La donna del West

What's not to love about this film? If you can reserve judgment until the end, you'll discover the humorous and heartwarming tale of a woman who is not afraid to stand her ground! Doris Day as Josie, opposite Peter Graves' Jason, is a tremendous force to be reckoned with. In true Doris-style she takes on "the men" of Wyoming, bucking convention (in a great pair of Levi's) and daring them to deny her her basic human rights. OK, so it only takes 2 glasses of brandy to knock Josie off her feet, but she comes right back swinging all the harder! And when the dust clears, she's there, triumphant to the end. Not only does she beat back an oppressive cattle baron, she also manages to fend for herself and her son, run a sheep-raising operation, endear herself to the women of Wyoming, and win the love and admiration of a pretty swell guy, in my opinion. So who says you can't have your cake and eat it too? I give Josie 10 stars **********

... without Dan Blocker and with Doris Day. It's basically about a Wyoming woman (Doris Day) who finds herself minus a husband who shocks the men of the town by deciding to herd sheep instead of cows and by wearing (OH THE HORROR!) mens' pants!!! You know, I haven't seen this since I was twelve and I actually remembered it fondly until I saw it today. George Kennedy plays the cattle ranch owning buffoonish bully who wants Josie's sheep dead. Peter Graves is the love interest who threatens to do endearing things like spank Josie if she doesn't shut up. Andy Devine is still playing the same character he was thirty years before. William Talman, after so many years of losing to Perry Mason, plays a district attorney who is trying to get Wyoming statehood. In the end, the lesson seems to be "who needs the vote anyways ladies, and wear a dress if you want a man!" Oh, the sexism. I guess I just didn't notice this in 1970. And what's worse, this is what passed for feminism in 1970.

This is the problem with so many 60s films. They have one foot in the 50s, one foot in the 70s, and nothing works. This thing might just reach a 5/10 mainly because of its star power, even if those stars are being badly used.

Josie tackles the west in the time before women had a say. It's a good and fun movie.

The Ballad of Josie for Doris Day marked the beginning of the end of her film career. Her agent/husband/svengali Martin Melcher forced her into a whole lot of mediocre films because he knew and she would find out that their wealth was something done with mirrors. She had to keep working.

Not that it's a bad film, just not a terribly good one. It's populated with a whole good cast of veteran players and her leading man in this is Peter Graves. Graves is someone who should have had a good career as a screen lead in his youth. Unfortunately he got to do a lot of bad science fiction movies(and some real classic good ones) which didn't help. He opted for the small screen instead.

William Talman makes his farewell appearance here. He's a big shot politician who sees his dream of statehood in Wyoming going down the tubes because of the controversy of Doris Day trying to raise sheep in what has been traditionally cattle country.

Doris's husband Robert Lowery is killed in the first few minutes of the film. She has to raise her son alone now and lots of professions and trades were closed to her as they were to women back in that day. She decides to become a shepherd as she's told it doesn't have the overhead expense of cattle on the 460 acres she's inherited.

That starts a whole big controversy with a shooting range war about to break out.

Granted that women were kept barefoot and pregnant in those days, but it's hard to believe that Doris might not have heard SOME discussion about the cattle and sheep problem and why there was this unofficial line of demarcation in Arapahoe County, Wyoming.

Fans of Doris will want to see her in anything though.

I like Doris Day and try to get all her films in german. You cannot imagine how happy I was, when I received "The Ballad of Josie" ( Das Teufelsweib aus Texas )( german title). It's a rare film, but I like it because of Doris. Well, people who enjoyed "Pillow Talk" won't like to watch this one, I guess. In this film are some funny moments, for example when Doris wears jeans and surprise the men or when she is falling on the bed. But you can't compare it to her better films. I can only say, Doris is in it, some other good actors and the plot isn't bad at all.