The Best Little Whorehouse In Texas - Burt Reynolds and Dolly Parton

The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas is a 1982 American musical comedy film based on the 1978 stage musical by Larry L. King, Peter Masterson, and Carol Hall. Directed by Colin Higgins from a screenplay he co-wrote with Masterson and King, the film stars Burt Reynolds, Dolly Parton, Jim Nabors, Charles Durning and Dom DeLuise.

Ed Earl Dodd, the Sheriff of Lanville County, Texas, has been in a 12-year relationship with Miss Mona Stangley, who runs the "Chicken Ranch", a brothel outside the town of Gilbert in his jurisdiction. He does not interfere with her business, which has been a fixture of the town since 1910, regardless of legality. Occasionally interrupted by Deputy Fred Wilkins, the pair have a pleasant arrangement as secret lovers. Almost everyone in town approves of Miss Mona, a public-minded citizen who regularly donates to charity and, except for her line of work, is decent and law-abiding.

Mayor Rufus P. Poindexter and insurance salesman C.J. Vernon inform Ed Earl that consumer advocate and television personality Melvin P. Thorpe, who moved to Texas from New Jersey six years earlier, has announced his intention to do an exposé about the Chicken Ranch on his weekly program The Watchdog Report. After visiting Thorpe in his downtown Houston studio, Ed Earl is shocked when Thorpe reveals to the audience during his show, "Texas has a whorehouse in it." While filming a segment in the Gilbert town square, Thorpe accuses Ed Earl of taking payoffs and bribes to protect Miss Mona's business. Ed Earl responds by insulting Thorpe and threatening to physically assault or even incarcerate him should he, his crew, or his chorus of singers named the Dogettes, ever reappear in Gilbert.

The Chicken Ranch is such an institution that the winner of the annual football rivalry between the University of Texas Longhorns and the Texas A&M Aggies on Thanksgiving Day traditionally comes to "celebrate" its victory as arranged by the alumni association of the winning school. Thorpe's negative publicity, coupled with the footage of Ed Earl insulting him, puts an undesirable spotlight on the place, so Ed Earl asks Miss Mona to shutter the property for at least two months until the TV attention subsides. She complies, closing the bordello to her regular customers but allowing the football players to have their party.

Thorpe and his crew sneak onto the property, break into the house, and catch the winning Aggies and State Senator Charles Wingwood, a 1949 Texas A&M University alumnus who represents the 19th Congressional District where the Chicken Ranch is located, on tape in mid-debauch. The next day, Ed Earl and Miss Mona have a fight over what happened. Mona chastises him for being unavailable to shield her during Thorpe's raid, even going so far as to call him childish and insult his standing; in turn, he responds, "It's a hell of a lot better than bein' a whore."