BootDigest Such a frustrating disappointment

Baseshment I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

Fairaher The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

Candida It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.

azcowboysingr 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.

N. Scott Cardell The best parodies are ones that are in the form of what they are parodying. This is one such parody. It is in the form of a spaghetti western (more specifically a Clint Eastwood spaghetti western), and it is a parody of a spaghetti Western. The hero would save the life of a stranger. Superficially, he appears to be a conventional strong silent highly moral hero. But in all matters that are less than life or death he is quite the opposite. Yet he remains appealing. Embedded in this wonderful parody is some of the funniest individual scenes in any movie. Fans of Parody and Clint Eastwood spaghetti westerns are the most likely to love this movie.

Skragg I can't help disagreeing with some of the people who analyze this movie (but not because I don't think there's a place for that). Especially the person who reduces ALL the people who are offended by it to stereotyped feminists and stereotyped "P.C." types (especially since there's hardly any kind of complaint about anything, that actually BEGAN with feminism or "political correctness"). Also, though, I disagree with the people who are sure there were probably NO complaints when the movie came out, because after all, "it was the ' 60s." (Without being sure, I'll bet there were plenty of complaints, even if they were maybe less about feminism, and more about the movie's "morality" in general.) I even disagree somewhat with those who say a movie like this could never be made now (though I think "Joey the Brit" is right in calling it doubtful). I do think (and here I seem to be agreeing with everyone) that if it WERE remade, it would make "Billee" the winner of the gold (which she seems to be in the next-to-last part), which would have two things going against it. First, it would seem self-conscious to almost anyone who knows the original, and second, it would disrupt that whole "anti-hero" idea that fans of the movie like. Having said all that, my way of looking at it is very simple (probably too simple). Instead of thinking of it as (especially) satirical, with an "anti-hero" (which are true, I'm sure), I think of as simply taking the "likeable rogue" idea to great extremes (its "logical extreme" so to speak). After all, in this story, the "hero" locks the sheriff (and not even a CORRUPT sheriff, at least, at that point) in his own jail, and as a further insult to him, ransacks his barn. And as a MUCH further insult to him, has his way with his nubile daughter (all-out rape or not). Leaving her to try her best to get justice for "my rape" (or to get HIM, but in the other sense), with no help from the sheriff himself, or from another lawman, who finds the whole thing unsurprising, and gets back to searching for the gold! Then at the end, when Billee SEEMS like she's about to get the gold (and she's maybe the most obvious choice, as far as "justice" goes), Lewton rides up, and (after enjoying her a second time) rides away with the gold himself. Maybe I'm disproving my own point (at least, about it maybe NOT being anti-feminist) by listing these things, but it's just that I don't entirely think of it as that on the one hand, or terribly "satirical" on the other hand. As opposed to, again, a story with an all-out "rogueish hero."

jimi99 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