City Slickers
| City Slickers | |
|---|---|
 City Slickers poster | |
| Directed by | Ron Underwood |
| Written by | Lowell Ganz Babaloo Mandel |
| Produced by | Billy Crystal Irby Smith |
| Starring | Billy Crystal Bruno Kirby Daniel Stern Patricia Wettig Helen Slater and Jack Palance |
| Distributed by | Columbia Pictures |
Release date | June 7 1991 (USA) |
Running time | 112 min. |
| Language | English |
City Slickers is a 1991 comedy film directed by Ron Underwood and starring Billy Crystal, Daniel Stern, Helen Slater, and the late actors 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", "Phil", and "Ed" are three men in their 30s or 40s, each going through his own mid-life crisis. Mitch (played by Crystal) feels especially depressed about his job and family. At a party, his lifelong friends Phil and Ed show him a brochure for a two-week Southwestern cattle drive vacation that they have signed up for. Template:Spoiler Phil (Stern's character) is the manager of a grocery store owned by his father-in-law. When one of the store's checkout girls suddenly arrives at the party and reveals her affair with Stern's character, his wife threatens to divorce him. "Ed" (played by Kirby) is newly married to a woman with supermodel looks and faces the pressure of being a father.
When the three men arrive at the scene of the cattle drive, they soon 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 fascinating and wise. But soon after they return to camp, Curly dies unexpectedly. The cook breaks his leg; the trail boss' thug assistants become drunk and abandon the tour. It is up to the "city slickers" to finish the drive.
Crystal, Kirby, and Stern's characters lead the herd back successfully to the Colorado ranch. There, Crystal 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.
Selected 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
Notable minor cast members
- 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
- In the sequel: City Slickers II: The Legend of Curly's Gold it is revealed that Curly's "One Thing" is honesty.
- 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."
- This movie has a pornographic remake called "Titty Lickers".