings, once again with a total lack of irony, that he "left the world a better place." No he didn't. He's a thief, murderer, and rapist who gets away with it. I'm no pussy who doesn't like films where the bad guy gets away. Silence of the Lambs is great. It doesn't pretend the world is a better place because Hannibal Lecter gets away in the end. It's ironic, like the end of Taxi Driver. But this film actually believes the world is a better place because of men who stick to their convictions and rob, murder, and rape, as long as they're charming about it. I'm not even saying rape can't be funny, though I'm hard pressed to think of an example. Parts of this film may be funny, but as a whole, it's rotten to the core.

This film ranks as one of my personal, all-time favorite comedy movies. I laugh myself silly every time I watch it, but I have never known any woman who enjoyed it, or even sat through the whole thing, due to the blatant sexist script, especially the jokes about James Coburn's rape of the sheriff's daughter. For example, the line "Hell, Sheriff, it wasn't rape...it was only assault with a friendly weapon!" While there are many fantastic comedic performances by a host of actors, both famous & lesser known, the one great scene that always reduces me to uncontrollable laughter is the shoot out in the whore house with shotguns blowing everything to smithereens. That scene must be seen to be believed. The title song is funny & really sticks in your memory too..."It's the Code of the West!" (a man soaps his own saddle, brands his own cattle, and some of his neighbor's as well). To sum up...this is a movie that will reduce men to so much laughter that they will have trouble breathing, but will offend every woman who tries to sit through it. A really great comedy movie but don't watch it with your wife unless you want to be called "a sexist pig" and forced to sleep in the garage for a week.

Well, at least a cult of my friends, who saw this movie at least a dozen times at the drive-in during 1967-68, and learned the dialogue by heart. I finally got a copy of the film (and the soundtrack) about 10 years ago, have viewed it a few times since, and it is still to me one of the great overlooked comedies and westerns. Not comedy-western, which was so overdone in the 60's, but it stands tall in both genres. And it is the film that I watched when I heard of Carroll O'Connor's death. He is nothing short of wonderful in this pre-Archie role. And Coburn as Lewton Cole: perfect, another of his great sly characters.Yes, "Waterhole #3" is sexist and cynical, and also hilarious and a bold statement of the true "Code of the West," its theme that is brilliantly told by the troubadour, Roger Miller, in song and narration. It can be rightly accused of misogyny, because it dares to show and lampoon the attitudes of the macho old west toward women and not just the pseudo-heroic male violence that was the narrow theme of countless western films. Put in the context of 1967 and the radical changes being ushered in in terms of sexual identities and expressions, I think this film was, if anything, progressive in its provocation. That's sure how we took it. And its cynicism about greed and self-interest was a warning and not an anti-heroic celebration. But the main thing is that it's a great comedy, with an outstanding ensemble of dramatic character actors dipping their toes in comedic waters to great result: James Whitmore, Tim Carey, Claude Akin, Joan Blondell, and Bruce Dern ("Sure left us bare, ain't that right, John?")From a true cultist: 10 out of 10