Cat Ballou - Trivia, Questions and Fun Facts

[discussimdb]

Fan of Cat Ballou or just want to share your movie knowledge? This topic is dedicated to all trivia and questions related to Cat Ballou

[cameron]

According to Jane Fonda, production moved at a brisk pace - "It seemed we'd never do two takes unless the camera broke down. The producers had us working overtime day after day, until one morning Lee Marvin took me aside. 'Jane,' he said, 'we are the stars of this movie. If we let the producers walk all over us, if we don't stand up for ourselves, you know who suffers most? The crew. The guys who don't have the power we do to say, 'Sh*t, no, we're workin' too hard.' You have to get some backbone, girl. Learn to say no when they ask you to keep working.'"

[violet]

Lee Marvin essentially reprised his Kid Shelleen character four years later for his portrayal of Ben Rumson in Paint Your Wagon (1969). Ironically, where critics had lauded the scenery chewing of his earlier performance, they crucified his work on the same grounds in the later film. Of course, in this film Marvin doesn't attempt to sing.

[brent]

While Lee Marvin's drunken antics kept most of the cast and crew laughing, it didn't make a fan out of Jane Fonda, who had the job of playing her character straight while the others got to ham it up, and took her role very seriously. Too seriously for Marvin, who according to Dwayne Hickman, was always trying to joke with her and make her lighten up. Hickman recalls that Fonda was "less than enthusiastic about the movie. She wanted to do more serious work and playing straight man to a bunch of crazy characters wasn't her idea of great filmmaking." Marvin's efforts to loosen her up were met with annoyance from Fonda. It didn't help their relationship either that Marvin insulted her French husband Roger Vadim while he was visiting the location set in Colorado. "When he was drunk," said Vadim in his 1986 memoir Bardot, Deneuve, Fonda, "he would tell me that he hated the French. 'But,' he would add, 'I like you because you're half Russian, even though I hate Russians also.'"

[terry]

Lee Marvin doesn't make his entrance as Kid Shelleen until thirty-six minutes into the film. As Cat Ballou (1965) runs only 97 minutes, and Marvin does not appear in every scene, the actor had roughly a half-hour's worth of footage to establish two characters, making his performance one of the Oscar-winning roles in the Best Actor category with the shortest amount of screen time. The only actor to achieve a Best Actor win with less screen time was Lionel Barrymore in A Free Soul (1931).

[linda]

Is the favorite film of actor Bryan Cranston, who has said he took comfort from the film as a child following his parents' divorce.

[liam]

Even though everyone knew that they were making at least a good film, no one had any idea that they were making a classic. Jane Fonda recalled - "I have to admit, it wasn't until I saw the final cut of Cat Ballou that I realized we had a hit on our hands. I hadn't been around when they filmed Lee's horse, leaning cross-legged up against the barn in what's become a classic image, or when Lee tries to shoot the side of the barn."

[cameron]

The cast and crew had to work fast for the location shots since they needed to beat the inevitable Colorado winter weather and finish up before the first snowfall.

[liam]

As she was sharing time between France and Hollywood at the time, Jane Fonda dubbed herself in the French-speaking version.

[miriam]

The "shouters" are identified as "Professor Sam the Shade and the Sunrise Kid" in their song, but Stubby Kaye was supposed to be the Sunrise Kid and Nat King Cole was to be Professor Sam the Shade. As they sang the song, however they indicated by their body language that Kaye was the Shade and Cole was Sunrise. The tight shooting schedule, or perhaps the director's recognition of the comedic irony of the switch resulted in it being left In the final edit.

[elmer]

Aside from the grueling pace, the cast had a wonderful time making the film. Lee Marvin in particular seemed to relish his dual role as Kid Shelleen and Tim Strawn. "Lee was playing this whole thing with a kind of bravado that caused his colleagues on the crew to break up laughing on every take," said director Elliot Silverstein in a 2000 interview. There were times during the shoot, however, when Silverstein was uncertain about the direction that Marvin was taking the character of Kid Shelleen. It was clear that regardless of how Silverstein wanted a scene played, Marvin had his own ideas. Often he would just nod his head at Silverstein's directions and play the scene in the way he saw fit. When producer Harold Hecht noticed how Marvin's comedic performance kept the cast and crew in stitches, he convinced Silverstein that Marvin's instincts were right.

[sophie]

At his acceptance of the Oscar, Lee Marvin opened by saying, "Half of this probably belongs to a horse out in the Valley somewhere".

[ava]

Lee Marvin earned just $30,000 for his work here. Following his Oscar win, he was earning up to $1,000,000 for Paint Your Wagon (1969) and Monte Walsh (1970).

[stephanie]

Frankie Ballou claimed that he heard a lecture by an ex-Congressman who claimed that the Sioux were one of the lost tribes of Israel. In the 18th and 19th century, suitable for the time period of the film, there were scholars who entertained that notion. In 1831 a Bible professor named Epaphras Jones noted similarities in European Jews and "Aborigines in America".

[ethel]

Lee Marvin did not click with Jane Fonda on the set. He said she was too pretentious.

[violet]

Lee Marvin unexpectedly catapulted to stardom in 1965 through two polar-opposite performances in Cat Ballou (1965) and Ship of Fools (1965), and the momentum of his shift from supporting actor to bona fide movie star led to what many consider an undeserving Oscar for a glorified supporting role in Cat Ballou (1965).

[tammy]

Lee Marvin and his horse leaning against the building is a direct sendup of the Frederick Remington sculpture "The End of the Trail."

[jessie]

Cat Ballou is a character in the card game "Bang! Gold Rush" (2011) along with several other famous old western names.

[brent]

Conceived as a lightweight, commercial western spoof, the film unexpectedly went on to garner five Academy Award nominations, for Best Actor, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Film Editing, Best Score and Best Song.

[javier]

Lee Marvin previously wore the same hat (or an identical one) in The Twilight Zone (1959) episode, "The Grave" in 1961.