The Michigan Daily
Arts
Tuesday, August 3, 1982
After 'Whorehouse'
director needs a rest
Page 7
David Letterman's "Late Night" tends to get out of hand. During one show,
Jerry Lawler apparently knocked Andy Kaufman out of his chair.
Letterman'S late nit
fun-filled extravaganza
HOLLYWOOD (AP)- The task of
making a- movie based on the raucous
musical The Best Little Whorehouse in
Texas fell into the capable hands of
onetime film student Colin Higgins.
That was two years ago. The results
of his labors will be judged this month
by the nation's reviewers and audien-
ces. Their verdicts will be closely
monitored by MCA-Universal, which
has a $26 million investment in the Burt
Reynolds-Dolly Parton movie.
Outrage may be heard, especially
from Miss Parton's fans in the Bible
Belt.
"The movie gets an R rating on the
basis of the title alone, and I think it's
right that parents should be alerted,"
Higgins said.
"There is a sense of naughtiness to
the movie, but I think it's done in good
taste. There is very little nudity ... It's
not a salacious film, by any means."
Higgins, who wrote Harold and
Maude as his master's thesis at the
University of California in Los Angeles,
came on the Whorehouse project as a
kind of troubleshooter.
"Tommy Tune and Peter Masterson
(who had helped create the stage ver-
sion) had been fired, and there was a
script by Masterson and Larry King,"
Higgins recalled. "There were some
basic problems. The leads in the play
were a 65-year-old sheriff sod a 50-year-
old madam whose love relationship
took place 20 years earlier. That
wouldn't work with Dolly Parton and
Burt Reynolds.
"The problem was solved by drop-
ping their ages and establishing an
ongoing relationship between the two.
Burt and Dolly helped by coming to my
house and talking with me. They were
indefatigable.
"From 9 to 6, we spent our time
laughing, shouting and hollering,"
Higgins said. "We had a great deal of
fun, but then they'd go home refreshed
and I'd be there faced with m aking
something out of it."
The musical score had to be
overhauled, the director-writer added,
since many of the songs had been
delivered on the stage by subsidiary
characters. Also there was no duet bet-
ween the two leads. Miss Parton
provided one, as well as new numbers
for herself.
The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas
was filmed on locations in and around
Halletsville, Texas, with additional
scenes shot outside the governor's
mansion and inside the capitol at
Austin.
Higgins found Halletsville more
By Scott Stuckal
A T FIRST, it looks like the old
Saturday Night Live.
Rock and roll rehashes of yesterday's
hits trumpet from you television set
directed by Paul Shaffer of Saturday
Night Live fame.
But there the similarities end. "Late
Night," the second-effort talk show
hosted by David Letterman, a master
of off-the-cuff wit, tickles the funny
bone in a mild but tasty way far
removed from Saturday Night's -hit-
em-over-the-head-with-the-joke skits.
Letterman's first effort, a daytime
talk show, never quite found its audien-
ce between the morning sitcom syn-
dications and the soap opera. But on
"Late Night" Letterman hits his stride
to the mirthful delight of millions of af-
ter-hours viewers.
Perhaps Letterman is finally
fulfilling his promise as "the next Car-
son" on Late Night. Letterman is the
young person's alternative.
Both Carson and Letterman will
submit to being the butt of a joke,
whether Johnny's dressed in a fortune
teller's outfit, or Dave is surveying the
results of "Dave's Hobby Shop."
"Dave's Hobby Shop" involved ran-
domly picked audience members sculp-
turing humiliating representations of
Late Night's host in different mediums.
One middle-aged woman's wax replica
of Letterman included an earing. She
told Letterman it was for "in case you
get into that sort of thing someday,"
Our nonpulsed host replied, 'If that's
your fantasy'.
But Letterman's late night star really
shines when he's got a guest to really
sink his teeth into. He doesn't chew
people apart, rather he skillfully
skewers his targets while they scarcely
realize what is happening.
Notice I said people. Late Night is a
real people show in the truest sense of
the phrase (for T.V. at least) without
the false cheerfulness of the "Real
People" show. Whether it's New York
school children performing their tooth
decay play or an interview with an
elderly lady, winner of "dream date
with Peter Tork," the ex-Monkee, Let-
terman manages to make light of
people's situations without making
light of people. Usually.
And even when he does throw out the
occasional nasty joke, the punch line
always works.
The guests on Late Night range from
See LETTERMAN, Page 10
Higgins
... directing a Hollywood musical
photogenic than LaGrange, site of the
infamous Chicken Ranch, which
provided-inspiration for the musical.
"The Chicken Ranch itself is a one-
story bungalow which had been built
onto, sheds on sheds," Higgins said.
"We chose a beautiful mansion that had
been built near Pflugerville by a ship's
carpenter 6 years ago."
Higgins, whose specialty had bees
comedy-adventures (Silver Streak, and
Foul Play), had always wanted to make
a "big, old-fashioned Hollywood
movie." He has done it. Now he plans to
take off six months in order to recover.
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