Chicks Dig Jerks

The other night, I fell asleep to Freaks on TCM. After 3am, it's pretty hard to find anything decent on the tube, so I was lucky to doze off to the chants of the loveable circus folk. "Gooble gobble, gooble gobble, one of us, one of us!" Zzzzzzz....

When I woke up the next morning, TCM was still on. While I love classic movies, it's not exactly my "go to" channel when I turn on the TV. A movie was just beginning, though, and I was intrigued. Two men in Old West attire, a short white guy and a thin black guy, played banjos and sang a song about a woman named Cat Ballou who was such a rotten outlaw and would soon be hanged. The black chanteur sounded so familiar to me: later I realized it was none other than Nat King Cole. The song itself would be reprised several times throughout the film, and it is now branded on my brain.

The movie was Cat Ballou (1965) and starred Jane Fonda as a prim and proper schoolteacher who meets and abets an escaped convict on a train. When her father is killed by an infamous gunman, Cat Ballou is filled with rage and joins forces robbing trains and stirrin' up dust with said convict. It's pretty funny, very dated, and Ms. Fonda shows some fine acting chops.

My problem with the movie is the problem I have with a lot of movies, both modern and classic: The chic picks the wrong dude! The whole time this jagoff is trying to get her into bed, there's a really nice Indian guy in the periphery of the main action. His name is Jackson, and he was a loyal hired hand to Cat's late father. He is tried and true, and cute. He even professes his interest in her in a very gentlemanly way, but Cat laughs him off. I guess lines like "C'mon Cat, you don't have to be in love to go to bed with a guy!" are more romantic.

Remember the Duckie phenomenon? Teenagers of the eighties were swooning over Blaine when Pretty in Pink came out, but there was a silent minority of girls like me who were wishing that Sam had chosen the Duck-man. Sigh. Is there anything better than a stand-up guy? Jackson was the Duckie of his day, and I wonder how many other women out there agree with me.

I'd rather be with a sweet Cherokee than a no-good jailbird who just wants to add another notch to his belt. I'd even rather be with that midget in Freaks. Gooble gobble.