“It was hardly the crime of the century…It wasn’t even the mugging of the month. It was just a rollicking rip-off!”

Professor (Robert Nichols, The Thing) is a man with a tweed jacket, a permanent squint and a foolproof plan that involves more geometry than common sense. His crew is a motley collection of losers and their target is Big Bertha’s, a sprawling, neon-lit roadhouse tucked away in the backwoods. To the Professor, it’s a vault of untaxed cash and liquid gold. To the rest of the county, it’s the only place to get a decent drink and a game of cards without being judged by the preacher.

Big Bertha (Hetty Galen, The Manitou) doesn’t need a security system. She has a six-gauge shotgun named Persuasion and a staff of girls who can outshoot, outdrink and outwrestle any man in three counties.

The Professor’s stealthy approach is doomed from the start. They arrive just as the local Sheriff’s Department is celebrating a birthday. The parking lot is a sea of squad cars, yet the Professor mistakes the flashing lights for grand opening decorations. Once the moonshine is discovered and the bullets start flying (mostly hitting vases and bottles), the movie devolves into pure physical comedy. It doesn’t take itself seriously. The film thrives on the absurdity of professional”criminals being outmatched by a house full of girls in nightgowns and a rowdy sheriff’s department. Somewhere in all of this is Bob Weir from the Grateful Dead.

This was directed by Peter Kares, the only film he’d helm, but he also produced Longshot and The Switch or How to Alter Your Ego. There were plenty of writers, including Robert N. Langworthy, who produced Preacherman and scored Sex and the College Girl, who came up with the concept; Robert Vervoordt and Albert T. Viola (Amos Huxley himself, the star of Preacherman) worked out the story and Viola and Harvey Flaxman (the writer of Grizzly!) wrote the script.

Nerd facts: An orphan in this is played by Paige Conner, who would go on to be Katy, the space devil child in The Visitor! There’s also Josie Johnson from Stigma (she’s also in Fingers, which has a dream cast of Harvey Keitel, Tisa Farrow, Jim Brown, Tanya Roberts and Danny Aiello) and George Ellis shows up. He was horror host Bestoink Dooley, who was in his own movie, The Legend of Blood Mountain. Mary Mendum is here as well. She used the name Rebecca Brooke for several of Joe Sarno’s films, such as Misty and Abigail Lesley Is Back in Town. Speaking of those movies, Bil Godsey was the cinematographer on them both, as well as this film. He also shot camera on Sisters and Deep Throat Part II.