CHICKEN RANCH

Produced for Great Britain's Central Television, CHICKEN RANCH is co-directed by Emmy Award-winning American cinematographer Sandi Sissel and British Academy Award-winning director Nick Broomfield (1981's “Soldier Girls”). The team was fascinated by the contrast between the fictionalized treatment of the Texas brothel (now in Nevada) that inspired the stage and screen versions of “The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas” – and the vastly different hard truths. Filming a cinema verite expose of the Chicken Ranch in 12 weeks, the directors gained the confidence of “The Girls” and incurred the wrath of the owner for using the explosive footage that brings the film to its climactic end. Every aspect of the claustrophobic daily life at the Chicken Ranch is probed and revealed except for actual sex. We experience the degradation endured as the women stand motionless in “The Line-up” for clients to choose or reject. A Japanese tour group, slow in making choices, complains the “service” is too fast – 10 minutes – for which Walter, the “fatherly” owner, rebukes the girls. The brothel's attractions include a 37-position chair, porno movies and a Jacuzzi in the V.I.P. Room. Close-up intimacy offers insightful disclosures of the human entrapment in this business which breeds self-contempt and misanthropy. “Tough, unsparing. . .the camera is set loose and the pathology of the institution and its inhabitants defines itself.” – Harlan Jacobson, The Village Voice “Informative and amusing and, despite the subject, not in the least pornographic.” -Archer Winsten, New York Post