Lee Marvin‘s Kid Shelleen in Cat Ballou (’65) was the funniest movie drunk of all time. I remember my alcoholic father totally losing it when he first saw this otherwise so-so Eliot Silverstein film. Drunks were enjoyable as hell in the ’50s and ’60s, but they stopped being funny sometime between the late ’70s and the time of Iran Contra. Dudley Moore was hilarious in the original Arthur (’81) but seven years later he was dead meat in Arthur 2: On the Rocks.

The main problem with Cat Ballou was that horrible musical accompaniment from Stubby Kaye and Nat King Cole. It grates.

For his brilliant drunkenness, Marvin won the 1965 Best Actor Oscar, an equivalent of a BAFTA award for Best Actor, a Best Actor Golden Globe award and a Best Actor prize from the 15th Berlin International Film Festival.