Cat Ballou (1965)

Directed by Elliot Silverstein. Starring Jane Fonda, Lee Marvin, Michael Callan, Tom Nardini, Dwayne Hickman, John Marley, Nat King Cole, Stubby Kaye, Reginald Denny, Arthur Hunnicut, Jay C. Flippen, Bruce Cabot.

Likable if overpraised Western comedy where a couple of balladeers (Cole & Kaye) sing of the legend of Cat Ballou (Fonda), a finishing school grad and aspiring schoolteacher heading back home to Wyoming, but she becomes an outlaw after her father (Marley) is gunned down. Silverstein can’t maintain a pacy rhythm for the comedy, and a self-conscious (even self-satisfied) aura hangs over the thing like a shroud, but sticking to the dusty trail will lead to a sufficient number of isolated funny moments. Coy cutie Fonda plays it straight and doesn’t rate much of a transformation (and her romance with doofus outlaw Callan blows tumbleweeds), but Marvin is good fun in a dual role as a metal-nosed killer and a soused gunfighter—he gets upstaged by his horse, but still went home with an Oscar. Script by Walter Newman and Frank Pierson, adapted from Roy Chanslor’s “The Ballad of Cat Ballou.” Inspired separate television pilots in 1970 and ‘71, but neither was picked up for series. Sadly, Cole passed away from lung cancer prior to the film’s release.

64/100