Cat Ballou.

Review #2390: Cat Ballou.

Cast: 

Jane Fonda (Cat Ballou), Lee Marvin (Kid Shelleen and Tim Strawn), Michael Callan (Clay Boone), Dwayne Hickman (Jed), Nat King Cole (one of the shouters), Stubby Kaye (one of the shouters), Tom Nardini (Jackson Two-Bears), John Marley (Frankie Ballou), Reginald Denny (Sir Harry Percival), Jay C. Flippen (Sheriff Cardigan), Arthur Hunnicutt (Butch Cassidy), Bruce Cabot (Sheriff Maledon), Burt Mustin (the accuser), and Paul Gilbert (Train Messenger) Directed by Elliot Silverstein.

Review: 

This was based on a book, you know. Roy Chanslor wrote The Ballad of Cat Ballou in 1956, two years after his other work Johnny Guitar had been made into a movie. There were plans to make a movie from the get-go, with Tony Curtis and Burt Lancaster being tapped to star in the film and it went by the wayside to eventually being produced by Harold Hecht for Columbia Pictures. Two writers are credited for the screenplay with Walter Newman and Frank Pierson, although Lee Marvin would take certain liberties for his main performance. Interestingly, this was the first movie directed by Elliot Silverstein. The Boston native changed his major when studying at Boston College from biology to drama and later went to Yale. He produced and directed plays at Brandeis University. He soon directed episodes for several television shows for over a decade that ranged from The Westerner to The Twilight Zone. It was he who suggested Marvin for the film after Kirk Douglas rejected the role, which probably worked better than trying to go with José Ferrer (Silverstein also came up with casting Nat King Cole and Stubby Kaye as basically a "Greek chorus"). Silverstein directed five further feature movies (probably the most known is A Man Called Horse [1970]), but Silverstein kept directing for television into his late sixties before retiring to work on other ventures, which saw him teach film at USC; he died in 2023 at the age of 96.* The movie was filmed on a relatively quick basis between shooting in Colorado and later Hollywood that apparently took around six weeks. The movie (as released in late June 1965) was a fair hit and was apparently interesting enough to inspire two different television pilots (1970, 1971).

The movie was made as a breezy one to play with the familiar scenarios set out by other past Westerns, as one does for a story that involves trying to recruit a gunfighter to settle a score and the quirks that come with ballads and other such things. It might not the great phenomenon that one might expect six decades on, but there is something that is fun to see in the familiar aspects of looking at a frontier and having the funny bone at least be tickled with the energy of an old shoe. It doesn't wear out its welcome at 96 minutes in resourceful little charms that come out, whether that involves the parts with Cole & Kaye jumping in or a horse having its legs crossed. A good deal of the lingering "hang-ups" one could have with the movie could also be answered with "and yet...". Movie isn't consistent in its joke? And yet it was still fun. Marvin's performance isn't really much a double-act? And yet he still is fun in it for those who adore his everyman qualities. Hell of a time to find out I never had watched a movie with Jane Fonda in it. The daughter of Henry Fonda, she had an interest in the arts at a young age and made her film debut with Tall Story (as directed by her godfather Joshua Logan in 1960); apparently, she got offered the role because the manager for Ann-Margret rejected the offer for her. Evidently, she and Marvin apparently didn't think Cat Ballou was going to turn out particularly good, and yet, here we are. She may be playing the straight one in comparison to a couple of loons and killers around her, but she still does pretty well with what she has to work with, growing into the type of mold that one really would sing ballads about. Go figure that it was this particular movie, this particular Western, that saw Lee Marvin win an Academy Award (on his only nomination, no less).** He could be the villain in stuff like The Big Heat (1953), or a cop with M Squad, or have top billing with The Killers (1964), but this was the movie that apparently made him more of a star. Alcohol or no alcohol, he clearly is having a ball with the character of Shelleen, unwieldly and brimming in the same way one might talk about an old peacock that is delightful to watch. There isn't too much to really say about Lee's portrayal of Strawn besides the casual "heavy" factor that is played from time to time (complete with tin nose), but the movie isn't really about detailed heavies anyway, so it's fine by me. The support around Fonda and Marvin are fine, with Cole (in his last film appearance, as he died in February 1965) and Kaye make for a delightful chorus, carrying the film a bit in observations. The movie is here and there when it comes to things that aren't familiar for viewers of the Western, but ultimately, Cat Ballou is a treat for those who buy into what it is selling, one that has fun with its characters and surroundings for a delightful time.

