The Great Scout & Cathouse Thursday

• Directed by Don Taylor
• June 23, 1976

Three prospectors confront their ex-partner who years earlier ran off with the gold from their mine.

What convinced me to watch The Great Scout & Cathouse Thursday was the pairing of Lee Marvin and Oliver Reed. Two great actors in one film. Even if the story was a dud (which it was not) I would get a little something worthwhile.

We’re introduced to aging scout Sam Longwood (Lee Marvin) pretty quickly. I’m not sure if he was running a scam with Billy (Strother Martin) or not but it pretty much set up his character as a tough guy that has seen significantly better days. Sam’s friend Joe Knox’s (Oliver Reed) introduction is a little more problematic by modern standards. I would consider it ‘questionable’ by the rules of the mid-70s. Joe saves a couple of prostitutes who were arrested by the local police and then essentially says they must thank him with sex. Yikers!

In their revenge heist/kidnapping they are eventually joined by underage prostitute Thursday (Kay Lenz). Good actress but her character sways between whiny teen and wily mature woman that can skillfully use her sexuality. One is a character and the other is a caricature. Worse they imply she is very young. Like she was a toddler when the trio was screwed over making her choice of work and a romance in the film icky.

Millionaire Jack Colby (Robert Culp) is the villain of the story who ran out years before with the trio’s gold and used it to start a business empire. As an actor Culp was always smooth and cool no matter what he was playing. Good or evil there was even a touch of slimy no matter the moral side he was on yet always likeable.

‘Rape’ gets tossed around a lot-both the word and the threat thereof. I’ve watched plenty of old movies and I have never come across one that treated it-both the word and the action-so casually. Then again prostitution is quite a casual thing too in this movie. They also sling the word ‘whore’ around a lot.

Things get silly in the story but there are few laugh-out-loud moments. Events are more for their absurdity than creating jokes that will make you react. Then again The Great Scout & Cathouse Thursday is really just a fun heist film where the people get back what is theirs along with a little revenge on the person that wronged them.

Everyone has an axe to grind against Jack Colby. From Sam Longwood to Joe Knox to Thursday (a little bit) though her axe is the same as Sam’s having become attracted to him. I am not exactly sure how the two fell in love. For Sam it was a night of sex with somebody apparently 17 if not just generally underage that once worked in a whorehouse while both were on the road to conduct a heist to get some money back. For Thursday it was one more in a long line of men. Where did the love come in?

Even Colby’s kidnapped wife (and Sam’s former girlfriend) Nancy Sue (Elizabeth Ashley) has her own beef with Colby and decides to offer aid to the group. Colby for his part throws a monkey wrench into the plot by NOT wanting his wife back. Despite every need and want tended to, she is quite the complainer and he has become happy with the quiet.

This mixes in somewhat ham-fisted political jokes since Colby is supporting William Howard Taft and Longwood has always voted the street Republican ticket but won’t this time because Colby supports Taft. It gets brought up quite a lot and becomes sort of a (bad) running gag. Maybe in ’76 it had more staying power or general resonance but not now.

Strother Martin seems to get a lot of smack for a man connected to many classics or generally great films. He’s not someone you automatically think of when you think of quality. The character of Billy acts more as intermediary as an intellectual intermediary between Longwood and Knox. You can view it as the pair being two aspects of the personality with Billy being the part that unites them.

The story weaves from start to finish. It is not a straight line to the end with the political elements feeling rough and poorly placed in. Yet it is a fun and enjoyable movie. Oliver Reed and Lee Marvin smoothed out any edges and help get you past any issues. Reed was no expert comic but he had charm as did Marvin.

The Great Scout & Cathouse Thursday does not take itself too seriously and is carried by great performances and good directing. Not hilarious but entertaining.