Peter Viney's Blog

Cat Ballou
1965

Directed by Elliot Silverstein
Screenplay by Walter Newman and Frank Pierson
Based on the 1956 novel by Roy Chanslor

CAST
Lee Marvin- Kid Shelleen / Strawn
Jane Fonda – Cat Ballou
Michael Callan – Clay Boone
Dwayne Hickman – Jed
Tom Nardini – Jackson Two-Bears
John Marley- Frank Ballou
Reginald Denny – Sir Harry Percival
Jay C. Flippen – Sheriff Cardigan
Arthur Hunnicutt – Butch Cassidy
Bruce Cabot- Sheriff Maledon
Nat King Cole – Shouter / Sunrise Kid
Stubby Kaye – Shouter / Sam The Shade

The 60s retrospectives continue …

It was released in June 1965 in the USA and September 1965 in the UK. Filming was September 1964, split between Colorado and Hollywood studio. Yes, that town scene of Wolf City is a re-arrangment of the backlot Western town.

I loved this one back when it came out. I loved Support Your Local Sheriff too. We had a VHS copy of Cat Ballou and we watched it a few times with our kids when they were teenagers. I hadn’t seen it since the DVD era began. It’s been waiting on the shelf for a while, saved for a day when we wanted something shorter and lighter. You remember it, everyone remembers it, for Lee Marvin, who won Best Actor Academy Award for the gunslinger who literally couldn’t hit a barn door. Lee said the horse in that classic shot deserved a share. It’s supposed to be impossible to get a horse to cross its legs, but they kept feeding it sugar until it did.

The classic shot: Lee Marvin and horse with crossed legs. 

Jane Fonda: I have to admit, it wasn’t until I saw the final cut of Cat Ballou that I realized we had a hit on our hands. I hadn’t been around when they filmed Lee’s horse, leaning cross-legged up against the barn in what’s become a classic image, or when Lee tries to shoot the side of the barn.

The film was thought of a lightweight piece by Columbia, but gained Academy Award Nominations for Best Actor, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Film Editing, Best Score and Best Song. As Lee Marvin doesn’t appear in the first third of the film, in spite of playing two characters, he only has 30 minutes onscreen, the second shortest time ever for an Academy Award for Best Actor. He also got the Golden Globe and BAFTA.

This time around? I was less impressed. I guess there were no surprises. On the Western spectrum between Oklahoma or  Roy Rogers andThe Wild Bunch it sits much closer to the mild end than I had remembered.

The shouters

Nat King Cole & Stubby Kaye. Duelling banjos?

The unusual addition is The Shouters, Nat King Cole and Stubby Kaye as a kind of ‘chorus’, running throughout the film singing the Ballad of Cat Ballou, often with banjos, but also guitars and Nat King Cole reappears in the whorehouse playing piano. It adds to the comedy theme of course. Nat King Cole died between production and release of the film. During filming he was appearing nightly in Lake Tahoe, an exhausting schedule for a man sick with cancer.

Filming

It was done fast with daily long over-runs. Start to finish in less than six weeks. There are directors who just keep going. IMDB quotes Jane Fonda:

Jane Fonda: It seemed we’d never do two takes unless the camera broke down. The producers had us working overtime day after day, until one morning Lee Marvin took me aside. ‘Jane,’ he said, ‘we are the stars of this movie. If we let the producers walk all over us, if we don’t stand up for ourselves, you know who suffers most? The crew. The guys who don’t have the power we do to say, ‘Sh*t, no, we’re workin’ too hard.’ You have to get some backbone, girl. Learn to say no when they ask you to keep working. 

Absolutely right, Lee. I’ve been there in that situation, and the craft people can’t say “no” (though they do get double time).

Dwayne Hickman (Uncle Jed):  Jane Fonda was less than enthusiastic about the movie. She wanted to do more serious work and playing straight man to a bunch of crazy characters wasn’t her idea of great filmmaking.

Jane Fonda had not liked the script, but was under contract and had to do it. It did her no harm, and in fact being the “straight guy” with comedy actors all around you is one of the hardest things to do. She also did the overdub on the French version!

Jane Fonda: When we did “Cat Ballou,” neither Lee [Marvin] nor I thought it was going to be any good. We made it on a shoestring and shot it very fast. Then Lee won an Oscar. So you never really know. You just give it your best and see what happens.
Interview, Star Tribune 28 June 2019

Lee Marvin was drinking on set, and was not diplomatic, telling Jane’s husband, Roger Vadim, that he ‘hated the French.’  He also told everyone that Fonda was pretentious. OK, at least he was staying in character. Elliot Silverstein has said that Marvin generally ignored direction and did it his way, but as he had the entire crew in tears of laughter, they told him to go with it.