Overall, I give it 8 out of 10 stars.

*Incidentally, Silverstein was a key figure for the Directors Guild of America in a number of respects, such as making a push for the Director's Cut and also getting a proper workspace for directors such as he.

**Marvin beat the following actors for the award: Richard Burton (The Spy Who Came In from the Cold), Laurence Olivier (Othello), Rod Steiger (The Pawnbroker), and Oskar Werner (Ship of Fools). The movie also had four Academy Award nominations: Newman and Pierson for their screenplay, Charles Nelson for Editing, Frank De Vol for Original Score, and Jerry Livingston & Mack David for Best Song in "The Ballad of Cat Ballou". Also: I wait for the chance to encounter that other Western offbeat movie with Marvin in Paint Your Wagon (1969).

Redux: Who Framed Roger Rabbit.

Redux #352: Who Framed Roger Rabbit.

Cast: 

Bob Hoskins (Eddie Valiant), Christopher Lloyd (Judge Doom), Charles Fleischer (Roger Rabbit, Benny the Cab, Greasy and Psycho), Stubby Kaye (Marvin Acme), Joanna Cassidy (Dolores), Kathleen Turner (Jessica Rabbit), Alan Tilvern (R.K. Maroon), Lou Hirsch (Baby Herman), David L. Lander (Smart Ass), Fred Newman (Stupid), June Foray (Wheezy and Lena Hyena), Mel Blanc (Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Porky Pig, Tweety Bird, and Sylvester), Joe Alaskey (Yosemite Sam), and Wayne Allwine (Mickey Mouse) Directed by Robert Zemeckis (#317 - The Polar Express)

Review: 

On June 22, 1988, Who Framed Roger Rabbit was released in theaters. It was a solid movie that marked a new high point in integrating animation and live action in cinema. There had been a handful of films that had animation within a primary live-action setting, such as with Song of the South (1946) and Mary Poppins (1964). But this was something quite special, from its director in Robert Zemeckis all the way down to a lead actor that had to spend several scenes having to act again thin air. A graduate of USC Film School, Zemeckis had directed four films before this one: I Wanna Hold Your Hand (1978) and Used Cars (1980), Romancing the Stone (1984), and Back to the Future (1985). The success of Stone had been preceded by two audience flops (both of which were produced by Steven Spielberg), but even before then he had an interest in directing a project that was to adapt the novel Who Censored Roger Rabbit?, originally published in 1981 by Gary K. Wolf. Shortly after publication, Walt Disney Productions (as headlined by Ron W. Miller at the time) bought the film rights to the mystery fantasy novel in an attempt to make a blockbuster production. You may remember that this is the period where Disney tried to branch to more interesting work beyond what they had done in live action, which namely involved films such as Tron (1982) to go with a small collection of animated features. Jeffrey Price and Peter S. Seaman wrote a number of drafts that eventually became a screenplay that did away with the original setting that involved comic strip characters (and a darker ending) for an alternative 1947 Hollywood with Golden Age animation characters. Disney tried to make to test footage with Darrell Van Citters as animation director (and Paul Reubens as voice for the title character). However, by 1985, Disney (who ousted Miller, champion of the project) decided to partner with Amblin Entertainment (headlined by Spielberg), which was a deal that would see a budget just under $30 million (after a projection of it being for $50 million) and complete creative control for Zemeckis and Spielberg...and the former decided to pick who he called the best animator in the world to do the film: Richard Williams. The son of an illustrator and painter, Williams was inspired by a childhood showing of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937) to become an animator, and by the time he was a student at the Ontario College of Art he already was a commercial artist. He did a variety of short films and segments after the success of The Little Island (1958), with his work on the short film A Christmas Carol (1971) garnering him his first Academy Award. He did not like the idea of moving to the States to work on the film with the Disney bureaucracy, so they shifted production to London (they also made a deal to help him finish a film he had been making on-and-off since 1964 with The Thief and the Cobbler, but that is its own can of worms); his intent of breaking the animation rules (for which one stressed to not move the camera, which Williams felt was animators just being lazy) was helped with Industrial Light and Magic, who dealt with optical composition  as explained by the supervisor for the film in Ed Jones here (if one wants to hear a perspective within animators, click here). At any rate, with a budget that ballooned to over $50 million, the film (released under the Touchstone Pictures label, which had been created by Miller) was a major success in its time, garnering four Academy Awards that dealt with editing (Arthur Schmidt), sound effects editing, visual effects (Ken Ralston, Williams, Edward Jones, and George Gibbs), and a special achievement award for Williams.

