writers_reign
I shelled out for this dvd more as a Sinatra completist than a seeker of a successor to Citizen Kane. Any Sinatra fan is aware that when he wants to be a serious actor he is more than capable, witness The Manchurian Candidate, but against that he has a low boredom threshold and a penchant for schoolboy humour that only himself and Dino, Sammy etc find funny, witness Four For Texas, Sergeants Three, etc. Dirty Dingus Magee is definitely in the Four For Texas/Sergeants Three category in fact you could describe it as a Clan movie without the Clan. For reasons best known to himself - he couldn't have needed the money given that Catch 22 has never been out of print - Joseph Heller allowed his name to appear on the credits as a co-screenwriter but clearly saved his A-game for novels. There ARE laffs but essentially this is a one-trick pony.
zardoz-13
Writer & director Burt Kennedy concentrated largely on writing and directing westerns, some of them quite hilarious, such as "Support Your Local" and "Support Your Local Gunfighter" during his 44-year Hollywood career. "Dirty Dingus Magee" isn't as funny as the two "Support Your Local" spoofs that Kennedy helmed with James Garner. Part of the problem may be that Frank Sinatra doesn't make as amusing a protagonist as Garner. Furthermore,it isn't as funny as "The Good Guys and the Bad Guys." Considering the remarkable writing talent involved in this snickering horse opera, "Dirty Dingus Magee" should have emerged as far more than a fair-to-middling oater that generates its mirth from inconsistent helpings of satire, double entendre, and lowest common denominator slapstick that never really comes together with the cohesion of the "Support" westerns. Scenarists Tom Waldman of "Inspector Clouseau," Frank Waldman of "The Return of the Pink Panther," and Joseph Heller of "Catch 22" make a formidable troika. They adapted David Markson's novel "The Ballad of Dirty Dingus Magee," and they had to change Markson's 19-year old protagonist so that middle-aged Frank Sinatra would be acceptable in the lead role. Unfortunately, the humor here tends to more miss than hit, and some of it may flies so quickly that it might be noticeable only during subsequent viewings. The best set-piece in this light-hearted sagebrusher takes place when Brigadier General George (John Dehner of "The Left-Handed Gun") orders an emergency retreat drill at a bordello and his half-clad troopers scramble out windows galore to mount their horses. Some of the one-liners are memorable, too. Cathouse madam Belle Nops (Anne Jackson of "The Tiger Makes Out") remarks to one of her girls: "These army drills are hard on the girls." Belle's girl China Poppy (Marya Thomas of "Stay Away, Joe") replies, "Soldiers hard on, too." Occasionally, Kennedy replays one of his better "Support Your Local Sheriff" gags when our hero Dingus Magee struggles to open a strongbox festooned with chains. Magee wedges the box in the crotch of a tree, ties a rope from it to his saddle pommel and then gallops away. Predictably, instead of ripping the strongbox open, Magee is jerked unceremoniously backwards off his horse. Occasionally, Kennedy inserts quick antics, like a cavalry trooper leaving a prostitute who hands him a rooster and tells him to take his "cock" with him. Incidentally, the word dingus is Yiddish for penis.The shallow story concerns an insignificant outlaw with a $10 bounty on his head, Dingus Magee (Frank Sinatra of "Sergeants 3"), who is working at a stagecoach relay station when we first encounter him. A stagecoach stops to let the passengers stretch their legs and get a bite to eat. Magee recognizes his old friend Herkimer 'Hoke' Birdsill (George Kennedy of "Bandolero!"), but Hoke does his best to ignore him. Eventually, Magee shows Hoke where he can urinate without attracting attention. When Hoke turns his back on Magee, our anti-heroic protagonist nudges him with a six-shooter and snatches his derby. All along Hoke has assured Magee that he has only seven dollars in his wallet. As it turns out, Hoke has $400 stashed in his derby hat, and Magee steals it. Later, after the stagecoach pulls into the two-bit town of Yerkey's Hole, Hoke searches frantically for the sheriff and winds up discussing his predicament to Belle Nops, the madam runs the bordello and serves a mayor. Belle appoints Hoke as sheriff, and "Dirty Dingus Magee" depicts the back and forth shenanigans between Magee and Hoke as Hoke captures him and Magee escapes. Magee has a running romance with a young, sex-addicted, Indian maiden, Anna Hot Water (Michele Carey of "El Dorado"), who utters everything in an infantile idiom. For example, she refers to sex as "bim-bam." She addresses our hero as "Ding-goose." When General George threatens to remove his troops because the local Native American population poses no threat to the settlers, Belle and Hoke turn Dingus' escape from Hoke's jail into an Indian uprising.What possessed Frank Sinatra to this silly horse opera remains a mystery. He cavorts about in a toupee that makes him look like the large-eyed war orphan "Dondi" of the Gus Edson and Irwin Hasen comic strip that newspapers carried for thirty years. George Kennedy wears his attire so that he looks like Charlie Chaplin. A collection of seasoned western movie supporting actors, including Jack Elam, Don 'Red' Barry, Henry Jones, Paul Fix, and Harry Carey, Jr., show up for this half-baked hilarity. Lois Nettleton is cast as local schoolmarm Prudence Frost who is a closet nymphomaniac, an inversion of the formulaic schoolmarm in westerns. Kennedy and his scribes stand every western cliché on its head, but "Dirty Dingus Magee" labors for most of its laughs.
bkoganbing
Burt Kennedy who gave us so many good westerns spoofs comes up a wee bit short of good with Dirty Dingus Magee. Not that it doesn't have a few funny moments, but the cast just doesn't quite get with the spirit of the things the way they did in such films as The Rounders and Support Your Local Sheriff.For one thing Frank Sinatra looks like he's waiting for Dino and Sammy to come on the scene. Old Blue Eyes in the meanwhile is just going through the motions of a performance. Which consists of him acting just like a human version of the Road Runner.Wile E. Coyote in this case is George Kennedy who never played such a goofy role on screen before or since. Sinatra spends the entire 91 minutes of Dirty Dingus Magee consistently making a fool out of poor Kennedy.Best performances in the film belong to the women, to Anne Jackson for one of the brassiest bordello madams ever done on screen and to Lois Nettleton as the nymphomaniac school teacher, Prudence Frost. Yes, the name is part of the gag.But when that gag becomes the best one in the film, you've got a problem.
