City Slickers is a 1991 comedy film directed by Ron Underwood and starring Billy Crystal, Daniel Stern, Helen Slater, Jack Palance and Bruno Kirby.
Three years later, the sequel City Slickers II: The Legend of Curly's Gold was released, with Jon Lovitz taking the place of Kirby. It was not received as well as the original.
This film is number 73 on Bravo's "100 Funniest Movies" and number 86 on AFI's 100 Years... 100 Laughs.
Plot
Mitch (Billy Crystal) has just turned 39 years old, and is thick in the middle of a midlife crisis. His best friends are also having midlife crises of their own. Phil (Daniel Stern) is stuck managing his father-in-law's grocery store, while trapped in a sexless marriage with an overbearing wife (who leaves him after it is revealed Phil is having an affiar). Ed (Bruno Kirby) is a successful businessman and playboy, struggling with the idea of monogamous marriage and the pressure to have kids.
At Mitch's birthday party, Phil and Ed present their joint gift: a two-week Southwestern cattle drive for all three men. After his wife insists he go, Mitch accepts the gift and travels to New Mexico, where the three men meet the several other participants of the cattle drive. The men slowly "learn the ropes" of moving a herd and even have a tense encounter with the two professional cowboys (T.R. and Jeff) who work the drive while being drunk. The encounter is stopped with the arrival of Curly (Jack Palance), the wisened, tough-as-nails trail boss, who chastises the cowboys for being intoxicated on the job and warns them strongly not to let it happen again.
Curly, the cowboys, and all the participants begin the long drive to Colorado. Mitch and Curly immediately dislike one another, and while Mitch fairly gets along with the majority of the others, opinions get worse when he inadvertently causes a destructive stampede. Afterwards, Curly and Mitch ride alone in the canyons to find some stray cows, and after being forced to spend the night alone, the two finally bond with one another. The next morning, Curly and Mitch are forced to deliver a calf in the wilderness. After the mother cow dies (Curly delivered the Coup de Grace by shooting the mother cow in the head to stop her dying painfully), Mitch adopts the calf and names it "Norman." The two then rejoin the main drive.
The drive runs into trouble shortly afterwards, when Curly dies unexpectedly. Cookie the cook gets drunk and breaks both his legs, requiring him to be taken to a hospital by two participants. T.R. and Jeff discover Cookie's booze stash and, with Curly not around, quickly become very drunk, leading to another dangerous encounter with Mitch, Phil and Ed. The cowboys are disarmed by Phil after he snaps under a near-lifetime stress. Though Phil urges the cowboys to "sleep it off," they abandon the group in the wilderness, leaving them with no trail boss or map. The remaining individuals decide to abandon the herd and seek civilization. Phil and Ed, driven by determination to succeed, persist in driving the herd to Colorado, despite the pleas of Mitch to reconsider. The next day, the others ride on, but later Mitch returns unexpectedly (wearing Curly's notable black hat) to join his fellow "city slickers" in completing the drive.
The final test of the drive means crossing a dangerous river. The men drive the herd across the river during a storm, but Norman starts to drown. Mitch rescues him with a lasso (something he did not master previously in the story) but gets caught in the rapids. Phil and Ed race down the bank and save Mitch and Norman. The men smile on the river bank, all having overcome their crises. The three lead the herd back successfully to the Colorado ranch, where they learn, to their slight dismay, that the ranch owner, Clay Stone, intends to sell the cows to a meat company for a huge profit. Mitch returns to his family in New York a happy man, promising to live a more meaningful life. In addition, Mitch spares Norman from slaughter by purchasing him and bringing the calf home as a pet.
Cast
Reception
The film received mostly positive review with a "Fresh" score of 88% on Rotten Tomatoes.[4] Jack Palance, for his role as Curly, took home the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, the only Oscar nomination the film received. His acceptance speech for the award is best remembered for his demonstration of one-armed pushups (when he told of how film insurance agents were constantly making him prove he was healthy enough to work on the film.)
Awards and honors
American Film Institute recognition
In popular culture
References
External links