The era

It’s 1894. The end of the Wild West just about. Huck Finn’s feared civilisation has got into most corners. The date doesn’t really work, in that Cat’s gang get to the Hole-In-The-Wall (famed for Butch Cassidy) and find a balding, retired Cassidy tending the bar. The real Butch Cassidy was still actively robbing in 1894. The film, Butch Cassidy & The Sundance Kid, made four years after Cat Ballou is set in 1899. I saw online references saying the balding Cassidy was part of the many lampoons on other Westerns. Obviously not! But they were referencing the historical Butch Cassidy.

The 1956 novel the story is based on isn’t a comedy, so it says online. No, I’m not going to check.

The plot

We start with our strolling shouters singing of Cat Ballou … they stroll into Wolf City, the town, where the gallows is being set up to hang her. She’s in jail.

We flash back. The prim and respectable Cat Ballou  (Jane Fonda) is on her way home to Wolf City where she hopes to be a schoolteacher. Her father, Frankie Ballou (John Marley), has a ranch outside the town.

She meets a drunken preacher on the train (Dwayne Hickman as Jed). He asks her about her serious book, takes it and finds she’s actually reading a cowboy penny dreadful on the adventures of Kid Shelleen. (In the 1890s these booklets were based on real outlaws). The preacher is there to rescue his nephew, Clay Boone (Michael Callan). It’s a sleeper train, and Uncle Jed rescues Clay, who ducks into Cat’s curtained sleeper to hide out … Some Like It Hot is the cinematic reference.

Clay (Michael Callon) tries his luck in the sleeper.

Cat Ballou: You take your arm away this second! I am supposed to be a schoolteacher!

Cat gets home where the Wolf City Development Corporation is planning to take her dad’s ranch. Her dad lives with his only hired hand, Jackson Two-Bears (Tom Nardini). Jackson’s an Indian (they didn’t say Native-American in 1965). Frankie has a theory that Indians are the Lost Tribe of Israel. He even got someone to speak Hebrew to Jackson and was annoyed that Jackson “pretended” not to understand.

Cat Ballou, Frankie Ballou (John Marley) and Jackson Two-Bears (Tom Nardini)

Jackson: I am a full Sioux Indian! I am not of the Chosen People!
Frankie:  Be stubborn if you want to.

Whe everyone gets into a fight in the saloon later, Jackson grabs someone’s hair and finds he’s scalped him … or more likely it’s a wig. Jackson remains Cat’s stalwart platonic friend throughout … Cinderella and Buttons in the English pantomime version came to my mind.

Clay & Jed turn up, and are reluctant protectors, hired to keep them safe from the dreaded gunslinger, Strawn (Lee Marvin). Strawn has a metal nose because his own got bitten off in a fight.

Jackson: He’s a murderer – a hired killer. His nose was bit off in a fight.
Frankie: If I was gonna be scared, I’d be scared of the fella who bit it off, not him!

Clay & Jed admit neither have fired a gun in anger. Cat and Jackson decide to hire Kid Shelleen, the gunfighter she has been reading about.

Jackson & Cat watch the stagecoach arrive. From this point Jane Fonda is fetchingly attired in very non-1894 tight trousers and blouse.

In one of the classic scenes, Cat and Jackson wait for the stagecoach carrying Kid Shelleen (also Lee Marvin). A tall tough man in black gets down … to be greeted by his wife and kids. Kid Shelleen is in the trunk, drunk as a skunk on his $50 advance payment. He is thrown out onto the ground.

Kid Shelleen arrives … on the ground

Indeed, he can’t hit a barn door unless he has a stiff drink, whereupon he becomes an ace with a revolver.

Kid Shelleen (Lee Marvin) watched by Frankie (John Marley)

Kid Shelleen: I used to work for the Buffalo Bill Wild West Show and a Congress of Rough Riders. And I rescued many stagecoach passengers from road agents and drunkard injuns… in the nick of time!  … Twice a day, three times on Saturday.

So … his rescues and shootings were in the touring Cowboys & Indians shows.

Strawn rides away

Strawn shoots Frankie dead with a rifle. The four of them (Cat, Jackson, Clay & Jed) head to town to demand justice.

Cat Ballou: Some gang! An Indian ranch hand, a drunken gunfighter, a sex maniac … an an uncle!

Cat’s gang. L to R: Jed (Dwayne Hickman), Cat (Jane Fonda), Jackson (Tom Nardini), Clay (Michael Callan)

The sheriff tells them Strawn who is sitting on the saloon veranda,  has been there all day. She attacks him, he draws a gun and they have to leave.

Strawn (Lee Marvin) on the left with metal nose

The four return to the ranch. The Wolf Corporation have arrived to take it over, and Frankie is in a coffin. The drunk Kid Shelleen arrives, sees the candles around the coffin and blows them out assuming it must be a birthday party.

Happy birthday … Kid Shelleen and Jed.

Cat wants revenge and remembering the Kid Shelleen story she read, determines to rob a train, which is carrying the Wolf City Corporation money.  They set off into the wilderness, pulling Kid Shelleen behind a horse on a travois. They go to the Hole-In-The-Wall, where Butch Cassidy is the bartender.

