The Brothers O'Toole

The O'Toole brothers arrive in a Colorado town back in the old west. Unfortunately, Michael (John Astin) looks exactly like a wanted criminal, Desperate Littleberry...and the sheriff locks him up until his trial and hanging! For a while, his brother, Timothy, is distracted but once he arrives and tries to prove his brother ISN'T Littleberry, no one seems to pay him any attention. Is Michael going to be hung for another man's infamous crimes? And, oddly, once this is decided...there's a lot more film!

While John Astin is a very talented man and I love him in many of his films and shows, he also had a pretty poor track record in the 1970s with TV shows and movies made for TV. It seems the networks tried but the material was often broadly written and beneath his talents. Try watching "Evil Roy Slade" or "Wacky Taxi" (both made around the same time as "The Brothers O'Toole") and you'll see what I mean. Overall, this is a VERY broadly written and generally unfunny comedy. Not terrible by any stretch but it sure could have been a lot better.

I have to say, this is one of the oddest movies I have ever seen. It starts out looking like a good comedy... but then something happens... or rather nothing happens. The movie begins to drag. And pretty soon it makes you think "when will it end?" There are still funny parts, but they become hard to find. Only near the end does it pick up and start to exhibit comedy again... and by then I find myself wondering why I am still watching. Yet it is memorable. So memorable, in fact, that I've been trying to remember the title for about 4 years.

About the only movie I consider funnier than "The Brothers O'Toole" (1973) is "The Big Lebowski" (1998). Both have the same combination of huge exaggeration coupled with subtle parody, exploding film conventions of their respective genres with completely out-of-place dialog. My appreciation of this no doubt speaks to a twisted sense of humor and an appreciation of the absurd; of which there is so little in more mainstream comedy features. So if you happen to be "Duckman" off-kilter, then "The Brothers O'Toole" is a film that you should seek out.

John Astin's success the year before in another western parody, "Evil Roy Slade" (1972), inspired a sequel of sorts. Or at least a reprise of his title role, this time playing a very similar extreme outlaw character named "Desperate" Ambrose J. Littleberry. When not busy terrorizing citizens, poor Desperate is a henpecked husband. An almost unrecognizable Lee Meriwether wonderfully overplays his shrewish wife Poloma. It is definitely her signature performance and I laugh every time I think about what the Miss America pageant people must have thought about this hysterical portrayal.

The humor in both films is nicely twisted but the "The Brothers O'Toole" is several notches above "Evil Roy Slade" on the IQ scale, which may account for it being a bit more obscure. Think "Support Your Local Sheriff" vs "Support Your Local Gunfighter" for an example of the same type of comparative difference.

For Astin this is a duel role, as he and Steve Carlson play the title characters; a pair of too sophisticated drifter brothers Michael and Timothy O'Toole. Michael is an unambitious cardsharp and Timothy is a small-time rogue and roué. They come to the tiny town of Molybdenum, Colorado (Molly B'Damn to the locals) from separate disasters. Michael has just been ridden out of another town and Timothy is fleeing the shotgun wedding bells and angry father of his latest conquest, Bonnie Lou MacClanahan (Miranda Berry who is flat out irresistible).

The town is a collection of characters played by a collection of character actors like Richard Erdman, Pat Carroll, Allyn Joslyn (the reluctant sheriff), Jessie White (the slimy mayor). Joslyn and White are especially good, as is Hans Conried who plays a financier obviously modeled on Cornelius Vanderbilt.

The main plot device is mistaken identity as Michael O'Toole is mistaken for A. J. Littleberry and thrown in jail. Michael's summation at his trial and a later diatribe about the town are simply comedy classics, as is pretty much everything done and said by Richard Jury who plays the town's greedy undertaker, Harmon P. Lovejoy.

Then again, what do I know? I'm only a child.

No, it's not Blazing Saddles, but The Brothers O'Toole is nevertheless a rollicking good time. See it if only to revel in Astin's fabulous lambasting of his addle-patted brother and the denizens of Molly-Be-Damn, "a festering pustule on the face of the western slope!"

If there were no other single redeeming feature of the movie, John Astin's incredible diatribe reviling every obvious wart of the benighted little town of Molly-Be-Damn as it's known for a truly tortured pun on Molybdenum, would be worth the price of admission.

There is a plot, but you don't need to worry about it. Go for Astin's bluster. He appears in a dual role and takes both completely over the top.

If you can take a comedy-western on a fairly broad tack, this is a good one. Crank up the popcorn machine, set your brain on farce and relax. And memorize that cussing. Someday you'll need it.