That has to be, on its face, one of the funniest situations I have ever witnessed. Produced and directed by Hollywood legend and dancer Gene Kelly, “The Cheyenne Social Club” was the last movie Kelly directed and the last film that James Stewart and Henry Fonda starred in together.
The story is pretty straightforward. Stewart and Fonda are cowboy buddies in Texas. Stewart gets a letter that his brother died in Cheyenne and left him everything. Stewart goes to claim his inheritance and discovers that he now owns the Cheyenne Social Club, which is the highest-class whorehouse in town. Stewart is appalled and wants to shut the whole thing down. The people of Cheyenne…well, the men anyway, are furious. The six lovely ladies living at the social club, who worshipped the ground Stewart’s dead brother walked on, are sweet as can be…often too sweet. When one of the girls is beaten up by a local ruffian, Stewart steps up and defends her honor and subsequently starts a feud with a band of cutthroats. Ah, Westerns…
Let’s face it. This movie is a pretty sordid affair. Yes, it’s a light comedy but there’s still something disturbing about young nubile prostitutes fawning all over Stewart and Fonda. The only thing that makes it palatable is that Stewart finds it appalling as well, while Fonda as his quirky sidekick, Harley, literally moves from room to room enjoying all of his roommates. Ick.
Actually though, Fonda is the funniest part of the film, always with a dry comeback to Stewart’s ranting and ravings. Harley is an odd duck. He cracks pecans all the time and never stops talking. I’ve never seen Fonda in a funnier role. Stewart is hilarious simply because his discomfort is as genuine as you might expect.
The prostitutes are all two-dimensional characters and one shows up at her door to greet Stewart in a see-through corset. Yeah – that was shocking seeing Stewart in that scene. Mr. Smith goes to…well…somewhere a lot more exciting than the Lincoln Memorial, I’ll tell you that.
“Cheyenne Social Club” isn’t perfect. There’s a subplot with Fonda and a saloon girl in town that is never really resolved, and the ending is a little strange given everything the characters went through. Regardless, the film is quick and fun and never takes itself too seriously. It’s in the same family as “Support Your Local Sheriff.”
I like seeing big name actors spending their later years having fun in movies rather than trying to squeeze out one last award winning performance. Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau did the same thing in “Out to Sea” and that was great too. By the time Stewart and Fonda did this picture, they were simply playing Stewart and Fonda and I love it because their popular personas are turned involuntarily upside down here and it’s all kinds of amusing.
Starring Henry Fonda & James Stewart Directed by Gene Kelly Warner Bros. - 1970 GRADE: B
