Across his long career, Lee Marvin earned one Academy Award nomination, and he won. The surprise here comes from the film for which he took home the Oscar.

Marvin got recognized for 1965’s Cat Ballou, a comedic Western. That doesn’t seem like a genre appreciated by the Oscars, so Marvin’s triumph seems vaguely shocking – at least from the perspective of nearly 60 years later.

Set in Wyoming circa 1894, Catherine “Cat” Ballou (Jane Fonda) returns to her hometown of Wolf City to start a job as a schoolteacher. However, she learns that a railroad company wants to force her father Frankie (John Marley) off their ranch to use the land for future development.

The rail magnates send hired gun Tim Strawn (Marvin) to push these goals, a choice that leads to tragedy. This launches Cat into vengeance mode, and the educator turned outlaw also recruits drunken washed-up gunslinger Kid Shelleen (Marvin again) to help her find justice.

All of this evolves via flashback. At the film’s start, we see Cat in jail as she awaits death by hanging.

Don’t expect Ballou to push toward the events that lead to Cat’s imprisonment quickly, though. The story takes its own sweet time, mainly as it focuses on potential romance between Cat and cattle rustler Clay Boone (Michael Callan).

Actually, “mainly” may act as an overstatement, for Ballou doesn’t primarily focus on the Cat/Clay connection. That becomes a fairly prominent thread for the first act, though it seems less vital after that.

Given that Marvin won as a lead actor, it comes as a surprise to realize he barely appears in Ballou until about roughly one-third of the way into the running time. The first act gives a brief glimpse of Strawn but we don’t see much of him, and Kid Shelleen doesn’t pop up until about 36 minutes into this 96-minute movie.

Marvin gets pretty consistent screen time after that, mainly via Shelleen. Although he plays two parts, Strawn becomes the junior role, one that we see much less often.

Although he does fine as dual characters, I find myself semi-shocked that Marvin won an Oscar for Ballou. While he seems more than competent, he doesn’t bring the spark to his roles that would allow him to leap off the screen and enter award consideration.

Part of the issue comes from my view that Ballou does nothing especially well. As a Western, it comes with few real thrills, and as a comedy, it lacks many laughs.

Not that I think it becomes an unpleasant film to watch. It manages just enough humor and drama to remain a decent way to spend 96 minutes.

I just can’t find anything more than that to make it stand out from the crowd, however. It might aim at spoof/parody, but it fails real cleverness or zing.

This leaves Ballou as a passable piece of fluff and not much more. Nothing here flops, but nothing about the film becomes memorable, either.

Cat Ballou appears in an aspect ratio of 1.85:1 on this Blu-ray Disc. This became a solid presentation.

Sharpness appeared positive, as the movie consistently seemed nicely detailed and distinct. A few interiors could feel a smidgen soft, but the majority of the flick appeared well-defined.

Jagged edges and shimmering failed to appear, and I noticed no edge haloes. Grain seemed light but natural, while source flaws also remained absent.

Colors seemed full and rich. The movie offered a slightly blue tone but the palette usually leaned natural, and the disc executed the hues in a lively manner.

Black levels looked good throughout the movie. Dark tones came across as deep and tight, and shadow detail also was solid.

Low-light scenes appeared concise and well defined. Overall, I felt pleased with this consistently appealing transfer.

A reworking of the movie’s original monaural audio – which also appears on the disc – we find a surprisingly involving DTS-HD MA 5.1 remix. Music especially benefited from this effort, as score and songs spread across the channels in a neat manner.

Effects also broadened around the spectrum in a reasonably positive way, and surrounds broadened the material to a moderate degree. Nothing here competed with modern soundscapes, but I still thought this turned into a more engaging that anticipated remix.

Audio quality largely fared well, though the remix opted for more reverb than I’d prefer. This could give the track a somewhat artificial vibe.

Still, the mix usually sounded pretty good for its age, with speech that remained concise and comprehensible. Music showed generally appealing range as well.

Effects suffered most from that moderate sense of reverb, but they nonetheless came across with decent accuracy. While I didn’t love this 5.1 remix, I nonetheless felt it worked better than most.

As noted, the disc also includes the movie’s original DTS-HD MA monaural audio. Obviously it lost the side/rear channel information from the 5.1 track.

However, the mono version boasted superior quality – to a degree, at least, as it still showed the limitations of its 59-year-old source. This meant dialogue, music and effects felt a bit tighter.

Obviously the mono mix lost the involvement of the 5.1 track, so if that matters to you, I’d recommend the multichannel version, especially since it didn’t demonstrate a substantial decline in quality. Still, I thought the somewhat superior fidelity of the mono edition made it my preferred option.

As we shift to extras, we find two separate audio commentaries. Recorded circa 2000, the first comes from actors Michael Callan and Dwayne Hickman, both of whom sit together for a running, screen-specific look at the roles and performances as well as their experiences during the production.

While not the world’s most informative chat, Callan and Hickman interact in a lively manner. We get a decent array of movie-related thoughts but the warm manner in which the actors mesh makes it a reasonably enjoyable track.

For the second commentary, we hear from film historians Eddy Friedfeld, Lee Pfeiffer and Paul Scrabo. Recorded circa 2016, Friedfeld and Pfeiffer sit together for a running, screen-specific piece while Scrabo occasionally pops up via separately-recorded nuggets that got edited into the main chat.

The track looks at the source and its path to the screen, cast and crew, genre domains and some production specifics. At the start, this seems like it’ll deliver a strong commentary.

However, the track peters out somewhat as it goes, so don’t expect a consistent discussion. While we get a decent array of information, the manner in which the commentary loses steam makes it too erratic to become special.

In addition to the film’s trailer, The Legend of Cat Ballou spans 12 minutes, 36 seconds. It offers notes from director Elliot Silverstein.

“Legend” looks at how Silverstein got the job, cast and performances, some scene specifics and other thoughts on the production. Silverstein brings good memories in this short but informative chat.

As a spoof of Westerns, Cat Ballou offers mild amusement but not anything that impresses. We get a watchable mix of comedy and action that never delivers real spark or flair. The Blu-ray comes with solid picture, pretty good audio and a set of supplements. This becomes a quality release for a spotty movie.