Movies: “Cat Ballou”

May 7, 1965 - Opening today is “Cat Ballou,” a Western comedy film starring Jane Fonda and Lee Marvin. 

The story involves a woman who hires a notorious gunman to protect her father’s ranch and later to avenge his murder, only to find that the gunman is not what she expected. 

The supporting cast features Tom Nardini, Michael Callan, Dwayne Hickman, and Nat King Cole and Stubby Kaye, who together perform the film’s theme song and who appear throughout the film in the form of travelling minstrels or troubadours as a kind of musical Greek chorus.

The film was directed by Elliot Silverstein from a screenplay by Walter Newman and Frank Pierson adapted from the 1956 novel, “The Ballad of Cat Ballou” by Roy Chanslor, who also wrote the novel filmed as “Johnny Guitar.”

Chanslor’s novel is a serious Western, and though it was turned into a comedy for the film, the filmmakers retained some darker elements. “Cat Ballou” references many classic Western films, notably “Shane.”

Nat King Cole was ill with lung cancer during the filming of “Cat Ballou.” A chain smoker, Cole died two months ago.

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