A Kentucky con comedy comes home

Today’s film is anoth­er entry in the series Reel Classics — Kentucky Connection. And this film has an even clos­er con­nec­tion as scenes were filmed here in Winchester, Kentucky. It’s The Flim-Flam Man star­ring George C. Scott, Sue Lyon and Michael Sarrazin. 

Let us begin with the ques­tion “What is a flim-flam?” According to Webster’s Dictionary the noun flim­flam entered the English lan­guage in the 16^th cen­tu­ry mean­ing “decep­tive non­sense.” In the 17^th cen­tu­ry the verb flim­flam referred to swin­dling some­one out of their mon­ey. So, I think that gives us a pret­ty good insight into Mr. Mordecai Jones (George C. Scott). Mordecai Jones described him­self as a cre­den­tialed “M.B.S., C.S., D.D. — Master of Back-Stabbing, Cork-Screwing and Dirty Dealing!” He trav­els across the South trick­ing and con­niv­ing folks out of their mon­ey. After being thrown off a train (lit­er­al­ly) he meets a young man who is a desert­er from the US Army, Curley Treadaway (Michael Sarrazin). Mordecai takes Curley under his wing as a part­ner in his ventures. 

Their trav­els take them from town to town, tak­ing advan­tage of folks by way of rigged punch­boards, card tricks and oth­er devices Mordecai has become expert in exe­cut­ing. He assures Curley that he is only tak­ing from greedy folks who are try­ing to make a quick buck and tells him “Only cheat the cheaters, boy — you can’t cheat an hon­est man!” Their efforts lead to the theft of a truck loaded with moon­shine that they then sell, and the theft of a car that ends up wreck­ing a town and pro­vides for an excit­ing car chase escapade. 

There is a local sher­iff who is bound and deter­mined to bring these scoundrels to jus­tice. His name is Sheriff Zeb Slade (Harry Morgan), and he is relent­less in his efforts. He is aid­ed by his trusty assis­tant, Deputy Meshaw (Albert Salmi). In the midst of his har­row­ing adven­tures with Mordecai, Curley meets a beau­ti­ful young woman by the name of Bonnie Lee Packard (Sue Lyon). Her par­ents are fair­ly well-to-do (Jack Albertson and Alice Ghostley). Curley and Bonnie Lee are attract­ed to each oth­er and she decides to help Curley and Mordecai escape the wrath of Sheriff Zeb Slade. 

So, how will this all end? Will Curley and Bonnie Lee find ever­last­ing love? Will Sheriff Slade final­ly cap­ture these two elu­sive flim­flams? Will Curley leave the life of crime and fol­low the path of the straight and nar­row? As usu­al, no spoilers. 

As already indi­cat­ed, this cast is full of well-known char­ac­ter actors (or at least well-rec­og­nized faces). Others in the cast include Slim Pickens as Jarvis Bates and Strother Martin as Lovick. However, the faces are not the only rec­og­niz­able fea­tures for those of us who live in Winchester and Central Kentucky. The film­ing was done in and near mul­ti­ple towns and com­mu­ni­ties here in Kentucky includ­ing Georgetown, Midway, Versailles, Lawrenceburg, Irvine, Frankfort, Lexington and Winchester. 

The scene with Slim Pickens as Jarvis Bates, along with Scott and Sarrazin was filmed in Winchester, Ky. We see Jarvis Bates leav­ing the St. George Hotel, which was then locat­ed on the cor­ner of North Main Street and Washington Street. Today that is the loca­tion of the local Post Office. The “pigeon drop scam” occurred behind the for­mer Sphar Seed Company locat­ed on North Main Street. That build­ing was demol­ished a few years ago but was near Depot Street where the Farmers’ Market is locat­ed. The silos are still there. 

The car chase scene was filmed in both Lawrenceburg and Irvine. An inter­est­ing note regard­ing the car chase. When the red con­vert­ible backed out of an alley it hit a street sign that shat­tered the front win­dow of the Lawrenceburg National Bank. A bystander in the bank, watch­ing the film­ing, was injured by the fly­ing glass. The scene remained in the film. Another well-known loca­tion used in the film was the Valley View Ferry on Tates Creek Road. Filming the movie in Kentucky brought a gen­uine­ness to the film. Roger Ebert, in his review of The Flim-Flam Man, wrote “The movie was shot on loca­tion, large­ly in Kentucky, and it gains a real feel­ing of authenticity.” 

