Cat Ballou

Starring:Jane Fonda, Lee Marvin, Michael Callan, Dwayne Hickman, Nat 'King' Cole, Stubby Kaye, Tom Nardini, John Marley, Reginald Denny, Jay C. Flippen, Arthur Hunnicutt, Bruce Cabot, Burt Mustin, Paul Gilbert (II), Gail Bonney, Everett L. Rohrer, Charles Horvath, Duke Hobbie, Erik Sorenson, Charles Wagenheim
Director: Elliot Silverstein
Studio: Sony Pictures
Product Type: DVD

Amazon.com

Long before Unforgiven deconstructed the Western, or Blazing Saddles lampooned it, Cat Ballou poked the genre in the eye. An altogether enjoyable comedy, the film is full of small surprises, big laughs, and wonderful character turns. Catherine Ballou (Jane Fonda) is a schoolteacher until a hired thug kills her daddy. To protect what she loves, she collects two petty criminals, a wisecracking hired hand, and a hired killer, Kid Shelleen (Lee Marvin). Unfortunately, Shelleen is a raging drunk who is so inebriated and unsteady with a gun he literally misses the broad side of a barn. However, Cat, has, as they used to say in those days, a mind of her own, and she masterminds a spectacular train heist that puts them all on the lam. Marvin won an Academy Award for his role as the derelict Shelleen, and his performances (he actually has two) are still topnotch and on target. The framing device, two wandering minstrels, played by Stubby Kaye and Nat "King" Cole, are the maraschino cherries on the top of this Wild West confection. --Keith Simanton

Customer Reviews:

A classic.......2007-03-26

Always been in love with this film! Now that I have it on DVD, I can watch it and watch it and watch it! The price was really good too.

Nostalgic film.......2007-03-14

I understand why this film is so high-starred, but it simply does not deserve the five stars, nor the four. I'll try to explain. The director, as he admits in the little extra piece, intended to make a comedy in the West. He put together the basic ingredients for it: a beautiful Fonda, two young simpletons that aren't Western material -more fit for Broadway-, and a funny drunkard. Silverstein didn't have a clear idea of what kind of film was going to come out of this (as happens to all bad directors) but when he saw Lee Marvin act his role, he had one moment of lucidness, even brilliance, he told Marvin to try to make us cry instead of laugh. Boy, did that make a difference! Lee Marvin steals the show totally.

Lee Marvin was a great, a fantastic actor. But he belonged to a past era, when real Westerns were shot, when classic directors still hung around the movie studios. That day had gone, not for him, obviously, but for the industry. It makes me sad to see this film, and to see bufoons like Silverstein mockering and degrading the great American West. If it wasn't for Lee Marvin nobody would remember this film. What happens around him in this film I just don't care, he is the show. The rest belong in Park Avenue.

SAME AS IN THE MOVIE JUST ON DVD GET IT !.......2007-01-25

CATBALLOU............................. ! WE STILL LOVE YOU ?

Cat Ballou.......2007-01-22

It is a great movie, I love the singing. We realy enjoyed watching it again after so many year.

Kabuki In The Far West.......2006-11-28

Although "Cat Ballou" is usually categorized as a Western Comedy, this film actually resembles a musical; in fact, the songs chanted by balladeers Nat King Cole and Stubby Kaye are at the heart of "Cat Ballou."
The emotional range of these pieces is quite impressive--ranging from the principal ballad's ironic high-spirits, through the poignancy of "They'll never make her cry" to the sublime ridicule of "And now you are old." That final song, which sounds as though it were actually written in the 1890's, is a hilarious outpouring of moralistic sentimentality--appropriately sung in an Old West brothel! It's noteworthy that the balladeers always appear in front of the camera--never as mere background music performers. Thus singing in the streets, on the prairie, etc., they literally accompany the action in the same way that Japanese musicians appear onstage during a kabuki drama performance: they become an intrinsic part of what their songs are interpreting. Naturally, the presence of these troubadours undermines any sense of film "realism." However, I have no problem with such unreality; "realism" in any art form, including films, is never real enough. Furthermore, the fantastic presence of singers Cole and Kaye following the principal characters around certainly seems consonant with the film's overall atmosphere--which is more fairy tale than hard & gritty editorial.
The script itself is fairly light-weigh but coherent; it concerns would-be schoolmarm Catharine Ballou (played charmingly by Jane Fonda) revenging her father's murder at the hands of land-grabbing outlaws in 1890's Wyoming. To further her plans for vengeance--or justice-- she enlists the help of two rather gun-shy outlaws--Michael Callan, with whom she falls in love, and Dwayne Hickman, in a hilarious performance as Callan's unlikely "uncle." She also hires a fantastically gin-soaked gunslinger whom she once idolized from the accounts she read of him in pulp Westerns; the gunman (played flamboyantly by Lee Marvin) manages to sober up long enough to kill Catharine's main antagonist (a noseless monstrosity also acted by Marvin). Along the way, Cat manages to lead a daring train robbery, thus achieving "outlaw" status herself. Further, she finally kills the villain who masterminded her father's murder--which results in her being charged with murder, and inevitably sentenced to hang. Literally in the nick of time she escapes the rope in a scene which is stunning, brilliant cinema; no surprise that Stanley Kubrick used one of these climactic moments in his own masterpiece "A Clockwork Orange."
As the songs that pervade "Cat Ballou" give significance to the action, the actors themselves prove worthy of their balladeers. Young Jane Fonda is indescribably appealing--an amalgam of sheer beauty and talent that I can only call "immortal." As her love interest, Michael Callan seems rather unworthy--but who wouldn't be? As for Dwayne Hickman (TV's original "Dobie Gillis"): he gives a delighful performance, particularly in his initial scene as a fake, but truly drunk, preacher. His introductory line to Jane Fonda is classic in its delivery--"I'm drunk as a skunk!" By contrast, Lee Marvin's gunslinger character seems a bit overdone (his Academy Award for the part notwithstanding). But a fine excess may be considered part and parcel of "Cat Ballou." In any event, this film remains a rarity: 40 years after its release it remains consistently watchable, even lovable-- while many more ambitious/pretentious films have ridden off into the sunset.

Average customer rating:

A classic
Nostalgic film
SAME AS IN THE MOVIE JUST ON DVD GET IT !
Cat Ballou
Kabuki In The Far West

Cat Ballou [Region 2]
Starring: Jane Fonda , Lee Marvin , Michael Callan , Dwayne Hickman , and Nat 'King' Cole
Director: Elliot Silverstein
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

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