I believe I was in college when my mom asked me if I’d ever seen Cat Ballou. I hadn’t, and when she first described it to me, I wasn’t sure I’d like it. At the time, I didn’t care for Westerns, and the fact that it starred Jane Fonda didn’t move me. My mom insisted that I watch it anyway. It’s been among my favorite movies ever since.
If you haven’t seen or heard of this movie yet, then you won’t know that Cat Ballou is a must-see largely because of Lee Marvin’s Oscar-winning performance. He plays more than one character in the film, but it’s his time on screen as Kid Shelleen that makes this movie a work of comic genius.
When I say that Marvin carries the movie, I don’t mean to disparage the rest of the film. There’s plenty more to enjoy. The music is infectious, particularly the songs performed by Stubby Kaye and Nat King Cole. I’ve found myself alone in the car singing “The Ballad of Cat Ballou”: “Cat Ballou! Cat Balloo-oo-ou! She’s mean and evil through and through!” Cole was suffering from his lung cancer while the movie was shot, but his voice was still silky smooth.
The script is fast-paced and entertaining, and the principle actors do it justice. I don’t know what filming was like for them, but it’s hard to imagine that they weren’t having fun. The dialogue is filled with exchanges like Cat’s argument with her “gang” as she tries to persuade them to rob a train. When Clay Boone tells her, “We’re rustlers, not train robbers,” she retorts, “Well, if people didn’t try something new, there wouldn’t be hardly any progress at all!”
But no matter how much I enjoy the film as a whole, Marvin’s performance outshines everything else. Without it, this might have been merely a good movie. With it, Cat Ballou is among the greats.