The Man Who Loved Cat Dancing (1973) User Reviews

Burt Reynolds best movie

[kfisher-1 · 7/10 · 21 July 2002]

A western that is equal or better than others westerns of its era. A strong cast with excellent performances by Jack Warren and Lee J. Cobb, it is the only Burt Reynolds movie I like. The scenery is outstanding and all the characters fit nicely in the roles and are believable. It reminds me of McCabe and Mrs. Miller but with more action The plot although not unique has its moments as the dynamics of the "gang" are played out. Burt has never been better and clearly missed his calling as a western hero, he plays the strong silent type much better than road he went down in his career.

"I have come to claim what was taken from me".

[classicsoncall · 7/10 · 1 January 2009]

I always liked Burt Reynolds, but have generally seen him in self effacing roles that allow his humorous and devilish side come through; that's probably why "The Longest Yard" is my favorite Reynolds film. I think he handles his movie Western roles well enough, but it's not the genre I prefer seeing him in. In "The Man Who Loved Cat Dancing", Reynolds' character is a driven man on the trail to retrieve his two children from a Shoshone tribe, left behind we come to learn, after he killed the man who raped his wife, the 'Cat Dancing' character of the film's title. That he also killed his Indian bride in a jealous rage is a point that seems to be glossed over in the story, and doesn't square with the sense of honor and justice that Indian tribes maintain for their own personal conduct. I was left wondering why Jay Wesley Grobard (Reynolds) was even allowed to return to the Shoshone camp, and once there, why he wasn't called on to atone for his past. In fact, Grobard wasn't even an honorable character at the start of the movie, but a train robber who's gang is disrupted by the intrusion of a woman on the run from her husband. The story's twist is that her own name is Catherine/Cat, thereby completing the connection with the title character.

Of course, Catherine's (Sarah Miles) husband hires on a tracker (Lee J. Cobb) to find his wife who he believes is kidnapped. You never get the impression that Crocker (George Hamilton) isn't a decent enough guy in his own right, only that his wife doesn't love him enough to want to stay married. With Grobard's gang, Catherine gets more than she's bargained for, having to fend off the lecherous likes of Bo Hopkins' Billy, and Jack Warden's Dawes. Dawes in particular turns out to be the vile snake of the bunch, just check how many kidney shots he gives to old Billy Boy. Reflecting back on that now, the arrival of Catherine turns out to be the undoing of just about everyone in the picture.

It was cool to see Jay Silverheels in one of his last movie roles, but gee, they went kind of heavy on the old warrior makeup to portray him as Shoshone Chief Washaki. The Chief had one of the better lines in the picture as he parleyed with Grobard - "The cigar was one of the white man's good ideas" - an interesting observation. But probably the best was Billy's description of Catherine after she cleaned herself up on the trail - "Well, if she don't look as fresh as a daisy next to an outhouse"! What wonderful imagery.

Burt at his very best

[Ed-Shullivan · 7/10 · 18 October 2013]

This was a well scripted movie with two leading stars in Burt Reynolds and Sarah Miles who through the movie gradually come to understand one another's predicament and fall in love. Burt plays an ex military man named Jay Grobart who leads a small group of men on a successful train robbery, and while in the midst of their escape in to the wilds, they run across a petite and debonair well dressed Catherine Crocker played by Sarah Miles.

We eventually find out why Ms. Crocker is riding alone in the wilderness and also why Jay Grobart robbed the bank. Burt plays a tough gang leader who won't tolerate any insubordination from his crew or from the woman on the run.

Through the hills and streams they all run hiding from the posse led by Lee J Cobb and also in hot pursuit is the train company's executive played by Anthony Perkins who just happens to be trailing his wife who has seemed to gone missing whilst out for a casual ride on her $3,000.00 priceless steed.

Indians also come in to the picture, and one by one the gang members turn on one another with their expected prize being the warmth of an evening with their travelling companion Ms. Crocker. Bad Burt keeps them all at bay, and slowly falls for Ms. Crocker himself.

