The Cheyenne Social Club

The Cheyenne Social Club is a 1970 American Western comedy film written by James Lee Barrett, directed and produced by Gene Kelly, and starring James Stewart, Henry Fonda and Shirley Jones. The film is about an aging cowboy who inherits a brothel and decides to turn it into a respectable boarding house, against the wishes of both the townspeople and the ladies working there.

Plot
In 1867, John O'Hanlan and Harley Sullivan are aging cowboys working on open cattle ranges in Texas. John receives a letter from an attorney in Cheyenne, Wyoming, stating his brother, D.J., left him The Cheyenne Social Club in his will. Once the pair arrives in Cheyenne, John visits D.J.'s lawyer and discovers the club is a high-class brothel separated from the busy part of town by the railroad tracks. Not keen on running such a business, John fires the ladies and falls into disfavor with both them and Cheyenne's men. John learns his brother's deed to the club contained a reverter to the railroad if the brothel closed. Jenny, the Club's madam, is brutally assaulted by a man named Bannister, who she previously rebuffed. John, a handgun novice, kills Bannister at a local bar when a distracted Bannister mistakes Harley's cracking of nuts for the cocking of a gun. Afterward, John regains popularity. The sheriff, conveniently on his way out of town, warns John that Bannister's relatives are headed to Cheyenne for revenge. Harley decides to return to Texas, but he happens to ride into the Bannisters' camp, where he bums a cup of coffee. When he discovers their identity, Harley doubles back, and he, John and Jenny successfully fight them off. When the sheriff advises John that even more of the Bannisters' relatives, the Markstones, will soon come to town, but, that he (the sheriff) will coincidentally be out of town again, John transfers ownership of the property to Jenny, and he and Harley return to Texas. Back on the range, John receives a letter of thanks from Jenny; is touched; and tosses it into a fire. Harley is upset that he didn't have a chance to read the letter, and he and John ride off arguing.

Production
Set in a brothel with suggestive dialogue, this was one of the few off-color films that James Stewart did. He also specifically asked that his friend Fonda be cast; they had most recently worked together two years previously in Firecreek. Stewart and Fonda's first film together had been the comedy On Our Merry Way (1948), and they had also both appeared in How the West Was Won (1962) but had no scenes together despite playing best friends.

The exteriors were shot at two Western film lots near Santa Fe, New Mexico: the Eaves Movie Ranch, which was built for the film, and Bonanza Creek Ranch. The interiors were shot at the Samuel Goldwyn Studios in Hollywood.

A novelisation of the screenplay was written by Phillip Rock.

Release
The film had its world premiere in Salt Lake City on June 10, 1970. It also opened in Provo and Ogden, Utah, and Boise, Idaho, before expanding into Des Moines and Waterloo, Iowa, and Omaha, Nebraska, as well as Montana.

Home media
The film is currently distributed by Warner Home Video, with a German DVD release in 2019 by 375 Media.

Reception
The Cheyenne Social Club turned a small profit but was poorly received by critics. It didn't receive any notoriety until decades later with numerous cable television broadcasts. Barrett's script earned a 1970 Writers Guild of America nomination for "Best Comedy Written Directly for the Screen", but it lost to Neil Simon's The Out-of-Towners.

In its first five days in 15 theaters in Utah, Idaho, Iowa and Nebraska, it grossed $108,622.