City Slickers

The film is carried by Jack Palance's Curly. Palance won the Best Supporting Actor Oscar for it on 30 March 1992, and mid-speech did three one-armed push-ups on stage, then needled Billy Crystal using his own line from the film. The moment was discussed more than the ceremony itself. Three New York friends in the middle of a midlife crisis sign up for a two-week cattle drive as a holiday. They assume it will be entertainment. Curly is the old cowboy running the drive, and he has no patience for them at all. The most quoted scene comes from him: Curly holds up one finger and says the secret of life is one thing, then refuses to say what that one thing is, telling them to find it themselves. Billy Crystal, Daniel Stern and Bruno Kirby play the friends. Ron Underwood directed. Who it is for: viewers who like 1990s American comedy and a midlife-crisis story wrapped in a western. Who it is not for: anyone expecting an actual western. The genre is used as decor, and the ending ties off far too comfortably.