The climax may be predictable (I am referring to the movie's ending not Burt and Sarah's steamy relationship) but I love a good ending and I put this one in that enviable category. Kudos to the cast of The Man Who Loved Cat Dancing for a good performance and to their director Richard C Sarafian, who has given us other classics such as Bugsy, The Crossing Guard and one of my personal favourites, Bound.

Decent Western story about a refined lady/Sarah Miles who joins a gang of robbers led by Burt Reynolds

[ma-cortes · 6/10 · 1 December 2016]

This exciting Western is a reasonable engaging tale in which a wealthy woman traveling by herself on horseback leaves her husband to take up riding with outlaws who have robbed a safe . At first , after a chance encounter , a beautiful lady called Catherine Crocker (Sarah Miles) recently escaped from her abusive hubby becomes involved with a band of train robbers led by Jay Grobart (Burt Reynolds , this was one of his first romantic love-stories on the screen) and three other men : Dawes (Jack Warden) , Billy Bowen (Bo Hopkins) and an Indian named Charlie Bent (Varela) who have carried out a robbing a train of its Wells Fargo cargo of $100,000 . In their escape from the crime scene they are chased by a motley group of bounty hunters . Jay has the ordinary problems of managing the three bandits , Dawes and Billy in particular who want to rape the attractive lady . In meantime , they are pursued by a posse led by the tough Harvey Lapchance (Lee J. Cobb), including a mining executive , Willard Crocker (George Hamilton) who results to be Catherine's husband . But the go-riding gets harder , as the bunch fall out among themselves and things go worse .

The plot is plain and simple , a dangerous gang on the lam are forced out of circumstance to take along an elegant lady -who holds a dark secret- , against her will , as she , like them , is running away ; while she is harassed and finally falls in love with the main star . As the picture reveals itself to be a romance and a throughly love story . The phrase "Cat Dancing" of the film and source novel's title refers to the name of the first wife of this movie's central character Jay performed by Burt Reynolds . It's a love on the run in which the protagonists , Jay/Burt and Catherine/Sarah , along the journey learn more about what is under the surface , and both of whom start to fall for each other ; as their tragic pasts coming close to making us care . Good interpretation all around . Burt Reynolds gives a passable acting as an outlaw on the run after avenging his spouse's murder and who has a posse on his trail . Burt Reynolds and Jack Warden apparently insisted on doing their own stunts for this movie . That's why the production filming was shut-down for a week when the movie's star Burt Reynolds was injured on the set from a stunt fight with Jack Warden . This movie is one of a number of screen westerns that Burt Reynolds made during the mid-late 1960s and early 1970s , these movie westerns include Navajo Joe (1966) ; 100 rifles (1969) ; Sam Whisky (1969) and this one . Sarah Miles is acceptable as Catherine Crocker , she was only cast in the lead role just a short time before production started shooting . Support cast is pretty good , such as : the good-looking George Hamilton as Willard Crocker , Lee J . Cobb as Harvey Lapchance , the investigator for Wells Fargo who has a posse of men on their command . Furthermore , Bo Hopkins , Robert Donner , Nancy Malone and Jay Silverheels who played several times the Indian role . Michel Legrand was originally hired to compose the musical score for the film but studio executives informed him that his score was not what they felt the film needed and that he was being dismissed, being replaced by the great John Williams . It packs a colorful and evocative cinematography by Harry Stradling Jr.

