My Favorite Scene: City Slickers (1991) – “One Thing”

When Billy Crystal’s career is all said and done, he’ll most likely be remembered as the pre-eminent Oscar host of the modern age.  There’s no doubting that Crystal is talented and funny, but that has rarely translated to a good screen vehicle.  City Slickers is the best vehicle he’s had to showcase his wit and dramatic chops, playing one of three friends suffering a collective midlife crisis on a dude ranch vacation.  City Slickers deserves permanent props, if for nothing else, than it provided Jack Palance with his Oscar and one of the best Oscar moments of all-time.


Billy Crystal and Jack Palance in "City Slickers."Photo by Bruce McBroom

 

3 thoughts on “My Favorite Scene: City Slickers (1991) – “One Thing””

  1. I would put Monsters Inc and the criminally underrated Mr. Saturday Night on the short list of Crystal’s best movies, but City Slickers belongs at the top. I remember seeing it three times in the theater when it first came out. It’s one of those rare comedies with genuine heart, soul, and dramatic weight, and all the performers truly commit to the material. When Jack Palance went it was his time, but it’s been many years and I still can’t believe Bruno Kirby is gone.


    Like

    1. I know. I have to keep reminding myself Kirby’s gone. Mr. Saturday Night is absolutely criminally underrated. He’s also great in When Harry Met Sally. I think CS though is the purest vehicle for his comedy that he’s ever had. Plus, Jack Palance was good for Oscar jokes for a decade after that show.

      Like

      1. What do you think of Throw Mamma From The Train? As a Hitchcock fanatic I appreciate the premise, but all these years later I’m still trying to figure out why it wasn’t funny. Crystal should do more directing and Danny DeVito should do a lot less.


        Like

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

Gravatar
WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Log Out /  Change )

Google photo

You are commenting using your Google account. Log Out /  Change )

Twitter picture

You are commenting using your Twitter account. Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. Log Out /  Change )

Connecting to %s