Cat Ballou

Catherine "Cat" Ballou, who wants to be a schoolteacher, is returning home from boarding school by train to (fictional) Wolf City, Wyoming, to the ranch of her father, Frankie Ballou. On the way, she unwittingly helps accused cattle rustler Clay Boone elude his captor, Sheriff Maledon, when Boone's Uncle Jed, a drunkard disguised as a preacher, distracts the lawman.

Arriving home, Cat learns that the Wolf City Development Corporation is scheming to take the ranch from her father, whose sole defender is his ranch hand, educated Native American Jackson Two-Bears. Clay and Jed appear and reluctantly offer to help Catherine, and she hires legendary gunfighter Kid Shelleen to help protect her father from gunslinger Tim Strawn, the hired killer who is threatening him.

Shelleen arrives, and proves to be a drunken bum whose pants fall down when he draws his gun, and who is unable to hit a barn when he shoots unless sufficiently inebriated, in which state he reveals himself as still being a crack shot. Strawn kills Frankie, and when the townspeople refuse to bring Strawn to justice, Catherine becomes a revenge-seeking outlaw known as Cat Ballou. She and her gang rob a train carrying the Wolf City payroll, then take refuge in "Hole-in-the-Wall", where desperados go to hide from the law, but are thrown out when it is learned what they have done, since Hole-in-the-Wall can only continue to exist on the sufferance of Wolf City. Shelleen, inspired by his caring affection for Cat, works himself into shape, dresses up in his finest gunfighting outfit, goes into town and kills Strawn, casually revealing later that Strawn is his brother.

Cat poses as a prostitute and confronts Sir Harry Percival, the head of the Wolf City Development Corporation. A struggle ensues, Sir Harry is killed, and Cat is sentenced to be hanged. With Sir Harry dead, there is no hope for Wolf City's future, and the townspeople have no mercy for Cat. As the noose is placed around her neck, Uncle Jed appears, again dressed as a preacher, and cuts the rope just as the trapdoor is opened. Cat falls through and onto a wagon and her gang spirits her away in a daring rescue.

Cast notes

• Cole and Kaye, billed simply as "Shouters", act as a Greek chorus, intermittently appearing onscreen to narrate the story through ongoing verses of "The Ballad of Cat Ballou", one of the songs written by Mack David and Jerry Livingston for the film.[4]

The film was director Elliot Silverstein's second feature film, and his relationship with producer Harold Hecht while filming was not smooth.[3]

Ann-Margret was the first choice for the title role but her manager turned it down without letting the actress know. Ann-Margret wrote in her autobiography that she would have wanted the part.[5] Among others, Kirk Douglas allegedly turned down the role of Shelleen.[3] Years later he played a similar double role in The Man from Snowy River.

Nat King Cole was ill with lung cancer during the filming of Cat Ballou. A chain smoker, Cole died four months before the film was released. Actor Jay C. Flippen suffered a circulatory failure during filming, and as a result, later had his leg amputated due to gangrene.[6]

The film was well received by critics. It earned over $20.6 million in ticket sales in 1965, making it one of the top ten moneymaking films that year at the US box office.[3]

Bosley Crowther of The New York Times called it "a breezy little film" which "does have flashes of good satiric wit. But, under Elliott Silverstein's direction, it is mostly just juvenile lampoon."[7] Variety wrote that the film "emerges middlingly successful, sparked by an amusing way-out approach and some sparkling performances."[8] Richard L. Coe of The Washington Post praised the film as a "springy satire," adding, "What makes this fun is the style. Forming a mighty cool duo, Nat King Cole and Stubby Kaye sing their way in and out of the plot with folk songs which Cole 'Don't Fence Me In' Porter would have relished. The format is novel and stylishly delivered."[9] Pauline Kael in Film Quarterly called it "lumpen, coy, and obvious, a self-consciously cute movie," adding that "mainly it is full of sort-of-funny and trying-to-be-funny ideas and a movie is not just ideas."[10] Philip K. Scheuer of the Los Angeles Times wrote, "I'm in the minority, apparently. Cat Ballou, which is being hailed as a cowboy Tom Jones or something of the sort, seems to me about as funny as a soundtrack burp."[11] The Monthly Film Bulletin wrote, "The jokes in Cat Ballou are uneven, but the mood behind the film is happily consistent."[12]

The film holds a score of 88% on Rotten Tomatoes based on 26 reviews, with an average grade of 7.3 out of 10.[13]

Two separate television pilots were filmed. A 1970 pilot written and produced by Aaron Ruben featured Lesley Ann Warren as Cat, Jack Elam as Kid Shelleen and Tom Nardini repeating his role while a 1971 pilot starred Jo Ann Harris as Cat, Forrest Tucker as Kid Shelleen and Lee J. Casey as Jackson Two-Bears.[14]

• Cat Ballou is the favorite film of comedy directors Bobby and Peter Farrelly, as stated in The AFI 100 Years, 100 Laughs television special. The Balladeers from their film, There's Something About Mary, are inspired by similar characters in Cat Ballou.
• Imagery from the hanging scene of Jane Fonda was spoofed advocating her execution for treason following her 1972 visit to Hanoi. A brief shot from that scene was used as part of Alex DeLarge's sadistic reverie in the movie A Clockwork Orange.
• "Cat Ballou" is a card in the spaghetti western board game Bang!.
• In a 2014 interview on NPR, actor Bryan Cranston called Cat Ballou the "movie that had the most impact" on him when he was growing up.[23]
• In episode 69 of the popular fiction podcast Welcome to Night Vale, Cecil Palmer mentions that he watched this movie with his boyfriend Carlos the Scientist repeatedly.

• List of American films of 1965

• Cat Ballou at the American Film Institute Catalog
• Cat Ballou on IMDb
• Cat Ballou at Rotten Tomatoes
• Cat Ballou at AllMovie
• Cat Ballou at the TCM Movie Database