City Slickers
City Slickers poster
Directed by	Ron Underwood
Produced by	Billy Crystal Irby Smith
Written by	Lowell Ganz Babaloo Mandel
Starring	Billy Crystal Bruno Kirby Daniel Stern Patricia Wettig Helen Slater and Jack Palance
Music by	Marc Shaiman
Cinematography	Dean Semler
Editing by	O. Nicholas Brown
Distributed by	Columbia Pictures Metro Goldwyn Mayer
Release date(s)	June 7 1991 (USA)
Running time	112 min.
Language	English
IMDb profile

City Slickers is a 1991 comedy film directed by Ron Underwood and starring Billy Crystal, Daniel Stern, Helen Slater, Jack Palance and Bruno Kirby. Palance won the year's Oscar for Best Supporting Actor for this film.

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 overview

Mitch Robbins, Phil Berquist, and Ed Furillo are three men in their late 30s or early 40s, each going through their own mid-life crisis. Mitch is unmotivated at work and depressed about getting older. Phil is browbeaten both by his wife and his father-in-law, who owns the grocery store Phil manages. Ed is newly married to a woman with supermodel looks and faces the pressure of being a father.

At Mitch's birthday party, Phil and Ed show him a brochure for a two-week Southwestern cattle drive vacation that they have signed up for. Although Phil frets of getting permission for time off, this is soon a moot issue since his infidelity to his wife with a coworker is revealed when her pregnancy test reveals blue.

When the three men arrive at Stone Canyon Ranch, they meet their gruff, intimidating trail boss, Curly (played by Palance). Curly and Mitch eventually bond when they go off to round up strays after the herd scatters with a stampede Mitch had inadvertently sparked. Mitch even assists in giving birth to a calf he names Norman. Mitch eventually comes to respect Curly, whom he finds to be deeply wise, but soon after they return to camp, Curly dies unexpectedly. The cook breaks his leg and the trail boss' assistants, whom the men have already run afoul of, become drunk and abandon the tour. It is up to the "city slickers" to finish the drive.

The three lead the herd back successfully to the Colorado ranch. There, Mitch shares the last thing Curly taught him. It was a profound existentialist lesson (like Kierkegaard's idea that I could live and die for): what really matters in life is for each of us to find our passion, our "one thing". The trio's triumphant return is spoiled when the ranch owner announces he is going to sell the herd for a handsome profit for slaughter. Mitch and his friends protest, but the owner is unmoved. While Mitch's friends come to accept this decision since they believe that cattle wouldn't care, Mitch feels he has betrayed the animals' trust, especially when Norman comes to nuzzle him.

In the end, Mitch finds his "one thing" as he nearly drowns in a rain-swollen river. He is saved, returns to his family, and embarks on a more meaningful, purposeful life. In addition, Mitch spares Norman from slaughter by purchasing him and bringing the calf home long enough to be placed in a petting zoo.

Cast

• Billy Crystal as Mitch Robbins
• Daniel Stern as Phil Berquist
• Bruno Kirby as Ed Furillo
• Jack Palance as Curly Washburn
• Patricia Wettig as Barbara Robbins
• Helen Slater as Bonnie Rayburn
• Noble Willingham as Clay Stone
• Tracey Walter as Cookie
• Josh Mostel as Barry Shalowitz
• David Paymer as Ira Shalowitz
• Bill Henderson as Dr. Ben Jessup
• Jeffrey Tambor as Lou
• Phill Lewis as Dr. Steven Jessup
• Kyle Secor as Jeff
• Robert Costanzo as Sal, the rude father in Danny's class show-and-tell
• Danielle Harris as classroom student
• Howard Honig as skycap
• Jayne Meadows as the voice of Mitch's mother

• Jake Gyllenhaal made his film debut at age eleven as Danny Robbins, Mitch's son.
• Billy's Crystal's daughter Lindsay Crystal plays his character's daughter, Holly Robbins.
• Yeardley Smith plays the checkout girl who reveals that she and Phil have been having an affair.

Trivia

Trivia sections are discouraged under Wikipedia guidelines. The article could be improved by integrating relevant items and removing inappropriate ones.

• When the characters talk about their "best" days, Billy Crystal tells a real-life story about seeing his first baseball game at Yankee Stadium.
• The title of the movie in its French release, "La Vie, L'Amour, Les Vaches," translates as "Life, Love, Cows."
• The movie was filmed on Ghost Ranch in Abiquiu, New Mexico
• Bruno Kirby was deathly allergic to horses, and needed daily allergy shots on the set of City Slickers.

External links

• City Slickers at the Internet Movie Database

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