Cat Ballou (DVD)

This is one of the funniest westerns I've ever seen. I still laugh after watching it many times. It's an old film (1965) but certainly worth seeing. Catherine Ballou (Cat Ballou played by Jane Fonda) is in jail when the film starts. The story tells how the ballad of Cat Ballou originated. Cat hires a gunfighter called Kid Shaleen to avenge her fathers death but unfortunately Shaleen is always under the influence of alcohol. Shaleen goes in pursuit of Strawn who has a silver nose because his own was bitten off in a fight. Lee Marvin's performance in this role is hilarious. He rolls, shakes, miss aims, squints and grins as though he ...

A wonderful yet sadly underrated film, this comedy western is one of the funniest of it’s kind. Opening with ‘Cat’ Ballou in jail awaiting execution, most of the story is told as a flashback, starting by taking us back to the days when she was just Katherine Ballou, soon to be a schoolteacher, returning home to her father, a farmer. However, early in the movie, her father is killed by the hired gunman Strawn because he won’t sell his land to a railroad company. The corrupt local officials refuse to bring take action against Strawn, so Cat hires her own gunman, Kid Shaleen, and they swear vengeance on the town and the company, aided – just ...