"The West ain't no place for a man!"
A Pekingese snuffles and whines along the floor of a rattling train carriage. Across from Doc Miller, the dog's mistress - a stout widow in flowers and lace - dozes unaware. The dog sniffs at Doc Miller's feet, and the black leather satchel resting there. Doc Miller don't like no dog botherin' his effects and snatches the hound onto his lap. For a second, perhaps, a flicker of affection crosses his brow; then the train whistle blows and the carriage goes tunnel-black as the Doc, dog in hand, rises to the window.
Light returns as Doc Miller eases the window shut. The widow stirs, peers around. "Confucius? Confucius?"
This opening gag sets the tone for The Legend of Frenchie King, a 1971 spaghetti-western-à-la-Français that showcases the talents of Brigitte Bardot and Claudia Cardinale. It's a bawdy, ballsy, tongue-in-cheek take on the legends of the Wild West and the eternal struggle between busty headstrong women in corsets.
~ SOYEZ LE BIENVENUE (HOWDIE!) ~
A taste of the story: It isn't long before Doc Miller's train falls foul of Frenchie King ($10,000 REWARD) and his gang of tough-but-stylish masked ruffians. We see them later in their camp, where, firstly, we learn that "Frenchie" is (gasp!) the feisty, asskicking Louise (Brigitte Bardot), and her gang in fact comprises her four (remember that number!) sisters, all stunningly beautiful young women of indistinct European origin. Secondly, we share their jubilation as amongst their booty they find the title deed to a ranch called Little P, property of one Dr Miller. This is indeed a windfall, as it means the women can finally put aside their pistol-toting ways and settle down with a man and a home. They'll "put his slippers on, fetch his pie," and, it is intimated, enjoy some invigorating sixway action.
Meanwhile, the train steams on to the conveniently French-bilingual tumbleweed town of Bougival Junction. Here, Doc Miller's empty bag falls into the hands of the feisty, asskicking Marie Sarrazin (Claudia Cardinale) - but what's this hidden in the lining? Why, it's a map of that abandoned ranch just out of town, showing where the oil is! Marie has only to raise the money and buy Little P. Ranch, and she and her four dumb handsome brothers (aha!) can finally leave their little shack and wrangle horses bigtime. That is, until the feisty, asskicking Doctor Louise Miller and her four pretty sisters show up in Bougival Junction to settle on their land...
What ever will Marie and her boys do? Can the loveable, bumbling ("Where's my horse?") marshal - the ever-funny-lookin' Michael J. Pollard - sort it all out? Can the ladies of Bougival Junction keep their slavering menfolk at bay? How do the "Miller" sisters stack up in a bar-room brawl? When do we get to see Brigitte and Claudia duke it out in their frillies? And what of the real Doc Miller?
"Banks? I believe in beds. Money should stay where it's made."
That's the town Madam speaking. She's not the only minor character to get lines like that: the film fairly sparkles with them, many of them cringeworthy, but all polished with delightfully deadpan delivery. The supporting cast have a sack of fun, especially Michael Pollard - you probably know him from his trademark wit-challenged-midget turns in Roxanne and Tango & Cash, among many others. Having less fun but just as delicious are Leroy Haynes and Valéry Inkijinoff, dutifully playing up their genre stereotypes as (respectively) Louise's Negro and Marie's Redskin servants. Bardot and Cardinale weigh in manfully (pun intended) to wring as much fun as they can from both the spaghetti-western and Euro chixploitation conventions, and when the wringing's done, the result is so much more than gunbelts-'n'-garters. These are some bona-fide sixshooting hellcats making good for the sisterhood, and (at the risk of a spoiler) there ain't no curtain-hanging, baby-raising Calamity Jane copout at the end, neither.
~ ENGLISH SPOKEN IF NECESSARY ~
All this hilarity comes courtesy of veteran French director Christian-Jaque and writer-director Guy Casaril, via a seasoned production coterie of Spanish and Italian spaghetti-boilers. Its original 1971 release was in French, under the title Les Pétroleuses ("Petroleum Girls"); in 1973, an English dub was made and released in the States and other parts Anglophonic as The Legend of Frenchie King. The copy I'm reviewing is a DVD from some local (Australian) distributor's "Silver Screen Classics" bargain-bin knockoff catalogue - last I heard, the English-speaking rights were owned by K-Tel, so if you find a copy it'll probably be something similar. Mine is packaged as Petroleum Girls, but the title-card says "The Legend of Frenchie King", and as far as I can tell it's an untampered strike of the first American release, which in turn would appear to be faithful (though I can't be sure) to the original French cut. The dubbing is actually of a high standard - some effort was put into the voice-acting and the synch, and nothing comes across as linguistically mangled - high enough for me to write up and recommend the film in its English-release form. Thankfully intact is Francis Lai's wonderfully silly electric-bass-heavy Euro-Texan soundtrack.
Finally, for the fellow film geek, here's a cheat-sheet of the principal cast.