The
"man" in the title was
played by Burt Reynolds,
who is probably best
remembered for quips,
but plays it completely
straight here in an
uncharacteristic role as
a laconic cowboy. It
seems that this cowboy,
Jay Grobart by name,
will do anything to
reclaim his
half-Shoshone children
who were cared for by
their mother's tribe
while Jay was in prison
for murdering the man
who raped and killed his
wife, the titular Cat
Dancing.
As the story begins, Jay
has turned into a train
robber who needs a
suitable amount of money
to repay the Shoshone
man who has been caring
for the two parentless
children. As he and his
gang make their escape
from a highly lucrative
heist ($100,000 -
roughly equivalent to $2
million 2014 dollars.
What a train!), they
stumble upon a cultured,
somewhat prissy
housewife (Sarah Miles)
who is running away from
her wealthy but cruel
husband, who has a
helluva salon tan, since
the actor playing him is
George Hamilton.
Sarah Miles alone was
sufficient to make any
film shoot interesting,
as much for her antics
off-screen as on. You
probably know about her
extracurricular
hanky-panky with Kris
Kristofferson while
filming a movie called
The Sailor Who Fell From
Grace With The Sea in
1976. They enjoyed their
sex scenes in that movie
so much that they staged
some additional ones for
a Playboy pictorial.
Kristofferson's wife,
Rita Coolidge, was not
impressed by their
devotion to the craft
and ended their marriage
soon after, a
development which Kris
professed to regret
deeply. Sarah engaged in
similar shenanigans on
the set of Cat Dancing.
During the shoot, her
personal assistant and
secret lover, David
Whiting, was found dead
in his hotel room under
mysterious
circumstances. The
resulting investigation
and the attendant
publicity served to
expose the affair
between the actress and
her assistant, which
ultimately broke the
back of her marriage to
Robert Bolt, a highly
respected playwright (A
Man for All Seasons) and
screenwriter (Lawrence
of Arabia).
As far as the movie
itself goes, I guess
you've probably already
figured out that outlaw
Jay and the housewife
will fall in love, after
she does an appropriate
amount of acting stuffy,
then loosening up. The
dramatic tension in the
film is not a result of
the love story between
the mismatched couple,
but the danger inherent
in their trek, as they
flee from the site of
the robbery to the
Shoshone encampment
while being pursued
and/or threatened by
renegade Indians, the
woman's husband, a tough
Wells Fargo enforcer
(Lee J. Cobb), the
hostile desert, and
dissension within the
outlaw band. Since this
is a 1970's film, it is
also mandatory that the
housewife get slapped
around by her husband,
and raped or nearly
raped several times by
various outlaws and
Indians. That was
probably not an
inaccurate
representation of the
West after the Civil
War. Let's face it, the
"Wild West" sucked for
women.
As is typical in many
1970s films, the
screenplay spends a
great deal of time on
character development at
the expense of pacing
and plot. That element
of 1970s zeitgeist is
perhaps exacerbated
still further by the
fact that the screenplay
was adapted by a woman
from a novel written by
another woman, which
lends a certain feminist
attitude, although
scenarist Eleanor Perry
claimed that her work
was heavily rewritten.
Perhaps that is so,
because she wrote some
other films which were
widely praised, like
David and Lisa and Diary
of a Mad Housewife,
while The man Who Loved
Cat Dancing was greeted
unenthusiastically by
critics and was so
generally forgotten that
it didn't make it onto
DVD until 2009, and even
then merely onto one of
those no-frills Warner
catalog issues. To be
fair, the plot is not
all bad. While the
outcome of the love
story and the chase are
quite predictable, there
is a very surprising
plot twist when ol' Jay
arrives at the Shoshone
camp and meets his
children, an encounter
which allows the script
to demonstrate some
wisdom and depth which
lift the film above the
level of its other
cliches.
The film score is also a
plus, or a least an
interesting historical
footnote. It's an early
effort from future
superstar composer John
Williams, who was
nominated for something
like 35 Oscars and wrote
just about every
familiar mainstream
score from every
blockbuster you can
name: Jaws, Star Wars,
E.T., Raiders, Superman,
etc. (In fact, he's
still churning out
scores as I write this
in 2014.) While the
music from Cat Dancing
is not one of his more
memorable efforts, one
of his melodies from
this film, with the
addition of some lyrics
by Paul Williams, became
a beautiful and
semi-famous Sinatra song
called "
Dream
Away," from the
"Ol' Blue Eyes is Back"
album.
There's also plenty of
1970's nostalgia to be
had in this film. You'll
not only get a dose of
70s sensibility, but
you'll see all your old
friends in the process.
In addition to those
already mentioned, the
cast includes Bo
Hopkins, Jack Warden,
Jay "Tonto" Silverheels,
Robert "Exidor" Donner
and James Hampton (who
must have been a good
buddy of Burt Reynolds,
because they never
seemed to get too far
apart).
WARNING,
SPOILERS BELOW:
Two major plot problems:
(1) It turns out that
Jay did not exactly kill
the man who raped his
wife. He killed him
because he thought the
guy was his wife's
lover. He also killed
his wife in front of his
children, because he
thought incorrectly that
she was a voluntary
participant in the
sexual encounter,
despite the fact that
his son was tearfully
trying to tell him the
truth.
I don't mention this
because I have any
objection to that dark
and downbeat plot twist.
In fact, as I implied in
the main body of my
review above, it thought
it was a great relief
from the predictability
of the remainder of the
script.
BUT
It created a serious
plot hole. The housewife
fell in love with Jay
because he she thought
he was actually such a
noble man in his
dealings with his wife
and children. When she
found out that he had
been lying to her, and
that he killed his wife
in front of his kids in
a fit of rage which made
him incapable of
listening to his son's
pleas, her reason for
loving him should have
departed, or at least
should have moved
immediately to shaky
ground. The script does
not deal with this. The
same night she hears
this revelation, she's
making love to him with
the same goo-goo eyes,
as if nothing had
changed, leaving nothing
but Stockholm Syndrome
to explain her
infatuation. I don't buy
it.
(2) The tracker
eventually lets Jay the
train robber go free
because Jay had turned
in the saddle-bags full
of money, and the
tracker concluded "it's
all here." The
scriptwriter seems to
have completely
forgotten that a band of
drunken renegade Indians
burned a lot of the
paper money in a fire,
and that one of the
outlaws ran off with a
portion of the money.
Therefore, the money
could not have all been
there, and therefore,
the Wells Fargo agent
should have brought Jay
to justice.
So, in typical Hollywood
fashion, Burt Reynolds
ended up with both the
girl and his freedom,
but neither of those
developments made any
sense in context, a fact
which perhaps serves to
explain why this film is
nearly forgotten.
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