Cottonpickin' Chickenpickers (1967)

Cottonpickin’ Chickenpickers: Directed by Larry E. Jackson. With Del Reeves, Hugh X. Lewis, Sonny Tufts, David Houston. Darby Clyde Fenster and Jerry Martin are a pair of penniless nincompoop-drifters who hop a freight and theyre on their way to Florida. Here is where our intrepid heroes find themselves facing one comic situation after another in this gloriously loopy Southern fried comedy-with-music. Their troubles only begin when they pass by a chicken farm and are overtaken by their pangs of hunger. The sneak into the hen house and haplessly attempt to nab some birds. This does not endear them to the farms owners and what comes next is positively too goofy to describe! The film is crammed with a pleasing blend of down-home humor and finger-popping country music. Sonny Tufts, whose reputation was ruined because of his fondness for the bottle, parodies himself in his role as the moonshine-swigging Cousin Urie (and mercifully ends his Hollywood career with this film). Boxing champ/movie comic Slapsie Maxie Rosenbloom appears as an ex-prizefighter-turned-mailman who is aptly described as “the prize dingaling of all time.”

“As the title suggests, this obscure film is a u0026#39;60s throwback to those cornball movies made for rural and southern audiences way back when, which famously went out of style in the u0026#39;30s per Variety Newpaperu0026#39;s greatest headline: STICKS NIX HICK PIX. Now almost 50 years have passed, and it is merely quaint and silly.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eLike a far more well-known picture LAS VEGAS HILLBILLYS, this one serves as a vehicle for country star Del Reeves, quite unimpressive in an acting role teamed with obscuro country singer Hugh X. Lewis. Their series of slapstick adventures caused by confusing Hollywood, Florida with the Left Coastu0026#39;s more famous destination is unfunny and tedious entertainment.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eFor me the high point, brief as it is, was the guest appearance by Greta Thyssen playing herself. She needs a ride because her caru0026#39;s broken down and poses briefly in a sexy polka dot bikini. Greta was the first pin-up Iu0026#39;d ever seen in a menu0026#39;s magazine, back in the late u0026#39;50s, and was a very big deal back then -this is her last movie role. By contrast the other film LAS VEGAS HILLBILLYS filled her pulchritude slot (a tradition one remembers years later from the cute chicks filling the screen on TVu0026#39;s u0026quot;Hee-Hawu0026quot; series) with superstars Mamie Van Doren and Jayne Mansfield -now thatu0026#39;s overkill!u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eAnother career ends for big-eyed Lila Lee as a bossy country family matriarch. She was a silent star and I remember fondly in the bizarre Lon Chaney film THE UNHOLY THREE, second (talkie) version.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eParamount u0026#39;40s star is another nostalgia inclusion, playing an old drunk here in his final movie. Except for a bit part later on, Maxie Rosenbloom made his final acting role here driving a jeep with u0026quot; U.S. MALE ROUTEu0026quot; painted on the side. So CHICKENPICKERS is not a jinxed movie, but merely a case of hiring people who were through with show biz.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eOur duo does in fact steal chickens at one point, and film includes an inevitable subplot involving moonshiners. Future star Mel Tillis pops up, and romantic interest Birgitta Andersson was quickly shipped back to Sweden after this inauspicious American tryout.”