Cat Fever

I probably saw Cat Ballou (1965) once or twice as a kid, but it was Ms. Spenser who clued me into how awesome it was - because of the Greek chorus of Stubby Kaye and Nat "King" Cole.

It starts with these two banjo players waiting for Cat Ballou (Jane Fonda) to be hanged, and telling her story in ballad style. Her story starts when she gets out of school, trained as a teacher. She got on a train to go see her dad in Wyoming, when she meets a convict (Michael Callan) being taken to prison and a drunk preacher. The preacher turns out to be the uncle of Callan, (Dwayne Hickman) and he helps him get free of his guard. Callan takes refuge in Fonda's sleeper bunk. She is too kind to scream, but he does take liberties - oh, well, he's soon out the window and gone from her life forever.

Fonda gets home and finds her father (John Marley) as cantankerous as ever. But his ranch is threatened by the developers of Wolf City. His only ally is an Indian, Tom Nardini, who he considers Jewish, as the Indians were the lost tribe of Israel. Soon the outlaws show up and are enlisted to resist the developers - until a gunslinger with a silver nose (Lee Marvin) shows up. Now, they're ready to face the law.

But Nardini suggests that they hire a gunslinger of their own. Based on the Western dime novels they read, they hire Kid Shaleen (also Lee Marvin). He shows up a drunken bum, barely able to hold his gun. But a big gulp of booze sets him right, and he's a dead shot. It lasts about 10 minutes before he's too drunk to function, as Callan says, "I've never seen a man get through a day so fast."

Sadly, he is sleeping it off when Fonda's dad is shot from afar. So Fonda does the only sensible. She takes her "gang" and starts robbing trains. 

This is a fun little comedy Western. Fonda is spunky and a little sexy - all the men are clearly in love with her, although only Callan courts her openly. In fact, Nardini quietly leaves, gently letting her know that as an Indian, he needs to stay away from her. It's also just a little darker than expected, with a few deaths taken seriously. I wonder if Fonda gets the drop in the last scene?