The motion picture was professionally directed by Richard C Sarafian , though Steven Spielberg William Norton and Brian G. Hutton both declined offers to direct this movie , as Sarafian became this movie's director after the original director left the project . Sarafian was a good craftsman . While employed as a reporter in Kansas City , he met the director, Robert Altman, who hired Sarafian as his assistant. Sarafian has a fruitful career making TV episodes and films and directing a classic iconic movie : Vanishing Point¨ (1971) , as his car chase sequence served as inspiration for Quentin Tarantino's Death Proof (2007) . Richard portrayed two real-life Mafia figures: Jack Dragna in ¨Bugsy¨ (1991) and Paul Castellano in ¨Gotti¨ (1996). And directed a lot of dramas and thrillers as ¨Gangster Wars¨ , ¨The next man¨, ¨Solar Crisis¨, ¨Run Wild , Run Free¨, ¨Terror at Black falls¨, ¨Fragment of Fear¨ , ¨Street Justice¨ and ¨Eye of the tiger¨

A Western with some depth and sensitivity

[calgarywino · 7/10 · 19 July 2014]

This movie came up tonight on the television and though I had not seen it, I had certainly heard of it. The reviews almost scared me off, but happily I read some favourable ones and and took a chance.

Bert Reynolds gave a first class performance with subtlety, dignity and a quiet strength. His portrayal of a flawed but somewhat principled man with an unfortunate past was excellent and made me want to know more of the back story which I'm sure was in the book. Maybe it is that the book was written Marilyn Durham, and that the screenplay was by Eleanor Perry that gave the movie it's strength and tenderness ?

The treatment of the Shoshone and other First Nation people was very good; they spoke in full sentences with humour intelligence and wit. They came through as the three dimensional people they are instead of the mere shadows that most movies of the time showed them in; something long over due in Hollywood.

There were many good performances here, it is a movie worth seeing and deserves a serious place in the genre.

One Romantic Burt

[bkoganbing · 7/10 · 14 September 2016]

The most romantic Burt Reynolds I've ever seen is the Burt that heads the cast of The Man Who Loved Cat Dancing. He's also dangerous and deadly when he has to be.

Reynolds like James Garner is usually comic and cynical in his best remembered films. But in this one he becomes quite the romantic hero, almost like out of a romance novel especially to the object of his affection Sarah Miles.

Burt heads an outlaw gang that consists of Bo Hopkins, Jack Warden, and Jay Varela and one fine day while they're robbing a train Sarah Miles crosses their path. She's running away from her husband George Hamilton, her rich husband who's paying a lot of good wages for a personal posse. Caught in the middle of all this is Wells Fargo man Lee J. Cobb.

Reynolds and Miles make such a great romantic couple rarely seen in westerns. Jimmy Stewart and Debra Paget in Broken Arrow come closest to mind, but Stewart was an unabashed hero, not like Reynolds the outlaw.

The title refers to the name of Reynolds's Shoshone wife Cat Dancing who died years earlier. That story is essential to understanding how Reynolds's character developed as it did. Miles is a woman who finds true love, but also gets a lot of romantic notions knocked out of a silly head.

For fans of westerns and romance.

The new-fangled Old West, with anti-heroes, bloodshed, rape and robbery...

[moonspinner55 · 3/10 · 29 October 2005]

The kind of cynical '70s western that might have turned John Wayne's stomach: runaway wife Sarah Miles (as Cat, née Catherine) hitches a ride with a gang of scurrilous train robbers, and ends up falling in love with their leader. Overwrought picture gives Miles in particular an insulting role (she can't even mount a horse without falling off), and Jack Warden's scummy Dawes gets a bullet wound he'll never forget, but leading man Burt Reynolds slides right through this without ever leaving a trace he was here. Outdoor locations and colorful support from Lee J. Cobb gives mangy, depressing film a slight boost. *1/2 from ****

This is a much better movie than usually reviewed

[gaynor.wild · 8/10 · 29 August 2009]

The man who loved Cat Dancing is different from most westerns in that it is focused on relationships. This may not be surprising, in the light of the fact that the novel it is based on was written by a woman. In the movie, the woman (Sarah Miles) is really the central character, and the central man (Burt Reynolds) is somewhat secondary.

We follow the man from a train robbery to his trying to get his children back, and realizing that he's not going to get them. We also follow the woman's emotional changes. She at first is simply running away from a husband she does not love. She later has sex with a man who has protected her, and is raped by a sociopath. She comes to love, and is loved. And this is a quintessential "chick flick," except that it's a western.

