Truly Dreadful Film

The greatest movie ever!

Terrible acting, screenplay and direction.

Mostly, the movie is committed to the value of a good time.

The main reason for seeing 'The Ballad of Josie' in the first place for me was Doris Day, having been of late on a completest quest seeing all the films of hers not yet seen.Despite being one of her lowest rated films here (along with 'Where Were You When the Lights Went Out?' and 'Caprice'), being one of her less well critically received films and being disliked by Day herself, 'The Ballad of Josie' isn't that bad. At least from respectful personal opinion, though it does have a good deal wrong with it and it was made during a rather rocky period of Day's film career. Of course it is among the weaker end of her overall films but it is better than 'Where Were You When the Lights Went Out?', 'Lucky Me', 'Starlift', 'The West Point Story' (aka 'Fine and Dandy') and 'Tunnel of Love', all but one of which rated higher.As is the case with all her films, even her lesser ones, Day is the reason to see the film in the first place and also the best thing about it. She does a very good job, having a balance of charm and feistiness. 'The Ballad of Josie' is a good-looking film too, not exactly evocative but full of rustic attractive colours and handsomely designed production values shot beautifully.Regarding the music, it is pretty excellent. It is cleverly orchestrated and rousing. The title song is a lovely and memorable one, though, despite Don Costa singing it well, there was a missed opportunity regarding Day not singing it. Was mixed on the supporting cast but felt that Elizabeth Fraser beguiled the screen whenever she appeared, Andy Devine clearly has fun and brought some much needed authenticity and John Fiedler is amusing.However, not all the supporting cast come off well, suffering from characters that are not particularly interesting or used well. Peter Graves has a bland uninteresting role and plays it just as much, while George Kennedy's character is underwritten and underused (although it is a kind of role that Kennedy is perfect for and he does his best with what he's given). Having Andrew V. McLaglen on board as director promised a lot, being a veteran of the western genre. The simplicity of the direction is to be admired, but too much of the time it was a case of getting the job done but it comes over as workmanlike.Sadly the story is often very dull, narratively it is as thin as a thin piece of tissue and in the more less than eventful parts the pace is sluggish. The script is tonally somewhat muddled, with some frequent and too often tiresome attempts at humour that never seems to fit and the more western-oriented parts lack grit. Despite looking good, 'The Ballad of Josie' never looks evocative with a lot of it looking too clean, too nice and too newly fresh.Overall, a long way from a disaster but Day did much better in her career and deserved better as well. 5/10 Bethany Cox

The problem with this film is that it tried so hard to be funny with some really stupid slap-stick routines that just seemed out-of-place for such a fine cast. Doris Day was not really that bad playing the lead in her charming ways. And even Peter Graves did better than expected as he was cast next to the beautiful Ms Day. The movie was more about comedy than a western -making this somewhat better had it be placed in more modern times than dirty and dusty west. Even from the beginning with the modern song that introduced the title characters, the viewer had a feeling that this was not going to be pretty. This movie tried to be a western but with its fancy talk and high priced wardrobes it just had a feel of being unbelievable. Which leads us to the biggest problem with this film- not believable.The plot, the writing, the situations, the comedy, the drama and the look of this movie all seem to be wrong. And all these factor usually make for a disaster of a show. But the fine actors is what saves this movie from being an all-out wreck. This is not a movie that I would want to watch again but would recommend watching just to see the many fine actors. Just did not have the combination or interest for a good film.

It is a shame that the writing is so poor, with just a little bit of work this could have been a very good movie. The supporting cast was very strong and went out of there way to do the best they could but the lines were very poor. It was a Doris Day comedy so one doesn't expect a deep movie but with the cast they had , with a little bit of work it could have been a very cute good Doris Day film. However, it turned out to be one of her poorer films. I would love to ask the writers the reason they turned out such sloppy work, they are professionals and I know they put the time in. I am sure they know who the actors are and wonder why they felt they could do such a poor job here.

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.