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The Ballad of Josie movie storyline. In the Wyoming Territory, Josie Minick has just been widowed. Despite most people, including Josie herself, believing her now deceased husband Whit Minick to be a mean and not nice man, some still believe Josie killed him. Regardless, Josie’s primary concern is taking care of her adolescent son, Luther Minick. Currently, his paternal grandfather, Cheyenne based Alpheus Minick, has taken custody of Luther against Josie’s wishes since he feels she can’t take care of him in her current situation.
Although Josie has many friends and supporters, most specifically Jase Meredith, all of the men, including Jase, believe Josie, as a woman, should only be able to do what is traditionally seen as women’s work, which is usually positions of subservience and drudgery. What Josie would really like to do is to move back to a large farmstead she and Whit jointly owned, but which has been neglected, to raise cattle.
Unwittingly, Jase gives her an idea of how to make a living in doing something she sees as manageable, but which is against the unofficial code of the territory. Despite the range war that ensues largely led by Josie’s neighbor Arch Ogden, Josie is determined to win on her own terms, all in an effort to be with Luther again. But Josie also unwittingly may get some of her closest friends killed, while jeopardizing Jase, Arch and the other political leaders’ of the territory’s want for Wyoming to become the forty-fourth state in the union.
The Ballad of Josie is a 1967 Technicolor American comedy western film directed by Andrew V. McLaglen and starring Doris Day, Peter Graves and George Kennedy. It humorously tackles 1960s themes of feminism in a traditional Western setting. The film featured the last acting role for William Talman. It was filmed on two locations in Thousand Oaks, California: North Ranch and Wildwood Regional Park.
The Ballad of Josie (1967)
Directed by: Andrew V. McLaglen
Starring: Doris Day, Peter Graves, George Kennedy, Andy Devine, William Talman, David Hartman, Audrey Christie, Karen Jensen, Elisabeth Fraser, Linda Meiklejohn, Shirley O’Hara
Screenplay by: Harold Swanton
Cinematography by: Milton R. Krasner
Film Editing by: Fred A. Chulack, Otho Lovering
Costume Design by: Jean Louis
Set Decoration by: John McCarthy Jr., James Redd
Art Direction by: Alexander Golitzen, Addison Hehr
Music by: Frank De Vol
MPAA Rating: None.
Distributed by: Universal Pictures
Release Date: December 22, 1967
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