Some men will like it, as well as some women.

needs to be more daring

[SnoopyStyle · 6/10 · 18 December 2019]

Rich, married Catherine Crocker (Sarah Miles) is riding along the rail tracks and happens upon a man cutting the telegraph wire. It turns out to be a train robbery. Jay Grobart (Burt Reynolds) leads the group of criminals and they take her prisoner. She claims to be running away from her abusive husband Willard (George Hamilton). Harvey Lapchance (Lee J. Cobb) is in pursuit. Grobart's great love is his late native wife Cat Dancing.

The potential is there for a great western. Reynolds struggles as a quiet brooding lead. In being reserved, he starts to fade. He can't fall back on his gregarious nature. There are ways to make him compelling but that is missing from this movie. I would have loved to see him speak a native language when he's with the Native Americans. The British actress Sarah Miles has a standoffish quality. The story has plenty of violence but it's not as brutal as it needs to be. Most of this has to be the director's fault. The potential is never fully realized.

Cat Prancing.

[hitchcockthelegend · 5/10 · 10 August 2016]

Richard C. Sarafian directs and Eleanor Perry adapts the screenplay from Marilyn Durham's novel. It stars Burt Reynolds, Sarah Miles, Lee J. Cobb, Jack Warden, George Hamilton, Bo Hopkins, Robert Donner and Jay Silverheels. Music is by John Williams and cinematography (Panavision/Metrocolor) by Harry Stradling JR.

Train robbing outlaw starts to fall for a woman who inadvertently becomes a kidnapee.

The rumours and gossip behind the making of the film are far more interesting than the film itself. Miles was married to Robert Bolt (they would be married twice), and it is believed that Bolt had to do uncredited work on the script to make it better! This as Miles and Reynolds were having some fun after hours, while Miles' manager (David Whiting) died under suspicious circumstances during the production.

The production is, on a technical level, superb, the locations are outstandingly realised by Stradling's photography, while Williams shows his multi stranded genius by providing a number of different musical compositions throughout the pic. Sadly the film drags and come the midway point it just becomes dull.

It starts off promisingly, with a daring train robbery introducing us to a band of outlaws, led by Reynolds of course, who are interesting enough to keep us, well, interested. Yet this proves to be a false dawn as what looked like being a potent manhunt of the gang, with revenge flavoured seasoning and sexual tensions, quickly turns into a wet romance stretched out to nearly two hours run time. As Miles and Reynolds take center stage for the second half of film, you realise that Cobb and Warden have been criminally underused. Lead performances are OK, it's just that the narrative is uninteresting and poorly directed - though a pat on the back is warranted for the respectful writing of the American Indians.

It looks and musically sounds great, but really it's hard to recommend with confidence. 5/10

A Great Reynolds Performance In Unappreciated Movie

[slightlymad22 · 8/10 · 14 May 2020]

I just rewatched The Man Who Loved Cat Dancing (1973)

Plot In A Paragraph: After being released from prison where he was serving a sentence for murder, Jay Grobart (Reynolds) leads a band of three other men in robbing a train of its Wells Fargo cargo of $100,000. In their escape from the scene, they are forced to take kidnapp Mrs. Catherine Willard Crocker (Sarah Miles) As Jay, the leader, embarks on his next mission, Harvey Lapchance (Lee J. Cobb) the investigator for Wells Fargo, has a posse of men on their trail. That posse includes Willard Crocker (George Hamilton) a mining executive who is the kidnapped woman's husband.

This is a real slow burning movie, Burt delivers a terrific performance which is allowed time to breathe and unfurl with grace and sensitivity, even exceeding his most celebrated role in Deliverance in terms of range. Grobart is not a traditional hero and it was brave of the actor to accept it just as he was becoming America's favourite movie star. Grobart is a flawed man haunted by demons past and present. He is inherently a good man blind to race and social divisions yet lured to violence on a whim in response to acts of aggression against the women in his life. It would be quite awhile before the actor again disappeared it a role so completely They iconic characters he portrayed in succeeding films are almost impossible to consider as mutually exclusive from Reynolds' own larger-than-life persona.

