Cat Ballou

• TOP NOTCH (my top choices)
• HONORABLE MENTION (well worth watching)
• YOU MIGHT WANT TO CONSIDER (I like them but you might not)
• CLASSICS (Great movies up through the 1960s - many don't have any rating)

CAT BALLOU (1965) - PG - CLASSICS
Jane Fonda, Lee Marvin, Michael Callan   

Summary - A woman seeking revenge for her murdered father hires a famous gunman, but he's very different from what she expects.

Cautions - Grown up themes.

Commentary - Nominated for five Academy Awards with Lee Marvin taking home a win for the Best Actor. Winning a best actor Oscar is hard enough but to win it for a comedy is almost impossible  (especially when you are up against the likes of  Richard Burton and Laurence Olivier). So, at the very least watch this to check out a wonderful and rich comic performance by Marvin as the drunk gunfighter hired to save the day and the steel nosed (literally) villain.

 From the moment the Columbia logo bursts into animated form, morphing into Cat herself, it's obvious that this is a film that's going to toy with preconceived notions of the Western genre. With the wonderful duo of Stubby Kaye and Nat King Cole on hand as a singing Greek Chorus, prepare for an unconventional but fun spin on the classic western that, at times, is laugh-out-loud funny. While the film's verbal humor is kind of hit or miss, some of the sight gags are inspired.

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