Cat Ballou

Cat Ballou
by Elliot Silverstein

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DVD details

Actor: Dwayne Hickman, Jane Fonda, Lee Marvin, Michael Callan, Nat 'King' Cole
Director: Elliot Silverstein
Brand: SONY PICTURES HOME ENT
Cinematographer: Jack A. Marta
Editor: Charles Nelson
Producer: Harold Hecht
Producer: Mitch Lindemann
Writer: Frank Pierson
Writer: Roy Chanslor
Writer: Walter Newman
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono; English (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled); Portuguese (Subtitled); Georgian (Subtitled); Chinese (Subtitled); Thai (Subtitled)
Format: Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Color, DVD, Full Screen, NTSC, Special Edition, Widescreen
Picture Format: Anamorphic Widescreen, 1.85:1
Running Time: 97 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2000-08-08
Audience Rating: Unrated
Studio: Sony Pictures

DVD Reviews of Cat Ballou

DVD Review: Review of Cat Ballou movie
Summary: 4 Stars

The movie works which is major considering the low price I paid for it. Good job!

DVD Review: Cat Ballou
Summary: 4 Stars

I had to watch this movie for a History class, so I bought it. It turned out that I really enjoyed it! Good investment!

DVD Review: A classic
Summary: 5 Stars

I had never seen this movie. My husband wanted it. It is definately a classic and after viewing it I now see why he wanted to have this classic. Very well done. A nice addition to our DVD movie collection.

DVD Review: An expression of the radical '60's?
Summary: 4 Stars

You might laugh outright at the suggestion that there was anything radical intended by this seemingly just-for-fun western spoof. I'm willing to consider the idea that maybe I'm trying to look too deeply into this material. But the date of release prompted me to start thinking about the various incidental messages embedded in the film.

I think I'm safe in thinking that up until about the time "Cat Ballou" came out, that this part of American heritage had been most successfully represented by the John Ford-Howard Hawks-John Wayne type of mythology. Probably not too many thinking people believed that mythos actually represented the real truth of the old west, but most people at least thought it represented the spirit of what was best about the frontier.

But times change and the need for new mythologies arise, and these new mythologies must supersede old ones in order to flourish. One of the most successful ways to discredit old values is to make fun of them. This is easier, more effective, and also more entertaining than debating the issues in a serious manner.

So, in "Cat Ballou" is seen the inversion of many of the old values, presented within an overall humorous and lighthearted context. The townspeople of Wolf City,Wyoming are a self-righteous, bigoted, vindictive lot. Jay C. Flippen portrays a sheriff who ranks right up at the top of the list as far as crooked weasels go. This town is the very embodiment of a corrupt "establishment" which won't let anything, even murder, stand in the way of its desire for material gain.

Opposed to this morally bankrupt establishment, Jane Fonda, radiating feminine innocence, integrity, and sex appeal, means to avenge the death of her father, for which the town is responsible. In the mind of Ms. Fonda's character, the moral issues involved trump the rules of the legal system. The train robbery pulled off by her and her helpers is justified because it is aimed specifically against the corrupt powers responsible for the oppression of her father. Even her killing of the wealthy financier behind her father's death is justified by this higher morality.

It seems to me these are rather serious challenges to conventional ethics, wrapped up in the trappings of farce. The lawbreakers who oppose the corrupt "system" are heroic, while those who sell out are evil(the hired killer Strawn) or contemptible(the washed up Butch Cassidy and cohorts of the over-the-hill Hole-in-the-Wall Gang). Other devices which undermine the traditional establishment are: Nat King Cole's performance as one of the minstrels who provide a running commentary on the events taking place, a role promotion for a black man in a traditionally all-white cast of settlers, with one of his appearances taking place as a piano player in a white brothel-surely a pioneering depiction for the times; the running joke about Cat's father believing that Native Americans are descended from the lost tribes of Israel, and his attempts to jog the racial memory of his Indian hired-hand by exposing him to the Hebrew language, which points out the misconceptions whites have about other ethnic groups; the depiction of the ladies of the town picketing Cat's cell where she is waiting to be hanged,showing their thinly disguised spite and jealous hatred under cover of conventional Christian rectitude; the sizable role and sympathetic portrayal of Jackson Two-Bears, the hired hand and one of Cat's supporters, was a departure from stereotyped Native American roles of the past; Lee Marvin as just an all-around rude gesture and emblem of defiance and disrespect to accepted ideas of propriety - a marvelous depiction, of its type; and finally, the fact that Cat, as a woman in charge, foreshadows the rise of feminism.

Cat and her followers launch upon a life of lawlessness, which is essentially guerilla warfare against a corrupt system. O.K, O.K., as I said, I'm willing to accept the possibility that this is all harmless fun. But if the makers of this movie were aiming to influence the ideology of America's youth, they disguised these aims in a very effective Trojan Horse. I remember traveling the 12 miles to the nearest movie theater in the small farming community where I grew up. This area of the country was not known for being receptive to new social trends, but the farm lads I was with all thought it was a wonderful movie, being so captivated by the charms of Ms. Fonda and the antics of Lee Marvin that any undermining of their traditional beliefs went unnoticed. For better or worse, or both, these incipient themes exploded onto American life with a much more serious impact in the late sixties. To some extent, American youth may have been programmed to accept them, due to entertainment media efforts such as "Cat Ballou".

DVD Review: the greatest horse actor in the world
Summary: 3 Stars

comical from start to finish even the parts that are not intended to be. Lee Marvin and the horse makes it a must see even with the dispicable ms.fonda in attendance

Description of Cat Ballou

CLASSIC WESTERN SPOOF ABOUT A NOTORIOUS FEMALE OUTLAW AND HER DEVOTED GANG OF FOLLOWERS. HIGHLIGHTED BY LEE MARVIN'S OSCARWINNING PERFORMANCE AS THE LEGENDARY GUNSLINGER AND TOWN DRUNK, KID SHELLEEN. SPECIAL FEATURES: TALENT FILES, INTERACTIVE MENUS,PRODUCTION NOTES, SCENE SELECTIONS, AND MUCH MORE.

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

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