Unfortunately, this movie was plagued with production problems, including a death (which from time to time, resurfaces with Burt being accused of murder) and audiences stayed away in droves.

Very good showcasing some survival methods done back in the wild west

[jordondave-28085 · 6/10 · 16 September 2023]

(1973) The Man Who Loved Cat Dancing WESTERN

Burt Reynold's stars as Jay who successfully lead a group of train robbers, but along the way while escaping with horses waiting, bumps into a girl Sarah Miles as Catherine on a horse, who witnessed the whole escapade while waiting for a train to get married to her fiance, Crocker played by George Hamilton. Except that the group decide to drag her along as a hostage as they escape. And during this journey she brings out the best and the worst of them with Jay holding his own, and being the most civilized out of the whole bunch, and as the film progresses even more, he tells her about a Native American woman he used to be with by the name of "Cat Dancing"- hence the title! Based on a novel written by Marilyn Durham and while watching it showed some realistic approaches if people were to be traveling in the wild west eg: putting mud on the face to prevent it from sunburning or a dip into some water to prevent dehydration! But with a more than two hours of running time is a very good movie is often slow, but as a movie holding it's own, is still interesting to say the least!

Hunting Party Light

[TheFearmakers · 5/10 · 20 September 2022]

VANISHING POINT director Richard C. Sarafian and budding superstar Burt Reynolds teamed for THE MAN WHO LOVED CAT DANCING, based on a then-popular Gothic Western novel and almost the kind of horsepower road movie that Sarafian already had down pat...

But more a deliberate adventure in reverse, beginning with a train robbery introduction to a bank robbing gang led by a quiet-silent Renyolds; a tough-as-nails Jack Warden; a passive Indian and Bo Hopkins, again playing an unpredictable, hopped-up hillbilly ala Sam Peckinpah cinema...

And someone more unhinged like Sam would've been a much better fit since, lovely landscapes aside, the pace mirrors a Spaghetti Western that desperately needed a tighter revenge plot: herein a predictable romance with rich girl Sarah Miles having left her husband, and, taken in by the grimy bandits, it's obvious she'll hook up with the protective Burt (who makes a last-minute rescue straight out of DELIVERANCE)...

Yet by the time the extremely overlong last half happens, the side-characters... who made an intriguing, potentially explosive ensemble... had already fallen by the wayside, turning an otherwise romantic Western into a limited adventure: dragging out a tired HUNTING PARTY-style beauty/beast love story, with no real bite.

Uneven, but the cast makes it all worthwhile

[Mr-Fusion · 6/10 · 21 August 2014]

It was famous stuntman Hal Needham's memoir that first clued me in to this movie ("But that was nothing compared to the time I helped Burt dodge a possible murder rap during the filming of THE MAN WHO LOVED CAT DANCING"). Burt Reynolds in a western? I've gotta see this.

And for the most part, it's pretty good. A leisurely-paced movie, to be sure - which is completely fine - but the added somber tone makes the film drag for stretches at a time. But if you stick with it, there's a rewarding finish.

Regardless of that, this is easily Burt Reynolds' best performance (at least of those movies I've seen), and he's the heart and dark soul of the film. If you need to see why Reynolds was such a star at the time, this is Exhibit A. George Hamilton is the other surprise, playing a real sleaze, which is something you really don't expect with that guy. And that's not to say that the rest of the cast is lacking (Sarah Miles, Lee J. Cobb, Jack Warren).

But the real treat here is seeing Burt Reynolds nail it in a serious role.