As explained by associate producer Don Hahn years later, Zemeckis had an intent to do animation with live action in a "very contemporary way", which mainly involved a camera that would move to go in a moody film noir. There would be various methods used to help with making sure the live actors (Hoskins, mostly) would interact with something that could be transferred to making it look like he is at eye level with the toons (there were also a few sequences with blue screen, which can be seen in a certain home Blu-ray release as a special feature), such as: mime artistry, puppeteering, and robotic arms. Charles Fleischer dressed up in a rabbit costume and acted as a stand-in behind camera for a wide variety of scenes. As a whole, it is a hodgepodge movie that is one part cornucopia of cartoon characters from the past such as Betty Boop or Yosemite Sam, one part film noir and also one part comedy. What a wonderful film to view through the lens of interaction, one that is consistently on edge to either play noir or comedy without breaking out one false note in its 104-minute runtime. Oh sure, the scenes and bits spent with the toon characters are a delight (because they aren't mere cameos for the sake of being there), but it is the performance of Hoskins (who had plenty of theater experience before doing film) in versatility that makes the whole magic act work as well as it does. Imagine having to act in a film where you have to do mime training to go along with having to interact with characters that aren't really there on set beyond a stand-in. As such, he excels at interaction on eye level and in his timing when it comes to both noir and as straight man when paired with Fleischer (remember, he was in a bunny suit on the side), who makes for a quality comedic presence in blustering clownishness with rapid-fire pace. Turner was actually not credited for her role in the film (nor was Amy Irving for the introductory song), which she described as one where "the whole body is the breath". It certainly is a relaxed way of doing a sultry-but-moral noir player. Lloyd is perfectly stiff as one would hope from such an imposing figure that makes the resulting climax all the more interesting within its payoff (who better to turn a place of cartoon mayhem into one of business mayhem than a judge?). The other live action players do well within the detective story reaches that mainly involve a strait-laced Cassidy or oddballs in Kaye and Tilvern. The Ink & Paint Club probably represents the best opportunity to show just how far one could go in devastating brilliance of the link in animation and live action for quality enjoyment that keeps your attention in humorous elegance. The build-up to actually reaching Toontown makes for quite a quality payoff when one gets to see a sequence of Bugs Bunny and Mickey Mouse on the same screen (with the same amount of time together, per agreement), which is particularly special because it still remains the only time the two have been in the same screen (this was the last appearance of Bugs Bunny as voiced by Blanc in a feature before his death in 1989). It isn't a movie just about seeing what character shows up, of course, because the main point of the film is to show just how much fun one can have in the art of blending animation and potboiler adventure that is neat in its manic execution. As a whole, Who Framed Roger Rabbit is a treat to watch from start to finish, one that benefits from a wonderful performance from Hoskins and the contributions of Zemeckis, Williams and company to deliver a highly watchable movie in all of the right ways that stands the test of time.

Overall, I give it 10 out of 10 stars.