Cat Ballou

A 1965 American western comedy film starring Jane Fonda and Lee Marvin, who won an Academy Award for Best Actor. 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 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 as a kind of musical Greek chorus and framing device. The film references many classic Western films, notably Shane and was selected by the American Film Institute as the 10th greatest Western of all time.