Kid Shelleen: Let’s have a drink for old times’ sake …
Butch Cassidy: Old times’ sake? That means you got no cash.

Trouble is, the retired outlaws don’t want them because the Wolf City crooks let them live in peace on sufferance.

The train robbery is the major set piece. The Englishman having a bath in his private carriage is Sir Harry Percival (Reginald Denny). They succeed (with several of the many classic train robbery clichés). There is a speeded-up silent film pastiche in there.

Stepping into the corset …

Kid Shelleen is blissfully unaware that Cat’s eyes are on Clay and carries a torch for her. With Jackson’s assistance  (a definite Lone Ranger and Tonto reference) he shaves, has a bath, gets into shape, dons a corset and his old Western costume and heads into town to kill Strawn.

On return, he reveals that Strawn was his brother and he’d always hated him.

Cat Ballou and Sir Harry (Reginald Denny) 

Cat dresses up as a whore and heads into town to confront Sir Harry aboard his private train. Sir Harry is a key example of the long, long line of English (NOT British) baddies in American films. It’s always assumed that any other nationality will offend hyphenated Americans. On the whole, British actors realize that the baddie part is more fun, maintain that evil smile, and take the money.

In the ensuing struggle with Sir Harry,  her Derringer goes off and kills Sir Harry. The town, having lost its benefactor, are keen for her to hang.

Sheriff Cardigan: You can’t blame them, can you? Killing Sir Harry put the kibosh on the whole slaughterhouse. No jobs. No payroll. You took the bread out of half the mouths of Wolf City. You haven’t got any friends.

Jed (Dwayne Hickman) escorts Cat to the gallows

At the last minute, Jed (disguised as a preacher again) comes to escort her, and Clay and Jackson rescue her.

Cat and Jed on the way to the gallows

Kid Shelleen gallops with them as they escape, barely clinging to his horse.

I noted they’d left room for a sequel in that ending, but it never happened. It remains a great way to pass a mere 90 minutes.

CONTEMPORARY COMMENTS

MAKING fun of Westerns is an old and enjoyable sport with Hollywood movie-makers. It is also an easy thing to do, considering the obviousness of the Western formulas and the corniness of the clichés. Thus there is nothing surprising or unusual about “Cat Ballou,” a cheerful lampoon of the two-gun horse operas ….It is a carefree and clever throwing together of three or four solid Western stereotypes in a farcical frolic that follows—and travesties—the ballad form of Western storytelling made popular in “High Noon.”There’s the innocent young school teacher whose dear old daddy is gunned down by a killer for the monopolistic villain who wants to take over his valuable ranch. There are the two or three brazen young stalwarts who would like to help her but are powerless in the face of the organized antagonism of the cowardly citizens who want the villain to build his slaughterhouse. And there’s the old and once-dreaded gunfighter the heroine desperately hires, first to give her father protection and then avenge his death … “Cat Ballou” does have flashes of good satiric wit.But, under Elliot Silverstein’s direction, it is mostly just juvenile lampoon. 
Bosley Crowther, New York Times, June 1965

CURRENT DVD

Very good- we never felt the need for blu-ray. It was also very cheap on amazon.

SOUNDTRACK

The Ballad of Cat Ballou was written by Mack David and Jerry Livingston and sung by Nat King Cole and Stubby Kaye. It was released as a 45 in the US and UK, coupled with They Can’t Make Her Cry.

Thee was an album by Nat King Cole Nat King Cole Sings His Songs From Cat Ballou and other motion pictures, which is 90% ‘other motion pictures’

THE 60s REVISITED REVIEWS …

A Taste of Honey (1961)
Sparrows Can’t Sing (1963)
Tom Jones (1963)
The Fast Lady (1963)
Cat Ballou (1965)
The Ipcress File (1965)
Darling (1965)
The Knack (1965)
Doctor Zhivago (1965)
Morgan – A Suitable Case For Treatment (1966)
Alfie (1966)
Harper (aka The Moving Target) 1966
The Chase (1966)
The Trap (1966)
Georgy Girl (1966)
Fahrenheit 451 (1966)
Modesty Blaise (1966)
The Family Way (1967)
Privilege (1967)
Blow-up (1967)
Accident (1967)
Bonnie and Clyde (1967)
I’ll Never Forget What’s ‘Is Name (1967)
How I Won The War (1967)
Far From The Madding Crowd (1967)
Poor Cow (1967)
Here We Go Round The Mulberry Bush (1968)
The Magus (1968)
If …. (1968)
The Devil Rides Out (aka The Devil’s Bride) (1968)
Work Is A Four Letter Word (1968)
The Party (1968)
Petulia (1968)
Barbarella (1968)
The Thomas Crown Affair (1968)
Bullitt (1968)
Deadfall (1968)
The Swimmer (1968)
Theorem (Teorema) (1968)
The Magic Christian (1969)
The Rise and Rise of Michael Rimmer (1970)
Performance (1970)