City Slickers (1991)

On the verge of turning 40, an unhappy Manhattan yuppie is roped into joining his two friends on a cattle drive in the southwest.

Director:

Ron Underwood

Writers:

Lowell Ganz, Babaloo Mandel

Stars:

Billy Crystal, Jack Palance, Daniel Stern

Won 1 Oscar. Another 7 wins & 7 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Billy Crystal	...	Mitch Robbins
Daniel Stern	...	Phil Berquist
Bruno Kirby	...	Ed Furillo
Patricia Wettig	...	Barbara Robbins
Helen Slater	...	Bonnie Rayburn
Jack Palance	...	Curly
Noble Willingham	...	Clay Stone
Tracey Walter	...	Cookie
Josh Mostel	...	Barry Shalowitz
David Paymer	...	Ira Shalowitz
Bill Henderson	...	Ben Jessup
Jeffrey Tambor	...	Lou
Phill Lewis	...	Steve Jessup
Kyle Secor	...	Jeff
Dean Hallo	...	T.R.

Storyline

Mitch is a middle aged big-city radio ads salesman. He and his friends Ed and Phil are having mid-life crisis. They decide the best birthday gift is to go on a two week holiday in the wild west driving cattle from New Mexico to Colorado. There they meet cowboy Curly who not only teaches them how to become real cowboys, but also one or two other things about life in the open air of the west.

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Plot Keywords:

fish out of water | cowboy | cattle | new mexico | colorado | 

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Taglines:

Yesterday They Were Businessmen. Today They're Cowboys. Tomorrow They'll Be Walking Funny.

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Genres:

Comedy

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Certificate:

PG-13

Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

7 June 1991 (USA)

Also Known As:

Amigos... siempre amigos

Filming Locations:

Abiquiu, New Mexico, USA

Box Office

Budget:

$27,000,000 (estimated)

Opening Weekend USA:

$13,032,121, 9 June 1991, Wide Release

Gross USA:

$124,033,791

Cumulative Worldwide Gross:

$179,033,791

Company Credits

Production Co:

Castle Rock Entertainment,Nelson Entertainment,Face Productions

Technical Specs

Runtime:

113 min

Sound Mix:

Dolby

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

Daniel Stern declined the riding lessons offered for the movie in order to better convey his character's inexperience at horse riding.

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Goofs

(at around 1h 30 mins) As Mitch, Phil, and Ed are herding the cows down the slope and into the river (when Ed is already midway across the river), if you look to the extreme left of the frame (in the DVD wide screen format), you can see a man at the base of the slope. He momentarily darts into frame and back out again.

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Quotes

[first lines]
[running through the streets in front of angry bulls, deliberately]
Mitch Robbins: Whose idea was this anyway?

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Crazy Credits

The opening credits show a cartoon of a cowboy practicing with a lasso

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Alternate Versions

AMC version makes two changes in the scene where Mitch talks to his son's class; Sal's story is removed entirely, and the scene begins with the kids cheering, and Sal's "masturbation" hand gesture during Mitch's speech is replaced with an alternate take where Sal instead makes the "Whoopee!" gesture with his index finger.

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Connections

Referenced in Quantico: Run (2015)

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Soundtracks

Tumbling Tumbleweeds
(1934)
(On-screen as "TUMBLING TUMBLE WEEDS")
Words and Music by Bob Nolan
Publisher MUSIC OF THE WEST
Administered by SGA

User Reviews

One my favorite comedies of all time!!!

There really aren't enough good things I can say about this film. The story is absolutely fantastic, the acting is great, the cast is superb and the comedy is hilarious! The films' story is very entertaining and keeps you interested from the first second to the last. This is basically a film about finding out what is important in your life and what means the most to you...and also having a few good laughs along the way. Not only that, but there are actually quite a few touching scenes in this film as well. Also, just as a side note, I love the opening credits to this film. It isn't often that I can say that about a film.

The director, Ron Underwood, really out-did himself with this film. I've seen 4 of his 6 theatrical films so far and absolutely LOVED 3 of them ("Tremors", "City Slickers", and "Mighty Joe Young", the fourth one, "Speechless", I have only seen once and I hardly remember it)! I can't wait to see his next work.

All the cast members involved in this film were excellent in their respective roles. The main characters are played so well and have such great dialogue that you really feel like you know the characters. This is, without a doubt, one of my top 3 favorite films starring Billy Crystal (the others being "Monsters Inc." and "When Harry Met Sally"). Billy Crystal is absolutely hilarious in this film, I laughed incredibly hard the first time I saw the film (and still do). Daniel Stern and Bruno Kirby play the perfect buddies to Billy Crystal in the film and really have great chemistry between the three of them. Jack Palance is another great touch in the film. The entire supporting cast was excellent as well, I won't get into each one though, because there are too many to list. This film also yields a very young, up and coming, Jake Gyllenhaal of "October Sky", "Donnie Darko", "Bubble Boy", "The Good Girl" and "Moonlight Mile". Jake does a great job as Danny Robbins.

One other thing I think I should mention is the music in this film. All the music is perfect! You can tell that the music was chosen very carefully for particular scenes and it works so well. I really enjoyed all the music in this film.

This is another one of those movies that I highly recommend to everyone! There are so many good things about this film, I strongly recommend you see it. I hope you aren't disappointed. Thanks for reading and happy viewing.

-Chris