Hanging day in Wolf City, Wyoming
Comedy
Westerns can be unfunny parodies (and to the serious Westernista, faintly
sacrilegious) or affectionate, smiling tributes. You can probably think of
examples of both. In the latter category I would place the Buster Keaton Go West, the 1939 Destry, the Bob Hope Paleface pictures, The Sheepman and, of course, Blazing Saddles. Among others. I love these films and will watch them any time they
come on. Cat Ballou just about makes
it into the list of affectionate tributes. It’s not a mocking effort and it
laughs with rather than at the genre. It’s not the most hilarious film, though,
and for me anyway doesn’t come in the must-watch department when it appears in
the TV schedules. Still, it has quite a lot going for it.
Derringers
for one thing. You know how I like the villainous little guns. Usually they
appear in the hands of saloon gals, gamblers or besuited crooks. But in Cat Ballou semi-goody Jed (Dwayne
Hickman), dressed as a priest to rescue his pardner from the clutches of
Sheriff Bruce Cabot, conceals a derringer in a bible. In a bible! Boy, is that sneaky. Dean Martin copied that idea in 5 Card Stud three years later. So that
was a great bit in Cat Ballou. Better
still, Cat Ballou is a two-derringer
movie (a rare bird indeed) because later on Cat shoots Sir Harry (Reginald
Denny) with one (no more than he deserved), and that’s what leads her to the
gallows in Wolf City, WY in 1894.
A two-derringer Western
That’s
where the story is set, and it’s the time of the Hole in the Wall Gang, though
their glory hath departed and Butch Cassidy is played by Arthur Hunnicutt, 55
but doing his old-timer routine. Actually, Butch (Robert Leroy Parker) didn’t
start his depredations or recruit the Sundance Kid until 1896, when he was 30,
but we won’t worry about that too much.
Paul Newman seems to have aged a bit
In fact
the cast of Cat Ballou is pretty
good. It is true that the good-badmen heroes, Michael Callan as Clay and Dwayne
Hickman as Jed, were not top-line Western stars, though Mr. Callan was in They Came to Cordura and The Magnificent Seven Ride! and Mr.
Hickman was in several TV Westerns, but other members of the cast were a
delight to watch. Jane Fonda is a rather charming Cat. Arthur as Butch Cassidy
has to be worth seeing and there’s Jay C Flippen as the corrupt sheriff
complementing the great Bruce Cabot as lawman. Nat King Cole and Stubby Kaye
provide an entertaining Greek chorus with banjos (which they strum very
unconvincingly to the soundtrack, sometimes not even bothering). Above all we
have Lee Marvin as both the drunken gunslinger Kid Shelleen and the evil
noseless assassin Tim Strawn.
Lawman Cabot
Lawman Flippen
Marvin was
in 20 Western movies (if you regard The Missouri Traveler, Pocket Money, Raintree County and Bad Day at Black Rock as Westerns) and one or two of his
appearances were perhaps less than epic but his Liberty Valance, his Monte Walsh, his Masters in Seven Men From Now and his part as the leader Fardan in The Professionals make him a leading Western star. He had the right
level of grit and toughness and he always lifted even an indifferent movie.
Four years after Cat Ballou he
starred in another famous box-office hit comedy Western, Paint Your Wagon. Luckily, in Cat
Ballou he does not break into song. He certainly hams it up as the drunk
Shelleen but he is splendidly menacing as Strawn. And the part where he cleans
up, and his squire, the Sioux Jackson Two Bears (Tom Nardini), dresses him in
his gunslinger armor like some medieval knight, is memorable. The idea of the broken-down
gunfighter getting back into shape is of course a familiar trope, and the
getting the old guns and clothes out of a drawer or trunk is instantly
recognizable to us. Marvin won an Oscar for his part(s).
Marvin fine
Yakima
Canutt was the 2nd Unit director too, so the stunts are good.
The
movie was directed by Elliott Silverstein, not perhaps in the front rank of
Western directors but he had done some TV shows and in 1970 he was to direct A Man Called Horse. The story came from
a Roy Chanslor novel (as did Johnny Guitar)
and was written up into a screenplay by Walter Newman, who worked with Nunnally
Johnson on The True Story of Jesse James
and also contributed (uncredited) to The Magnificent Seven, and the hugely experienced Frank Pierson, who did loads of Have Gun – Will Travel episodes. Some of
the lines are amusing and the story nips right along so no complaints there.
Jane charming as Cat
The DP
was Jack Marta (Dark Command) and
there are some nice locations with Buckskin Joe, Colorado standing in for
Wyoming.
The
Frank De Vol music sticks in your memory too.
And who
will ever forget the cross-legged horse?
One of my favorite picture -- yup, I admit it. When I first saw this on the late show, I nearly laughed myself into a hernia. I always wondered why Callan was not a bigger star. He is extremely appealing and has an easygoing presence. One of the many mysteries of the movies. The Cole-Kaye narration is a delight. I think this is a great winner -- not the hilarity of Son of Paleface -- but a very funny picture.
ReplyDeleteGlad you like it. The picture sure has its fans. In fact it appears in various lists of the best Western movies ever, e;g. No. 58 in IMDB's 'The 100 Greatest Western Movies of All Time'.
DeleteJeff
My favorite line is when Lee Marvin asks Cat's father for a drink and he asks Jackson Two Bears "Do you have that bottle you carry around to make that sheriff mad?"
ReplyDeleteRichard
Yes, nice one. Actually the writing is pretty good and there are a good number of witty one-liners.
DeleteJeff