The Man Who Loved Cat Dancing ** (1973, Burt Reynolds, Sarah Miles, Lee J Cobb, Jack Warden, George Hamilton, Bo Hopkins) – Classic Movie Review 7569

Alas director Richard C Sarafian’s 1973 Western The Man Who Loved Cat Dancing offers no cat dancing, thus disappointing cat lovers everywhere.

Instead, the title refers to Burt Reynolds’s character Jay Grobart’s squaw wife, one of the causes of friction in this strangely half-baked Western in which everyone seems either searching for, or escaping from, somebody else.

Sarah Miles’s character Catherine Crocker, for example, is running from her husband Willard Crocker (George Hamilton) and takes up riding with outlaws. They are Jay Grobart, who leads Dawes (Jack Warden), Billy Bowen (Bo Hopkins) and the Indian Charlie Bent (Jay Varela) in robbing a train of $100,000. Escaping, they take along Catherine Crocker.

Eleanor Perry’s unfocused screenplay (based on Marilyn Durham’s novel) and Sarafian’s meandering direction never tie their wanderings together, though the wide-open spaces look stunning, thanks to Harry Stradling Jr’s photography, and screen partners Reynolds and Miles earn points for oddness. Lee J Cobb is an asset as the pursuing detective, and the good cast also includes Jack Warden, Bo Hopkins, Robert Donner and Jay Silverheels.

Also in the cast are Sandy Kevin, Nancy Malone, Owen Bush, Larry Littlebird, Larry Finley and Sutero Garcia Jr.

Sarafian made the equally peculiar but much more successful Vanishing Point.

Clint Eastwood attended the premiere, but he and Reynolds did not work together till the ill-fated 1984 City Heat.

© Derek Winnert 2018 Classic Movie Review 7569

Check out more reviews on http://derekwinnert.com