LAS VEGAS HILLBILLYS (1966) ***

Ferlin Husky stars as Woody, a Tennessee hayseed whose uncle dies and leaves him a Las Vegas casino.  He heads out to the desert with his best friend Jeepers (Don Bowman) only to discover he’s now up to his eyeballs in debt.  An unscrupulous businessman wants to take the place out from under him, but Woody gets a hand from a mess of his Nashville singing star pals to help turn the club around.  Naturally, it all ends in a half-assed pie fight. 

If you can’t already tell, Las Vegas Hillbillys is sort of a riff on The Beverly Hillbillies, and as a fish out of water comedy, it’s predictable and corny.  In fact, there’s not a laugh to be had from any of the one-liners and comic shenanigans.  Mostly though, it’s an excuse to string together some damned fine country numbers from some of the top names of their day.  (At one point, when the plot threatens to get too thick, Husky falls asleep and dreams an entire hootenanny that eats up a lot of screen time.)  Bill Anderson does a great rendition of “Bright Lights and Country Music”, Connie Smith belts out “Nobody but a Fool”, Del Reeves sings the great “Women Do Funny Things to Me”, and Husky kicks off the movie with the catchy “White Lightning Express”.   

Las Vegas Hillbillys is also historically noteworthy for being only film that contains both mega babe bombshells Mamie Van Doren and Jayne Mansfield.  No matter how lame the comedy gets, any movie that has Mamie and Jayne in it is worth watching.  The highlight comes during the unintentionally hilarious scene where Jayne breathlessly belts out “That Makes It”, while on the phone.  (It’s basically a woman’s rewrite of “Chantilly Lace”.)  Mamie is fun to watch too, but the funniest part is when she finally “shares” the screen with Jayne.  The filmmakers had to resort to using doubles because according to Hollywood legend, the pair despised each other and refused to appear on screen at the same time!  All this and Richard Kiel as the villain’s towering henchman!

Husky and Bowman returned the following year for the sequel, Hillbillys in a Haunted House (which is even better because it’s a pseudo-horror movie) with the buxom Joi Lansing stepping into Mamie’s role.  

AKA:  Country Music.  AKA:  Country Music, U.S.A.