In this week’s edition, Jane Fonda and a ragtag crew face off against corporate interests in rural Wyoming
Two Cents is a Cinapse original column akin to a book club for films. The Cinapse team curates the series and contribute their “two cents” using a maximum of 200-400 words. Guest contributors and comments are encouraged, as are suggestions for future picks. Join us as we share our two cents on films we love, films we are curious about, and films we believe merit some discussion. Would you like to be a guest contributor or programmer for an upcoming Two Cents entry? Simply watch along with us and/or send your pitches or 200-400 word reviews to [email protected].
The Pick: Cat Ballou (1965)
When this month’s theme was announced, Cat Ballou immediately came to mind. I’m a huge fan of this silly stick-it-to-the-man comedy led by spitfire Jane Fonda, with a sort of musical narration provided by troubadours Nat ‘King’ Cole and Stubby Kaye, and an Oscar-winning performance by Lee Marvin. The aforementioned Ballou returns home from school certified to teach, but instead takes on the corporation that has tormented her father. Directed by Elliot Silverstein (who received a DGA nomination for the film), Cat Ballou plays with genre as the viewer tags along.
The Team
I can’t remember the first time I saw this movie and enjoyed my first western, but it was probably showing on TCM. The westerns I’d seen as a kid at my great-grandfather’s house were dull or maudlin (3 Godfathers, for example). Cat Ballou was fun, with a woman as the lead.
What is a recent graduate of finishing school to do upon discovery that her father’s land is being sabotaged and there’s a hit out for him? Fonda as Ballou ropes in a good-looking couple of no-good criminals and calls in Kid Shelleen. Lee Marvin practically steals the movie as Shelleen (he plays a double role as an assassin with a metal nose, too). Marvin creates laugh-out-loud moments as he drunkenly races his horse away after a train robbery or naps atop the animal, leaning against a building in wait for next steps. Marvin shows us the layers to Shelleen: the drunk buffoon, the aging man reminiscing for a time that is past, and the excellent gunman Cat hired him to be.
Fonda is gorgeous, and the camera loves her. She’s utterly believable as a woman unafraid to speak her mind, even if it gets her in trouble. She plays Ballou as steadfast and sure that she’s on the side of right. The brownface role of Jackson, a wisecracking Sioux played by white actor Tom Nardini, does prove cringeworthy in recent viewings. Otherwise, Cat Ballou remains a rollicking good time.
(elizs on Bluesky)
A romp if ever there was one, Cat Ballou is a highly enjoyable western-musical-comedy starring a prim and proper Jane Fonda as schoolteacher turned outlaw Cat Ballou. Highly stylized and far from subtle, the film is narrated by singing bards (one of whom is none other than Nat King Cole), features sped up montages set to old-timey music, goes broad with its physical and written comedy, and generally aims to entertain above all else. Fonda commands the screen and her posse with an easy magnetism.
One of my very favorites, Lee Marvin, shows up in a scenery chewing double role as both the washed up, drunken former gunslinger and pulp novel star Kid Shelleen and the villainous prosthetic-nosed Strawn. (Holy smokes, I just now read that Marvin won the best actor Oscar for this role, which is remarkable. Never knew he’d achieved that honor). Maybe my favorite part of Cat Ballou is that basically every man in the film is in love with Jane Fonda in some way, shape, or form, and they at turns protect her, coddle her, submit to her, and are confounded by her. Cat Ballou comes from a place of confidence that characters and audiences alike will be easily engaged and entertained by superstar Fonda in a commanding lead role, and the whole thing goes down easy as can be.
(@Ed_Travis on Xitter)
Cat Ballou has always been something of an anomaly as a western. It carries with it plenty of the beats that have made the genre so beloved, but it approaches them all with such a jovial touch. It’s a comedy, but one that lies somewhere between spoof and satire with a healthy dose of slapstick thrown in. Its male lead (and ostensible hero) doesn’t show himself until the first act has come and gone, and when he does appear, he proves to be far from the savior anyone expected him to be. Yet it all works.
The comedy stylings, as different as they may be, all connect, the script is a winner, the ballad that Nat King Cole and Stubby Kaye croon is pitch perfect, and Lee Marvin’s lead performance is one of the best that the genre ever produced. But the name of the movie is Cat Ballou and, rightfully so. The title character builds on past female protagonists like Calamity Jane and Annie Oakley to produce a character who is every bit as explosive and determined as any man. With a quest for vengeance that fuels her every move, Cat is a marvel of a creation for the mid-60s, and especially for a genre where most female characters do little more than proclaim to their male counterparts something along the lines of: “Oh, no! Please don’t go do that brave thing!” Cat Ballou is Cat Ballou, and she wouldn’t exist the way we know her without Jane Fonda.
Although reportedly hesitant to take on the role, the movie was actually a surprise hit, boosting the actress’ box-office appeal. While most credit the one-three punch Fonda had with Barbarella, They Shoot Horses Don’t They, and Klute (all filmed consecutively a couple of years after this movie) for making her a film icon, Cat Ballou, with all her fearlessness and ferocity, offered her a character that contained many of the hallmarks which would later help define her as one of the greatest actresses to ever grace the screen.
