There's a tragic air about this putrid film, and the reason is simple: it STINKS like a Dead Possum! The comedic talents of Goldie Hawn and George Segal are wasted miserably on a poor script with thoroughly unlikeable characters (Goldie plays a mean-spirited, bar room whore -- who's bright idea was THAT??? -- and George is a cranky card shark who seems to really need a bath). What should have been a rollicking hour-and-a-half of wisecracks and bellylaughs is instead an embarrassment. The film's jokes are lousy and the tone is uneven -- it's a mixed up mess as it jumps from trying to be clever, to exciting, to funny, and even to romantic -- and nary a bullseye in the bunch. Every shot is misfired. Nuthin' but rotten eggs. And it all seems "thrown together"... The result is a film that's just a horrible bore. Just when you think it won't get worse, there is a "love scene" (in a boat going down a river) during which the most vomitably maudlin of movie songs kicks in, "Lemon Drops, Lollipops and Sunbeams" (I kid you not about that title. And if the title isn't cloying enough, you should only HEAR how sickly sweet this tune is! Oi Vei!!!)...to add insult to injury, the song reprises itself over the end credits, as if sounding once in the film wasn't punishment enough for a weary audience. When you hear it again, it's like a bad smell that you thought you'd escaped only to find you've run across it again...I can't give this film low enough marks. It takes "mediocrity" to new lows. And that's because this film isn't even the kind of "bad" that's fun to watch (and heckle). It's Just BAD. Painfully BAD. Hawn and Segal have both proven their merit as comic talents many, many times over in various funny films (Hawn in "Foul Play" and Segal in "Where's Poppa?" just to name two). "The Duchess and the Dirtwater Fox" must be a project they would both rather forget... I know I wish I could!
