Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #74134 in DVD
• Brand: TIMELESS MEDIA GROUP
• Released on: 2008-08-05
• Rating: NR (Not Rated)
• Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
• Formats: Color, DVD, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 95 minutes

Album Description
The Brothers O'Toole takes slapstick Western Comedy to new heights in this hilarious take-off on the Old West. The O'Toole Brothers are East Coast con-men, exceptionally good at talking their way out of tight situations. When they ride into Molybdenum, Colorado, not suspecting the riches beneath the streets, they turn the sleepy mining town upside down in their search for the gold. Starring John Astin, Steve Carlson, Pat Carroll, Jesse White, Lee Meriwether and Hans Conreid.

Customer Reviews

Rainy Day Fun For Western Lovers/Also Included in Great American Western Series
"The Brothers O'Toole"(1973/R)...This was a slapstick kind of comedy/western, and it garnered more then a few chuckles from me.
John Astin and Steve Carlson are the brothers who can usually con their way into or out of any situation. Astin is the brains(and plays a double role), and Carlsen the ladies man. But when Astin is mistaken for a really bad hombre, and captured and held prisoner by the quirky towns folk while awaiting a hanging, they must figure their way out. A fabulous funny cast includes Pat Carroll,Jesse White, Lee Merriwether(in quite a different role for her)and Hans Conried provides some laughs as well.

For a really good deal you can get this funny western along with 7 other westerns onThe Great American Western 2/DVD The Gun and the Pulpit/Boot Hill/Gunfighters/Little Moon & Jud McGraw/The Jackals/My Outlaw Brother/Jory/The Brothers O'TooleThe volume is a mix of comedy and drama. For film details click on the product link I included above and see my review.

So if you are looking for a John Ford quality western, pass this one by, but for some rainy day fun with some fabulously funny actors, check it out. And by the way, although rated R the rating is no where near what an R film is today. I would probably consider it more along a PG-13 lines, but parents should probbly check it out first anyway.

Happy Trails...Laurie

recommended for more western fun:The Over the Hill Gang - AND - The Over the Hill Gang Rides Again
The Great American Western: Yuma, Wackiest Wagon Train in the West, Sunset Carson Rides Again, the Gunfighters

Not "Blazing Saddles" but still very funny
The talking is fast. And plenty of camp. It is not "Blazing Saddles" (which is funny in a whole other direction) - there is hardly much swearing (except for just about all the characters saying "Molly-B-Damn" because they are too stupid to say "Molybdenum"). And much of the movie (I think) exists just to set up the 40 second monologue that John Astin gives toward the end. May be too slow or intellectual (???) by today's standards but I think this movie is a hoot!

No "Evil Roy Slade"
Two conartist brothers wander in to a western mining town that is fading away after the rush. One brother is jailed based on mistaken idenity and the other brother assumes it's part of a con-game. Astin, condemned to die, finally manages to escape and is ultimately cleared when the wife of the outlaw (also played by Astin) identifies the real culprit.

The brothers then hang around the town and start a casino to help the people. As this endevour fails, a parapetitic engineer is introduced to declare the town is sitting on a rare mineral and everyone is rich. A jilted bride, mentioned at the beginning shows up with her father wanting to proceed with the cerimony and the brothers take to the road again.

A disappointment after the film "Evil Roy Slade." Astin delivers what he can, but is trapped in a script that offers a sequence of events that hardly manages to masquarade as a plot, as my disjointed synopsis above displays. Some of the dialogue is clever,(thus the extra star) such as the cussing contest that Astin accidently wins while trying to berate the town's people. But generally, story events are unconnected (sometimes illogical), with later scenes untied to prior actions. Thus the audience is never invited to care about the movie's characters.

Visual quality is relatively poor, reflecting cheap production values when the movie was made. All in all, only the most harden Astin fan would want this in his collection.