City Slickers
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| City Slickers | |
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 City Slickers poster |
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| 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 Castle Rock Entertainment Metro Goldwyn Mayer(DVD) |
| Release date(s) | June 7, 1991 (USA) |
| Running time | 112 min. |
| Language | English |
| Followed by | City Slickers II: The Legend of Curly's Gold |
| 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.
Contents |
[edit] Plot
Mitch (Billy Crystal) has just turned 39 years old, and is thick in the middle of a midlife crisis. His best friends are also having midlife crises of their own. Phil (Daniel Stern) is stuck managing his father-in-law's store, while trapped in a sexless marriage with an overbearing wife. Ed (Bruno Kirby) is a successful businessman and playboy, struggling with the idea of monogamous marriage and the pressure to have kids.
At Mitch's birthday party, Phil and Ed present their joint gift: a two-week Southwestern cattle drive for all three men. After some hesitation, Mitch accepts the gift and travels to New Mexico, where the three men meet the several other participants of the cattle drive. The men slowly "learn the ropes" of moving a herd and even have a tense encounter with the two professional cowboys (T.R. and Jeff) who work the drive while being drunk. The encounter is stopped with the arrival of Curly (Jack Palance), the wisened, tough-as-nails trail boss, who chastises the cowboys for being intoxicated on the job and warns them strongly not to let it happen again.
Curly, the cowboys, and all the participants begin the long drive to Colorado. Mitch and Curly immediately dislike one another, Mitch does not get along with the majority of the others, and opinions only get worse when Mitch inadvertently causes a destructive stampede. Afterwards, Curly and Mitch ride alone in the canyons to find some stray cows, and after being forced to spend the night alone, the two finally bond with one another. The next morning, Curly and Mitch are forced to deliver a calf in the wilderness. After the mother cow dies, Mitch adopts the calf and names it "Norman." The two then rejoin the main drive.
The drive runs into trouble shortly afterwards, when Curly dies unexpectedly. The cook gets drunk and breaks both his legs, requiring him to be taken to a hospital by two participants. T.R. and Jeff discover the cook's booze stash and, with Curly not around, quickly become very drunk, leading to another dangerous encounter with Mitch, Phil and Ed. The cowboys are disarmed by Phil after he snaps under a near-lifetime stress. Though Phil urges to cowboys to "sleep it off," the cowboys abandon the group in the wilderness, leaving them with no trail boss or map. The remaining individuals decide to abandon the herd and seek civilization. Phil and Ed, driven by determination to succeed, persist in driving the herd to Colorado, despite the pleas of Mitch to reconsider. The next day, the others ride on, but later Mitch returns unexpectedly (wearing Curly's notable black hat) to join his fellow "city slickers" in completing the drive.
The final test of the drive means crossing a dangerous river. The men drive the herd across the river during a storm, but Norman starts to drown. Mitch rescues him with a lasso (something he failed to master previously in the story) but gets caught in the rapids. Phil and Ed race down the bank and save Mitch and Norman. The men smile on the river bank, all having overcome their crises. The three lead the herd back successfully to the Colorado ranch. Mitch returns to his family in New York a happy man, promising to live a more meaningful life. In addition, Mitch spares Norman from slaughter by purchasing him and bringing the calf home as a pet.
[edit] 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 chambers
- 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 11 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.
[edit] Reception
The film received mostly positive review with a "Fresh" score of 92% on Rotten Tomatoes.
[edit] In Popular Culture
- The Billy Crystal episode of Muppets Tonight featured a parody entitled "City Schtickers", with Kermit the Frog and Fozzie Bear in Kirby and Stern's roles.
[edit] Trivia
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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 title of the movie in its Argentinian release, "Amigos por siempre amigos" translates as "Friends forever friendes."
- 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.
