The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas

Universal Pictures | Release Date: July 23, 1982

CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION

40	METASCORE Mixed or average reviews based on 10 Critic Reviews

Positive:

Mixed:

Negative:

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Critic Reviews

Critic score Publication By date

Roger Ebert

If they ever give Dolly her freedom and stop packaging her so antiseptically, she could be terrific. But Dolly and Burt and Whorehouse never get beyond the concept stage in this movie. Read full review

Janet Maslin

This film lacks even the inadvertently buoyant awfulness that makes some bad movies fun. It's just plain dull. Read full review

Staff (Not Credited)

The dialogue is Texas crude, the sentiment Bible Belt coy, and the songs conveyor-belt Broadway: stale air on a G-string. Read full review

TV Guide MagazineStaff (Not Credited)

All the tunes are forgettable, and Reynolds and Dom DeLuise, who plays a crusading moralist, ham it up mercilessly. Read full review

The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas is just about everything it's meant to be - a couple of diverting hours in the dark. Rollicking, good-natured, a bit spicy and with just enough heart to avoid seeming totally synthetic. Read full review

Gary Arnold

You're obliged to take your fun where you can find it during this coyly coarse-minded, near-wreck of a musical, and there's precious little to be found watching the costars gather moss in each other's uneasy company. [23 July 1982, p.D3]

Boo Browning

The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas isn't a movie about human nature at odds with itself, but a witless and unwitting mirror for Hollywood's worst instincts and onanistic conceits. [23 July 1982, p.11]

Jay Scott

Entertainments like this are what Hollywood is said to be all about: larger than life personalities redeeming material smaller than a breadbox. [23 July 1982]

Staff (Not Credited)

The singin' and dancin' ain't much to write home about; you'd reckon that some $30 million would buy you somethin' with more pizzazz than an Amarillo road-show version of Oklahoma. Reckon again. [26 July 1982, p.79]

Pauline Kael

Dimples, wigs, bazooms, and all, Dolly Parton is phenomenally likable as the madam; her whole personality is melodious, and her acting isn't bad at all, even though the director, Colin Higgins, has made her chest the focal point of her scenes.