(@frankfilmgeek on Xitter)
Let me be clear, Jane Fonda is fantastic as Cat Ballou and Cat Ballou is certainly a badass hero of the West. Moreover, there’s a ton to appreciate here. However, one thing I feared about this month’s selections has already come true only a mere week in… I don’t really like Westerns
See, it’s rarely the fault of the film, its creators, or its stars that I don’t enjoy Westerns, I simply rarely can appreciate them. Blame the Saturday marathons of them that my dad watched throughout much of the 80s and 90s perhaps… or blame something else entirely… but they rarely are for me. The exceptions tend to be Westerns with a horror influence, extremely violent ones, or something of that sort.
That said, the things that set this one apart from a standard Western are also the things that I did enjoy most. The hero being someone other than a toxic cowboy is always more than welcome. Throw in the Greek chorus motif, comedic moments, and other offbeat quirks and this one is definitely not my Dad’s kind of Western. So, while I will readily say the film isn’t really for me, I’ll also acknowledge that there are tons of interesting things going on with this film. I hope those reading who can appreciate Westerns better than I give this a fair shake. I think many will be left with a lot to love.
(@thepaintedman on Xitter)
I went into this pretty much blind, other than knowing it had an incredible double-header of Jane Fonda and Lee Marvin. I knew Fonda mainly from her off-screen persona and her wide range from 9 to 5 comedy to hard hitting drama in Klute, and Marvin mainly from the later surreal noir Point Blank and the bitter revisionist western The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance. As such, I was 100% expecting a gritty, genre-bucking female-led Western; imagine my zany delight when this wasn’t just a Western-comedy, but one with full-on shenanigans. There’s a dance brawl! A train robbery! Lee Marvin as twin brothers, one a Poe-faced hitman, one a ridiculous drunk! And to top it all off, it’s also somewhat of a musical, anchored by Nat King Cole.
This was such a bright, joyous film–and one that still manages to be as subversive as I expected, just not quite in the way I imagined. Cat Ballou wears its fondness for classic Westerns on its sleeve–the legendary stuntman Yakima Canutt devised the various horse tricks!–but it loves them just enough to create an equally loving parody of the genre’s zealous masculine worship. Here, all of the men are all hat and no cattle, turning into cowards when it’s the most advantageous or self-serving. Cat grows to recognize just how she has all these cowboys by the balls, becoming as adept with a gun as she is with weaponizing the expectations these men put upon her as just another helpless damsel. It’s a terrific vehicle for Fonda, showing off both comedic and action chops–but Oscar-winning Lee Marvin steals the show as the washed-up Kid Shelleen, who overcomes a crippling alcohol addiction to come back to form as a sharp-tongued desperado who delivers an incredible call to action just when it’s needed most. What a jaunt!
(@Gambit1138 on Xitter)
This is one of my favorite categories of Two Cents picks: one that aligns directly to my watch list. I love ’60s Westerns and this is one of the major ones that I needed to catch up on.
As with Barbarella a couple years later, Cat Ballou is a showcase for Jane Fonda, in particularly how well she could project sexy femininity and innocent charm while keeping both intact. It’s easy to see how Cat’s winning personality attracts a cadre of loyal ruffians joining her in her bid for revenge, and a pleasure to watch. (I also detected aspects of what would become a template for Pam Grier’s much gnarlier films a decade later: seeking revenge, fighting the system, constantly under-estimated, posing as a prostitute to gain entry, ogled by all the men around her, and so on.)
Cat’s gang is a fun group. I particularly liked Jackson Two Bears, a native character that now feels a little dated, but is notably a great character and a genuine friend, and perhaps the most honorable member of the crew.
Of course the great Lee Marvin, who earned an Oscar for the role, steals the shows as Kid Shelleen, the aging drunkard gunfighter hired – unsuccessfully – to protect Cat’s father. From himself, as it turns out – I didn’t realize until after viewing that Marvin also played the villain, Strawn. Despite Shelleen’s comedic, wobbly presence (he’s most effective as a gunfighter within an specific range of inebriation, losing his edge when too sober or too drunk) the character contains multitudes: proud of his legacy but aware of his reality, motivated to help Cat after failing to protect her father, and secretly in love with her. I was particularly struck by the scene in which he “cleans up” nicely, finding his center and once again embodying the revered gunslinger of pulp legend.
Fun fact; though the character was portrayed as an aging gunfighter, at the time Marvin was younger than I am now. Oof.
(@VforVashaw on Xitter)
CINAPSE CELEBRATES THE WOMEN OF THE WEST
Every week in August, we’ll be looking Western films with a feminine edge. Women don’t get to take center stage in tons of Westerns, but they are at the front of some truly great films in the genre. Join us this month by contacting any of the team or emailing [email protected]!
August 12th – The Quick and the Dead
August 19th – Johnny Guitar
August 26th – Meek’s Cutoff