6/10

The Last Movie in Which Native Americans Tried to Rape a White Woman

[disinterested_spectator · 5/10 · 17 July 2015]

The theme of this movie is rape. Sarah Miles is running away from George Hamilton, her husband. She stumbles into a train robbery and is taken hostage by the bandits. Bo Hopkins tries to rape her first. Then Jack Warden wants in on it. Burt Reynolds stops them. Then some Native Americans come along and try to rape her. This may well be the last Western ever made in which Native Americans try to rape a white woman. Most of the Native Americans in the movie are good, however, as are pretty much all the Native Americans portrayed in movies afterwards, so this movie is transitional. Anyway, Warden finally gets his chance, and he succeeds in raping Miles. Then we find out that Burt Reynolds killed his wife, Cat Dancing, because a man had raped her. But that apparently does not bother Miles, because she and Reynolds end up living happily ever after. I wish I could say that Miles was running away from her husband because he raped her too, just to round out the story, but all we know is that he is an unpleasant character.

Melodrama 'spoof'

[jain_daugh · 9/10 · 19 March 2008]

It amazes me how many people see this movie as a B grade western! I found it to be an excellent adaptation of a decent western genre book that happened to have been written by a WOMAN. The casting could not have been more perfect in that each person played their character so well. And the characters were a 'spoof' at the cliché of melodrama types that most westerns portray anyway. This is a story about how people LIE to themselves and end up not only ruining their own lives, but harming those near them too. And how honesty comes hard and maybe late, but can come before one dies. The only flaw of the movie is that it didn't tell the full tale of Cat Dancing and the tragedy that befell her, Burt's character and their children's lives. On the other hand, I liked the movie ending better than the book's.

love this movie

[wildwiltedrose · 10/10 · 17 March 2007]

will this ever be put out on DVD? Burt Reynolds best movie. Burt was so good looking in this movie. I love him as a cowboy. I have this on VHS and I would love to have it on DVD. They don't make many good westerns anymore. I wish they did. Burt was so good in this movie. I even love where its filmed looks rugged and so old west. Even the old mining town looks just like a very old mining town. The horse Sarah Miles rides such a pretty horse. She should have took more riding lessons before the movie and couldn't they have let her just ride instead of riding on the side like a girl. Burt riding his horse up in the snow till he breaks his leg is hard to watch that part.

Great Western

[regular8 · 8/10 · 3 July 2008]

John Wayne, Clint Eastwood, Humphry Bogart, James Coburn, Lee Marvin, Sean Connery, Harrison Ford -- well maybe not Harrison Ford -- created unique male personas on film and Burt Reynolds joins them. Cat Dancing is a 70's road film on horseback and Reynolds' performance shines with personal subtlety among other luminaries including Jack Warden, George Hamilton, Lee J. Cobb, and Jay Silverheels (AKA Tonto). The story line is not predictable and angst threads through the script. True love, what is it? The answer rolls down from the screen in Cat Dancing while Burt bites the dust and recovers. The Western by the 1970's was fading, but Cat Dancing proves the genre can be fresh in any decade.

To be 19 again

[frencde · 10/10 · 7 September 2018]

When I saw this film my lifelong crush began. There has never been one as handsome, sexy and funny.

One of the better and quite watchable Western movies

[gofockuself · 8/10 · 8 February 2021]

The whole movie was seriously done with cares. What I appreciated this movie most is its soundtrack, unlike those stupid western movies bombarded with non-stop, drive-you-crazy, completely irrelevant loud music, the soundtrack background music was so subtle and so appropriately arranged, it timely played on and timely faded away, making this movie a joy to watch. Besides, its storyline was quite unique and colorful, there were minor stories among the major story allot with some colorful characters; bad guys, good guys, all well inserted and played by every actors, males and those two females, one lead, one support. But still, what I really want to emphasize about this movie is the rare and nice arrangement of the supporting backgrounded soundtrack, it never bothered you but timely supported to match the ongoing of the storyline, and help it developed well in tempo and depth. If all the Western genre movies could be produced in this way, Western movies would never phase itself out so miserably lost to the new generation of audiences after 60s to 70s.

Highly recommended, if you could still find it.