Horse feathers
Sir: The record must be set straight about Elliot Silverstein's Cat Ballou with which his latest film A Man Called Horse has been compared by nearly all the critics—including Miss Penelope Houston (15 August).
According to a leading authority on the Western film domiciled in Hollywood— William K. Everson—Cat Ballou was not meant to be a parody. In his Pictorial His- tory of the Western Film Mr Everson reveals that this 'Jane Fonda vehicle . . . was such a misfire that it was considered a disaster until someone had the bright idea of a "camp" approach and a selling campaign based on the idea of its being a "put on" of all Westerns, an idea that—despite the film's
occasional good sight gags—had not been the intention when it was made'. It is forgotten that Jane Fonda was the star, as the film was dominated by an outrageously flamboyant Lee Marvin who obviously spotted the flaws in the script etc, immediately the film went into production.
A Man Called Horse has an equally inept script but it could not be turned into a comedy in the same way as Cat Ballow, as the initial idea is basically interesting. But the cast and the director are not up to it, and thus the occasional parody. The old Holly- wood producers would have known that involving an Irishman as an English aristo- crat in an initiation ceremony so obviously faked would have been courting disaster but the new guard obviously cannot dream of anyone not taking their work seriously if it is announced as being serious often enough.
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