Schoolteacher Catherine “Cat” Ballou (Fonda) returns home to Wolf City, Wyoming, bringing with her a pair of outlaws, Clay Boone (Michael Callan), and Clay’s Uncle Jed (Dwayne Hickman), both of whom she “met” on a train.
But all is not well on the Ballou homestead. The Wolf City Development Association is trying to steal the family ranch out from under Cat’s dad, Frankie (John Marley), and sent notorious outlaw Tim Strawn (Marvin) – who has a tin nose where his real one used to be – to run them off.
Anxious to save her family’s ranch, and not sure she can rely on Clay, Jed, or native American ranch-hand Jackson (Tom Nardini) for help, Cat writes to legendary gunslinger Kid Shelleen (Marvin, again), begging for his assistance.
Unfortunately, when Shelleen arrives, he is drunk and barely able to stand!
A tragedy occurs, at which point Cat and her compatriots, including the always-drunk Shelleen, ride into the hills, with an angry Cat anxious to have her revenge on all of Wolf City.
But does she and the others have what it takes to defeat an entire town?
Cat Ballou is a wild, crazy western comedy, with over-the-top characters, lots of action, and a toe-tapping soundtrack delivered by Nat King Cole and Stubby Kaye, both of whom perform on-screen throughout the movie. Their best number is the title song, “The Ballad of Cat Ballou”, which was also nominated for an Academy Award. Honestly, though, there isn’t a bad tune in the bunch!
Fonda is likable as the overzealous Cat, willing to take on all of Wolf City by herself, while Marvin shines as both the inebriated Shelleen and the frightening Strawn.
Marley, Callan, Hockman, and Nardini are also solid in support, as is Reginald Denny as Sir Harry Percival (whose money is funding Wolf City’s rejuvenation) and Jay C. Flippen as the shifty Sheriff Cardigan, who is more interested in bringing money into Wolf City than he is law and order. There are also a handful of exciting scenes, including a daring train robbery conceived by Cat and inspired by a tale from one of the many books recounting Kid Shelleen’s exploits. I also loved the scene where Kid finally “sobers up” and pays a visit to his old “pal” Strawn.
But while the story and characters do their part to make Cat Ballou a rollicking good time, it’s Nat King Cole’s and Stubby Kaye’s musical interludes that steal the show!
Rating: 8 out of 10
Directed By: Colin Higgins
Starring: Jane Fonda, Lily Tomlin, Dolly Parton
Tag line: "The power behind the throne"
Trivia: Plans for a sequel were considered throughout the 1980s, but no storyline was ever settled upon
My parents took my brother and I along to see the 1980 comedy Nine to Five during its theatrical run, and as I remember it, the theater was fairly packed. It was a good crowd too, because everyone was laughing at the right moments, and when it was over, the entire audience cheered.
Turns out that was the reaction most of the country had to this film: Nine to Five was a box-office hit, and, adjusted for inflation, ranked in 2005 as the 20th highest grossing U.S. Comedy of All Time, beating out movies like Austin Powers in Goldmember, Stripes, and Trading Places.
Recent divorcee Judy Bernly (Jane Fonda) is heading to work for the first time in her life. She's landed a job as a secretary at Consolidated Companies, Inc., and on her first day, Judy is shown the ropes by Violet Newstead (Lily Tomlin), a longtime employee who, along with going over what her duties will be, fills Judy in on all the office gossip, including the rumor that their boss, Franklin Hart (Dabney Coleman), aka the “Sexist Egotistical Lying Hypocritical Bigot”, is sleeping with his secretary, Doralee Rhodes (Dolly Parton, in her big-screen debut).
It doesn’t take long for Judy to understand how things work at Consolidated. For one, co-worker Maria (Roxanna Bonilla-Giannini), who desperately needs the job, is abruptly fired for a minor infraction. What’s more, the very talented Violet is once again passed over for a promotion, which is given instead to a male co-worker that Violet herself trained!
To top it off, Doralee hears about the rumors that she’s been banging the boss (which are untrue), and is further annoyed when she learns Hart himself is the one who has been spreading them!
Pushed to their breaking point, Violet, Judy, and Doralee get drunk together one evening, and share fantasies of how they would go about killing Mr. Hart if they got the chance. But the next day, when Violet accidentally pours poison into Mr. Hart’s coffee, it kicks off a series of events that might just land the three pissed-off secretaries in jail… for life!
By the time they made Nine to Five, both Jane Fonda (a two-time Oscar winner, for her work in 1972’s Klute and ‘79’s Coming Home) and Lily Tomlin (nominated for her role in Robert Altman’s 1975 ode to country music, Nashville) were established stars, and each delivers a fine performance. Fonda perfectly captures the naiveté of a woman who has never held a job before, reacting strongly to injustices that, over time, the other women have learned to take in stride. Tomlin’s oft-overlooked Violet, who is clearly the most experienced worker in the secretarial pool, has reached the point where she realizes that, no matter how hard she works, she will never advance as long as Mr. Hart is her boss.
The film's true revelation, however, is the wonderful performance of Dolly Parton, who, despite having never appeared in a motion picture, holds her own with her two experienced co-stars. Each actress is given a chance to shine (the scene where Doralee confronts Mr. Hart, telling him she carries a gun in her purse, and that if he continues to spread rumors about her she’ll turn him “from a rooster to a hen with one shot”, got one of the biggest laughs from the crowd I saw it with in 1980). But the sequence where the three are together, fantasizing about killing Hart, is arguably the film’s best, with each fantasy presented as if it were a scene from a movie (Violet’s dream of poisoning Hart looks as if it was lifted from a Disney picture, complete with woodland creatures helping her pour the toxic chemical into the coffee cup).
Dabney Coleman, who in the early ‘80s was the quintessential screen villain, is particularly loathsome as the conniving Mr. Hart, and Sterling Hayden has a memorable cameo as Consolidated’s Chairman of the Board, Russell Tinsworthy. That said, from start to finish, Nine to Five belongs to the ladies.
As well it should.
