Dirty Dingus Magee (1970)

Don't listen to the negative reviews

Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

Yo, there's no way for me to review this film without saying, take your *insert ethnicity + "ass" here* to see this film,like now. You have to see it in order to know what you're really messing with.

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

Director Burt Kennedy does not seem to be related to lead George Kennedy. George won an Oscar for Cool Hand Luke, but D.D.M. was three years later, and a whole different film! This one is a corn-ball western. Hoke Birdsill (G. Kennedy) spends the whole movie chasing after Dingus Magee (Sinatra), after somehow letting Sinatra rob him and escape twice. Magee has goofy run-ins with the injuns, and Birdsill is deputized by the mayor (Anne Jackson), who also happens to run the local "cat-house". Some fun dirty jokes in here, but the plot itself is as dry as the sandy desert they are crossing. The usual show-downs and shoot-outs. The grand finale ending is pretty funny. Did you notice Jack Elam playing piano with handcuffs on? and did you notice that we hear the bell ringing the last five minutes of the film, but they keep showing the bell standing still, with no-one anywhere near it? Based on the book by David Markson.

Dirty Dingus Magee is no classic western by any means. It is a ho hum comedy/western that lacks any appeal for Mr. Sinatra who plays a comedic run of the mill hobo thief. For most of the film he is wearing nothing more than a red single piece long john underwear and a really, really, I mean really bad teenager toupee that reminds me of Moe from the original Three Stooges. I guess the producers spent more on casting Sinatra in the lead role and ran out of money for a wardrobe designer?George Kennedy plays a hapless sap that keeps getting sucked in to Dirty Dingus Magee's schemes to make them both richer and richer. Of course there is a string of horny ladies from the local cathouse, as well as the good looking actresses Lois Nettleton and Michele Carey who seem to be just dying to get into bed with these two over the hill actors Frank Sinatra and George Kennedy? Why are they so hot for lust with Dirty Dingus Magee and Hoke Birdsill? Well because that is probably the way Sinatra and Kennedy insisted the script be written to boost their aging egos. This is a lousy western/comedy lacking any interest what so ever. Sinatra realized there was little interest in his screen appearances anymore from his hey days with earlier classic fine films like Pal Joey and Oceans 11 and so he only appeared in front of the camera four (4) more times spanning over the next 17 years.Sinatra was always a good looking, lean, suave and smooth singing crooner who had natural charisma. Unlike actors such as Sean Connery or even John Wayne who continued throughout their acting careers to hold their audiences attention and fascination, Sinatra as Dirty Dingus Magee was a total bomb. I am glad I watched it because I felt it is like when you drive by a bad car accident, you don't really want to see the carnage but human nature dictates you just have to take a look. And so I did with DDM, I watched it and I can only rate it a 3 out of 10 for good picture quality and nothing else.

I consider myself well educated, articulate, literate. So loving this movie is a bit embarrassing. It is silly, adolescent, a little creepy (How old all the "leading men" are! And how young and voluptuous and willing the women!) But I loved this movie. I laughed all through it.Frank Sinatra is somehow simultaneously wide-eyed and leering as Dingus Magee. He never once gives any indication that he isn't taking this seriously. He plays it like a professional actor! And he does it well.George Kennedy is as professional. He knows that when you play a clown, you must never, ever be clownish. He gives a good, solid, straight performance of a ridiculous character. And when he is sworn in as the sheriff, the oath he takes made me laugh so hard I couldn't breathe for a while! Anne Jackson is always worth watching. Her turn as the mayor(madam) of Yerkey's Hole is delightful. She comes as close as anyone to winking at the camera, but she manages to maintain professionalism, and gives the movie her inestimable good work.Then there's the stunning Michelle Carey as (I am not making this up) Anna Hot Water. You now have her name. Need I say more? I have sometimes wondered if it was a law in Hollywood that you couldn't make a western comedy without Henry Jones and John Dehner. Throw Jack Elam in and you have a winner.Suggestive? Throughout? Profane? Never. No blatant sex, no nudity, no gore, the only violence is comic.Silly, stupid, a plot a 13-year-old boy would love.Yep. I really enjoyed this movie!

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.