Uphill All the Way

Uphill All The Way is a 1986 motion picture starring Roy Clark, Mel Tillis, Glen Campbell, Burl Ives, Trish Van Devere, Elaine Joyce, Frank Gorshin and Sheb Wooley.

The premise of this comedy-western centers around 2 bumbling good ol' boys (Roy Clark as Ben and Mel Tillis as Booger) who, at the start of the film, are tossed off a train after failing to show their tickets. They wander inside a saloon and attempt to cheat their way into a fortune at the card table. Frank Gorshin appears as the drunkest of the crowd (his character is named, Pike).

To pull off their scheme Booger has a hat, hidden inside is a mirror, and he nonchalantly walks around the room letting Ben see the other player's hands. One thing leads to another and Booger drops the hat and cracks the mirror. At first the saloon women think Booger's using the hat to look up women's dresses...but eventually a seasoned card player realizes something's fishy and the other players suggest to start a new game since the previous one had been interrupted.

Burt Reynolds has a noncredit cameo appearance in this saloon scene as the seasoned card player. He shows off his card tricks, at first, and then wastes little time at stripping an overly zealous but uneducated Ben of his winnings. Ben didn't realize the hand he held (the one he bet all his chips on) turned out to be a losing hand. After a night of escapist romance with a couple of saloon women (Miss Jessie and Lucinda) they confessed, the following morning, that they didn't have any additional money to pay for the long night's activity. This caused the pair to get tossed out of the saloon/brothel, literally, by the bouncer (Leon). He pushed them down a flight of stairs.

Broke and wandering around they end up becoming fugitives after they innocently visit a bank to ask for a loan. Feeling that a shotgun should be excellent collateral the duo casually enter the bank and stroll up to the window with their shotgun.

A teller (Richard Paul), seeing their shotgun and mistaking their vague, nervous ramblings as some sort of veiled threat, flips the security alarm. After Ben yells that he's never been inside any bank before and is wondering about the reason for the loud noise Booger realizes that the alarm sound is for the police to hear and that they're being mistaken as bank robbers. From there they take off, hopping aboard a car in which the driver, obviously, mistakes the pair as car thieves. The driver asks for his luggage and nervously tells Ben and Booger they can keep the car and he makes a hasty exit. Ben asks Booger if he has any idea of how to drive "this fancy contraption" and of course his answer is "no!".

Meanwhile, the alarm is still blasting back at the bank and the local sheriff (Burl Ives) makes his entrance into the story and it takes a lot of explanation on the teller's part that the alarm wasn't just a test and that there was actually an attempted robbery. The sheriff's annoyance is made loud and clear due to being called to the bank on false alarms many times before.

Soon, though, a posse is formed after the driver of the car Ben and Booger "stole" arrives in town demanding that the 2 crooks face justice. Pike, the town's drunkest drunk, is recruited by the sheriff to join the posse.

By this time Ben and Booger are well on their way at evading a string of law enforcers all over the west due to a series of misunderstandings, confusions, and genuine criminal intent. One of those in the posse is a hysterical military Captain (Glen Campbell). Burton Gilliam (Corporal) and Gailard Sartain (Private) appear on horseback during a scene involving Ben and Booger attempting to fix a flat tire on their "contraption". The shady servicemen fix the flat but insist on being paid for the labor. Ben says they're broke...this causes the Corporal to pull out a switchblade knife and he proceeds to let the air out of the tire. Fearing the worst and perhaps not looking forward to pumping air back into the tire, yet again, Ben pulls out his shotgun and the 2 macho servicemen do an about face and are now trembling with fear. Ben and Booger steal the Corporal and the Private's clothes and their horses. The sheriff and his posse meet up ith the vandalized military officers and he insists they join in and track the 2 perceived con-artists/bank robbers/murderers.

Ben and Booger eventually come to a stream...but it's filled up with soapy water. This leads the pair to a couple of alien's doing their laundry. Confusion abounds and the foreign aliens mistake Ben and Booger's demeanor as threatening and they pull out oars...startling the horses. The chaos causes the horses to trample all over the 2 alien's laundry rack...knocking it off into the nearby pond. This incident, as a result, creates more members of an ever growing posse. 45 minutes into the film Glen Campbell's character enters the story. At first he and his underlings are trying to get their vehicle back onto the road. He spots Ben and Booger in their stolen military clothes and on horses and demands that they come down and help get the truck on the road. "You 2...on the horses!!! Get down here on the double!!!". The Captain doesn't have much tolerance and is prone to barking snappy orders. On the count of 4 Ben and Booger take off on the horses as the General and the other officers attempt to keep the truck from sliding further off the hill. The Captain promises a court martial for those 2 once he arrives at the base. The posse meet up with the alien laundry men...and in a running joke they recognize Miss Jessie (Elaine Joyce) as did the Corporal and the Private earlier in the film.

Ben and Booger find themselves in a shoot out after they come across what appears to be an abandoned shack in the middle of nowhere. During the shootout a man emerges from the shack and shoots at all of the bandits as Ben and Booger race inside the shack. The stranger introduces himself as Anson Sudro (Sheb Wooley) and introduces his family.

The posse meet up with the Captain and the wrecked vehicle. The sheriff informs the Captain that the 2 people on horseback are impostors and don't belong to the military at all. Back at the shack Ben, Booger, and Anson continue to have a shoot out. They begin shooting at another shack in which holds dynamite...hoping the gunfire will ignite the dynamite in some way. The shot up shack explodes and the 2 flee Anson's residence and top a hill and see Mexico just across a river. They return to Anson's shack and help fight off the bandits. Eventually the posse come upon the shoot out and they, unknowingly, drive into it. The military vehicle had since been salvaged and it enters the chaotic surroundings. The Captain and the rest of the officers start firing at the bandits, too.

After things settle and the shooting stops the Widow Quinn (Trish Van Devere) makes a big showing of thanking "those 2 brave soldiers" (Booger and Ben) who had by that time vanished to the river to escape into Mexico. The Sheriff prevents the Captain and several others in the posse from revealing the true nature of Ben and Booger's 'fame' and he more or less bribes the posse to keep their mouths shut due to Ben and Booger unknowingly helping the daughter of a local politician. Ben and Booger end up back on a train and they read a paper about the battle and fallout that took place in Sudro Springs and that the 2 mysterious saviors (Ben and Booger) vanished into thin air. They learn that the the Widow Quinn happened to be a daughter of a Senator and a reward's been offered. Ben suggests they return to collect their reward. Just then they're asked to turn in their tickets...to which Booger can't find them...and they're promptly tossed off the train once again just like at the start of the film. They bicker over their goals and whether or not to return to collect their money but in the end the 2 head off down the railroad presumably to their next get-rich-quick adventure.

External links

• Uphill All the Way at the Internet Movie Database