DIRTY DINGUS MAGEE

US, 1970, 91 minutes, Colour.
Frank Sinatra, George Kennedy, Anne Jackson, Lois Nettleton, Jack Elam, Michelle Carey, John Dehner, Henry Jones, Harry Carey Jr, Paul Fix.
Directed by Burt Kennedy.

Dirty Dingus Magee is a parody western. There are all kinds of western themes in a ninety-minute film including Dingus Magee as a train robber, his attack on Hoke his old friend and robbing him, Hoke becoming the sheriff of a town where the bordello mistress is the mayor. There is to be trouble with the Indians, the soldiers at the fort who are her customers are prevented from going to Little Big Horn to die. There is also interaction between Magee and the Indian, Anna. The film uses the code of the west – and parodies it.

The film was a star vehicle for Frank Sinatra, although the screenplay was written for a younger actor and was adapted for Sinatra. He joins George Kennedy as Hoke. Kennedy had won an Oscar for best supporting actor in Cool Hand Luke some years before. Anne Jackson is the mayor, Lois Nettleton is the schoolteacher, significantly called Prudence. Burt Kennedy’s most entertaining hokum with the touch of satire on the American west is Support Your Local Sheriff with James Garner.

1. The emphasis of the title, the tone? Western comedy?

2. The use of Panavision, musical themes? Western locations, the re-creation of the town? The right atmosphere for this kind of Western comedy?

3. How did the film use the conventional ingredients of a Western, for interest, excitement, for laughs? The Western non-hero, the would-be Sheriff who is a villain, the Madam of the town, the military, the men and the girls etc.? Gold, chases, shoot-outs?

4. How important was the parody tone of the film? Where was this most evident? The frequent comment about the code of the West and the ironic tone taken?

5. Frank Sinatra and his style as Dingus Mages? How much of a hero was he meant to be? How sympathetic, how heroic? His inability to shoot, his relationship with the Indians, his fears? His greed and his shrewdness? His being offended by such a small reward being offered? How was he presented in some behaviour as the Western gunman and hero, and yet a satire on these?

6. How well portrayed was the character of Hoke? His being robbed by Dingus, his attitude towards the law, his becoming the official lawman, the irony of his relationship with the Madam? His pursuit of Dingus Magee? His greed?

7. Belle and the conventional Madam of the Western town? As representing law and order, her ironic running of things, her manoeuvres to get the army to stay? Her relationship with Hoke. with Dingus? Her being robbed, the hopes for the marriage and the final chase? An appropriate comedy character for this film?

8. The satire on the military and their patronising of the bawdy house? The Indians an a pretext for their presence? The humorous chases of Indians and military?

9. The satire on the sex starved teacher of the West? Prudence as her name? The encounter with Dingus Magee, with Hoke, with the old man that she eventually married? Comment on the parody of sexual attitudes?

10. The presentation of the Indians? Dingus Magee and his relationship with them, his relationship with his girl friend? The importance of his being blood brother and son, husband and the trying out of the various wives? The parody on Indian anthropology7 The fact that the Indians always turned up at the right time?

11. The satire in the presentation of Wesley as the real gun-fighter and his involvement in the shoot-out?

12. Audience expectations of robberies, chases, shoot-outs? Fulfilment of expectations, satire? The irony of the Code of the West?