The Ballad of Little Jo (1993)

★ 5.8 2h 1m IMDb
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After being thrown out of her home, a young woman decides to disguise herself as a man to survive the ruthless Wild West.

The Ballad of Little Jo

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Cast

Suzy Amis
Suzy Amis as Jo Monaghan Age 64 · Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, USA Susan Elizabeth "Suzy" Amis Cameron (born January 5, 1962) is an American environmental advocate, a former actress and model. Description above from the Wikipedia article Suzy Amis, licensed under CC...
Bo Hopkins
Bo Hopkins as Frank Badger Died 2022 · Greenville, South Carolina, USA Bo Hopkins (February 2, 1938 – May 28, 2022) was an American actor.  He appeared in more than 100 film and television roles in a career of more than 40 years, including the The Wild Bunch (1969), The...
Ian McKellen
Ian McKellen as Percy Corcoran Age 86 · Burnley, Lancashire, England, UK Sir Ian Murray McKellen (born 25 May 1939) is an English actor. He has played roles on the screen and stage in genres ranging from Shakespearean dramas and modern theatre to popular fantasy and scienc...
Heather Graham
Heather Graham as Mary Addie Age 56 · Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA Heather Graham (born January 29, 1970), a talented actor born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, rose to prominence for her captivating performances on screen. Her career took off with memorable roles in films...
René Auberjonois
René Auberjonois as Streight Hollander Died 2019 · New York City, New York, USA René Auberjonois (June 1, 1940 – December 8, 2019) was an American actor, best known for playing Odo on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and Clayton Endicott III on Benson. He first achieved fame as a stag...
Carrie Snodgress
Carrie Snodgress as Ruth Badger Died 2004 · Park Ridge, Illinois, USA Caroline "Carrie" Snodgress (October 27, 1945 – April 1, 2004) was an American actress. She is best remembered for her role in the film Diary of a Mad Housewife (1970), for which she was nominated for...

Audience Reviews

tmdb76622195 10/10 Sep 30, 2023
Before watching this, do not make the mistake of lumping this film in with crossdressing comedies like "Tootsie" and "Mrs. Doubtfire." While based on a true story, director Greenwald sidesteps many western, and Hollywood, conventions to bring one of the best westerns of the 1990's. Suzy Amis plays Jo, a woman who is a little too trusting of some bad men. After escaping to the west and leaving her born-out-of-wedlock son behind, she is almost assaulted by two soldiers. To hide from them, she wears men's clothing and scars her face, eventually using her new facade to get what she needs to survive. Woman hater Percy (Ian McKellen) takes her in, believing she is a young man. She eventually befriends Frank (Bo Hopkins), who had his best role in years, and starts a sheep ranch. She falls in love with Tin Man, a Chinese man (David Chung) she was forced to hire as her cook, and must eventually do battle with a cattle conglomerate trying to get a foothold and driving the sheep ranchers out.

Amis resembles Eric Stoltz in her scenes as a man, and is totally believable. McKellan and Rene Auberjonois have small but pivotal roles as older father figures who Amis trusts, but eventually turn on her. Bo Hopkins is great as the neighbor Amis tolerates, befriends, and tolerates. Chung plays Tin Man as an ailing, opium-addicted, flawed man- he looks perfect for the part, life scars and all. Heather Graham also has a small part as Amis' paramour Mary Addie, and does her best with it. The most surprising aspects of this film is what the film is not. There are no cute "Yentl" scenes, where Jo falls in love with a man as a man. The cattle company war, a standard western plot point, never overwhelms the story, or comes to a trite conclusion. The final scenes, with Jo's unmasking, seem almost like farce, but when thought about later, play very truthfully and touchingly, especially Frank's reaction. Greenwald's camera turns a small film into an epic, with gorgeous Montana scenery. Her script is also very smart, never going for cheap laughs or the kind of exploitation that another director may have gone for. I strongly recommend "The Ballad of Little Jo."

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