City Slickers

Dude! Do you know where the word “dude” comes from? Well, it originally meant a city person who vacationed in the country, and they were usually overdressed for it. Now a “dude” is not a fish-out-of-water person at all, but someone relaxed and comfortable wherever they are. Isn’t it funny how words change like that. But, dude, why are we even talking about all this?

Because this month’s movie is about a “dude ranch,” a place where city folks can get a taste of cowboy life. The movie is called City Slickers, and it’s not about raincoats, but about city dwellers— thought to all be slick and dishonest by country types— who come to a dude ranch for summer vacation. And this movie has a stampede of Jewish stars!

The lead slicker is Billy Crystal. He is not so much on vacation as on a journey to find himself. He has “lost his smile” by being too much a part of the rat race, and goes to the dude ranch to try to connect with nature and his spirit. Sort of like going to grown-up summer camp!

His friend is Daniel Stern, who is one of filmdom’s best clowns. You’ll know him from the Home Alone movies; he was the taller burglar. But your folks might also know his voice. He did the narration for the hit show Wonder Years, starring Fred Savage. Anyway, in City Slickers, Daniel is a very different kind of character for him, kind of tightly wound... until Billy ropes him into going on a cattle drive with him!

Jewish actress Helen Slater plays Billy’s wife. Lately, she has been doing cameos in hot shows like Crossing Jordan, Grey’s Anatomy, Law and Order SVU, Boston Public, and Will & Grace. And she made the very silly movie Ruthless People with Bette Midler in 1986. She became famous back in 1984, because she was the star of the movie Supergirl! And what was she doing in between the 1980s and now? Starting a theatre troupe with Gina Gershon.

In the movie, two members of the Shalowitz family are played by two fine Jewish actors. David Paymer is now in Ocean’s 13. You may have seen him in Entourage, Jack & Bobby, or Without a Trace, but he also was in many hit shows going back to 1980! His longest role was on The Larry Sanders Show, starring Garry Shandling. He was nominated for an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor for the movie Mr. Saturday Night. And who was he supporting? Billy!

The other Shalowitz in City Slickers is Josh Mostel. Josh has been in Adam Sandler’s Big Daddy and Billy Madison, Woody Allen’s Radio Days with Seth Green, Searching for Bobby Fischer with Ben Kingsley, Wall Street with Michael Douglas, and the Holocaust film Sophie’s Choice with Kevin Kline.

Josh's dad, Samuel “Zero” Mostel, is an acting legend. He was the first Tevye on stage in Fiddler on the Roof, and the lead in both the stage and movie versions of A Funny Thing Happened on the way to the Forum by Jewish Broadway vet Stephen Sondheim. Zero’s career was zero’d out by the anti-Communist movement in the 1950s. Zero was not a Communist, he just wouldn’t tell which of his friends were— so they banned him from doing movies anyway! He later responded by starring in The Front (also with Woody Allen), a movie about that awful time, when actors and other artists could be “blacklisted” for their beliefs. Barred from movies, he went on to win 3 Tonys on the Broadway stage. That showed ’em! 

OK, back to the movie. One of the guys in Billy’s office is Jeffrey Tambor. You know him as the dad from Arrested Development, and he was Garry Shandling’s not-very-helpful helper in The Larry Sanders Show. Some movies he’s been in that you’ll like are The SpongeBob Squarepants Movie (with Scarlett Johansson), Muppets from Space (with Rob Schneider), There’s Something About Mary (with Ben Stiller), and Mr. Mom, with Michael Keaton (not Jewish. Oh well!). In the ’80s, Jeffrey was in hits like Hill Street Blues, LA Law, and the pioneering cyberpunk show Max Headroom.

His most Jewish show was a TV movie about the capture of Adolph Eichmann, one of Hitler’s men who ran the concentration camps. But back in the 1970s, Jeffrey turned a small part in the classic sitcom Three’s Company into a regular role on its spin-off, The Ropers… and he has been on TV since an episode of Kojak in 1977. So even tough Arrested Development is no longer in development, be assured that Jeffrey’s acting career is still developing and  has not yet been arrested!

Another Jewish actor in our movie made a full circle by playing a rancher here in 1991…and then gaining fame as rancher in Brokeback Mountain in 2005. Yes, City Slickers was the first movie for Jake Gyllenhaal! And the movie itself was written by the unstoppable team of Mandell and Ganz. And we also found a young Danielle Harris in the movie, too!

So spend as much time as you can outside this summer. But if it rains, saddle up the couch and rope City Slickers from the video store or Netflix. It’s like going on a cattle drive without having to smell the cows!