George C. Scott had a rep­u­ta­tion of being some­what aloof and dis­tant from the oth­er actors. Most of the actors and crew stayed in a motel in Lexington but Scott rent­ed a house on a near­by horse farm. Though aloof, he proved to be gen­er­ous. During the film­ing of the movie a sec­re­tary was killed in a car acci­dent. Jack Albertson (who played Bonnie Lee’s father, Mr. Packard) took up a col­lec­tion to help pay for her funer­al. When Scott learned of the tragedy, he report­ed­ly told Albertson to “send me the bill for the funer­al and what­ev­er you col­lect, give to the fam­i­ly to help them along.” 

Though the cred­its state “Introducing Michael Sarrazin” he had appeared pre­vi­ous­ly in a cou­ple of low-bud­get films and on TV. However, this was his first lead­ing role. He went on to make a name for him­self both in film and tele­vi­sion. Sue Lyon also became a famil­iar face on both the big screen and TV. 

The Flim-Flam Man was released in 1967 and was not a suc­cess at the box-office. Reportedly the film need­ed to earn $6.4 mil­lion to break even, but only brought in $3.5 mil­lion. Critics were mixed on their reviews, but seemed to share the belief that George C. Scott was mis­cast as the con man. Roger Ebert gave the film a rat­ing of 3 of 4, but expressed some crit­i­cism of Scott’s efforts. He stat­ed “… in the end, Scott doesn’t quite come off as the flim-flam man. I think the mis­take was to make him so old (past 60) and flam­boy­ant, instead of let­ting him play the role as a smooth and oily char­ac­ter (as he was in The Hustler).” 

Bosley Crowther, crit­ic for The New York Times, expressed sim­i­lar con­cerns about Scott’s role. He stat­ed “Mr. Scott is not up to the role. He is a seri­ous char­ac­ter actor try­ing to be a lov­able old rogue. He is a fierce dra­mat­ic fire­brand try­ing to be a frisky scamp.” 

Interestingly, both crit­ics ref­er­enced the famous W. C. Fields in their reviews. For those famil­iar with his works, he would seem to be the ide­al actor for such a role. In his review, Crowther states “This is the sort of movie that should only be done by Mr. Fields — a glo­ri­fi­ca­tion of chi­canery that should only be com­mit­ted to old Bill. I feel no one else should attempt it. No one should pre­sume to fol­low him.” Though it is hard not to admit that the role would have been per­fect for W. C. Fields, we must also acknowl­edge that he had been dead since 1946. 

In an inter­view with The New York Times, George C. Scott stat­ed “I try to do some­thing dif­fer­ent every time. And I try not to do crap. Neither is easy in this busi­ness.” We should not for­get that Scott was an acclaimed actor. He was nom­i­nat­ed for an Academy Award four times (win­ning one) and eight Emmys (win­ning two). 

The sound­track for the film was com­posed by Jerry Goldsmith, a vet­er­an of sound­tracks for both film and tele­vi­sion series. The review of the sound­track on AllMusic site states “Warm, emo­tion­al Americana on a great sound­ing disc. The Flim-Flam Man fea­tures har­mon­i­ca, ban­jos, and honky tonk piano mix­ing with strings and brass. …” 

The pro­duc­er of the film, Lawrence Turman, report­ed­ly spoke with Bob Dylan, ask­ing him to write the title song for the film. Turman envi­sioned it being sung by The Mamas and the Papas. That did not come to pass. 

The Internet Movie Database (IMDb) rates The Flim-Flam Man at 6.8 of 10. Rotten Tomatoes gives it a Critics Score of 75% and an Audience Score of 66%. In search­ing my Roku device I could find no free stream­ing sites. However, there is a copy of the DVD on the shelf at the Clark County Public Library. 

In clos­ing, The Flim-Flam Man may not be an award-win­ning movie, but, in real­i­ty, most films aren’t. It is an enjoy­able, pleas­ant and fun­ny sto­ry set right here in our own town and region. Though many crit­ics believed Scott was mis­cast, many view­ers enjoyed his char­ac­ter­i­za­tion of Mordecai Jones. I leave you with a quote from The Movie Database site (TMDB): “With its col­or­ful char­ac­ters, off­beat humor, and stand­out per­for­mance by Scott, The Flim-Flam Man is a rol­lick­ing Southern caper about cons, con­science, and unlike­ly camaraderie.” 

Information for this Reel Classic review was gath­ered from sources includ­ing the Internet Movie Database (IMDB), Rotten Tomatoes, Turner Classic Movies (TCM) and Wikipedia.