The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas documents in rousing song and dance a new Texas Legend, which now joins the Alamo as an historical institution immortalized in story, song, book, play and movie. The demise of the real-life Chicken Ranch inspired the musical stage play, and now the big screen version stars Burt Reynolds as Sheriff Ed Earl Dodd and Dolly Parton as the Chicken Ranch's proprietress, Miss Mona. The two join together not only in romance, but to fight big city TV crusader Melvin P. Thorpe (Dom DeLuise) in his efforts to expose the Chicken Ranch to public scandal, and thus close it down.