Friday, September 29, 2006

Hero Fridays!

So I thought this might be fun. Checking the stats from my website it seems I have the highest number of hits on Fridays. (I should have done this earlier today but I got distracted--it's been a very busy, running-around kind of day.)

Anyway, I decided that to coincide with that, I should do some sort of special thing on Fridays--like a Friday Five but...well...not. (Not that I don't enjoy Friday Fives, I just thought something else would be fun too.)

So here's what I'm going to do. On Fridays I will blog about heroes. Book heroes, movie heroes, TV heroes...the heroes I love.

I'm starting this off with what I think is a rather odd choice, but I'm going to try to mix in some odd choices.

So the first ever Friday Hero is...Kid Sheleen, as played by Lee Marvin in the 60's film Cat Ballou.





For those of you who haven't seen this gem of a film, Cat Ballou stars Jane Fonda (who I don't like, but she really is great in this and it's one of the only two films with her in it my parents would allow my brother and I to watch) as a young schoolteacher who goes to visit her father in Wolf City Wyoming, only to find that her father's life is in danger--the Wolf City Mining Corp. (I think) wants his water rights and they're willing to kill him to get them.

So Cat does what any girl would do--she hires a gunslinger. Enter "Steel-Eye" Kid Sheleen...falling, drunk, off the bag of a wagon.

He's a mess. He can't pick up his guns, he has the shakes, he's not very smart. He attempts to shoot a target on the broad side of a barn and of course misses the barn.

But the thing about Kid Sheleen is, it doesn't matter, He's still awesome. Watching him give a long, very intense speech (while drinking himself back to sobriety) about the life of a gunslinger ("because nobody don't make no fun of a friend of Kid Sheleen") is hysterical. He's honorable. He's tough. He fallas in love with Cat and when he realizes she doesn't love him back he threatens to kill the guy she does love if said guy doesn't go propose right that minute. And when it comes down to it, he sobers up, gets back in shape, and kills his own brother to keep Cat safe.

Plus he helps her rob a train.

And oh yeah, he's Lee fucking Marvin, too. So I don't even have to mention "sexy". In the hands of a less talented actor Kid might have been pathetic, cheap comic relief--a caricature. Lee Marvin, though, makes him fully realized. He's a rogue, he's a tough guy, he's vulnerable, he's noble and crude, all at the same time. He may not be a typical hero...but he's one of the first movie men I ever fell in love with as a little girl, and I think you all should go see the movie if you haven't seen it already.

(I'm also going to try to talk about favorite books on Mondays. So start thinking.)

5 comments:

Sam said...

Happy Friday!
Is this the film where the horse gets drunk? I think I saw it ages ago and loved it!

Stacia said...

That's exactly the movie, Sam! When Lee Marvin won an Oscar for it, he said in his speech that half of the award belonged to a horse out in Wyoming.

Jenn, a Friday Five is a list of five questions--it's basically a meme and there's a different set every Friday. Google it, I think there's a website.
Why the "ummm...okay..?" Did I do something wrong?

Robyn said...

OMG I luuuurve Lee! Did you ever see "Paint Your Wagon" with him and Clint Eastwood? I liked his war movies too. "Dirty Dozen" comes to mind.

Robyn said...

...that hubby made me watch while he ate beans from a pot a wooden spoon.

Okay, Jenn, I sooooo totally had a flashback to the bean eating scene in Mel Brooks' Blazing Saddles. *g*

Anonymous said...

Way to go December! Lee Marvin is right up there with John Wayne and Clint Eastwood. And, Robyn nailed it with Paint Your Wagon and The Dirty Dozen -great classics. Lee Marvin was a man among boys in real life as well as on the screen. It's kind of funny, I think he was kind of a mix between a beatnik and a tough guy in real life. I think it would have been a blast to spend just one night out on the town with him (and, from what I've learned, about all a mere mortal could handle). -JTC