raffhall The HBO film Cat Dancers is less documentary than it is home movies & propaganda by Ron Holiday (real name Ron Guay). It's hard to believe his wife Joy Holiday (real name Doris Gagnon) was drunk (twice the legal limit) after not eating for weeks and walked out to visit the cats despite being suicidal. It is also odd that the younger member of the polygamists threesome was passed out asleep and didn't get dressed to help move the tigers. Director Harris Fishman does not bother getting any interviews with police, coroner, friends or witnesses. We only have a weird blow hard playing victim with hyperbole and denials. I find it disgusting to force wild animals into cages and perform silly acts such as jumping on a disco ball on hind legs or being ridden by the old woman who was killed by a tiger Ron later claimed he didn't know was inbred. He also put down 2 of the cats when he was evicted which puts his claim of loving the animal into question. Surely he could have found a refuge for them. We can't know because we only hear a phone call to the estranged mother of Chuck Lizza, who hasn't seen her son in years (according to Ron) & seems suspicious. The story is interesting for the creepy factor more than informative. Worth watching for the freak show and outrage than quality film making.

so_cold This film about a wild cat circus act, raises more questions that it does answers. One of the reasons why is because only one third of the triangle, Ron Holiday is present to tell the story. That would be fine, if he was totally honest about events, but I don't think he was. He and his wife Joy were into ballet, then as age crept thought of training cats after getting a leopard. The Duo became a trio after they met Chuck and Ron basically describes them as one big happy family until the "accidents" This is where I start to doubt Ron's story. A couple with two people can have it's ups and downs, so I don't think it was as great as he said it was with three people in the mix. Three separate people, with their own hopes, dreams, ambitions and expectations. I think Joy was dedicated to the animals, but Ron became third on her list when Chuck came along. In tapes, it's explained that when the cats are little, they choose their own caretakers and it seemed like most of the cats chose Joy or chuck.I can't help but think that Ron might of resented them for that, among other things. For example, who went on talk shows to talk about Cat dancers with the media? Who did Ron's cash cow idea choose to care for it? Who did Joy get so depressed over, she rapidly went downhill? All those questions have the same answer: Chuck. I don't think Ron was as pleased to have him around as much as he said he was. He worked with Joy for over twenty years to get cat dancers up and running, only to be upstaged, by a tall young man who his wife found attractive. In her youth, Joy had a great body and wore bikinis and revealing show outfits. I'm sorry to say that when she aged, her wardrobe didn't change and in my opinion, it's not that pleasant to see.Their apparent love triangle is disturbing for many reasons. Some of those are that I think Chuck was taken advantage of by both of them. The married couple, Ron and Joy could have been friends with him and looked out for him, but I think they manipulated him slightly. They did give him a job, and a place to stay, but it was for a price and I think they pushed him into a corner. Secondly Ron and Joy Holiday were old enough to be his parents. Chuck in the tapes seemed quite innocent and childlike, so the fact that this couple saw him as "fresh meat" was quite disturbing. The accident that happened to him could have been prevented, a view spoken by his mother who was contacted by phone, and is heard on the show. There was so much going on with the builders and their equipment, it was bad judgement to take the cats out, especially Jupiter, Ron's cash cow idea, who chose Chuck to be it's carer. Ron knew that Jupiter was stubborn and had a mean streak so why didn't he leave him caged?After Chuck's accident, it was clear that Joy had changed, but as for Ron, a few weeks after, he acting like he's walking on air. Filming the tigers after the accident, Joy's voice is toneless and her hands are shaking, more than ever when she scans over Jupiter. It was Ron's idea to get Jupiter, a white tiger that Joy didn't want to have because she said they were mostly all inbred, but in Ron's words he "pushed it, and pushed it" Jupiter was Ron's idea, but Jupiter picked Chuck to look after him. He and Joy were married, but Joy chose Chuck to be her lover. Ron seems to be getting pushed out, yet in tapes that show them training, you can always hear his voice, it's louder than anyone else's.Joy's accident shouldn't have happened as well. The doctors were planning to take her to hospital the next day, so it seems strange that Ron would take his frail, tired wife into an enclosure with wild cats who don't know their own strength. Ron also mentioned that she was twice over the legal limit with alcohol, but he didn't see her drink. Yet he said, he went in her room with a fan to get rid of the smells, because she never washed, but he couldn't smell any alcohol. Things don't add up, but he's not called out on it. Chuck and Joy can't say, "Well this really happened" or "Ron's talking crap" which is a shame, because Ron paints their romance as rosy and perfect when some people know that's never the case in any relationship. It doesn't seem like Ron's talking about how events really were, in some parts it seems like he reveals how'd he'd like things to have happened.Ron was pushed to the side in "cat dancers" merely seen as a helper, a viewer to see Chuck the young friendly man the cats loved and Joy the presenter and only "girl" of the group bond with the cats as they worked their magic. But when the bond ended, the cats were stuck with Ron and now he gets the solo attention, sympathy and spotlight that he's always wanted. But other people who watch this may have very different views. A unique story that will intrigue viewers.

Vic_max The title and previews to this documentary made it seem a bit haunting and eerie. It's about a man-wife dance team (over a 30 year span) who decided to add cats (tigers, jaguars, leopards, etc.) to their act. It's billed as a tragedy as well as a weird love/sex-triangle, so that offbeat oddness drew my curiosity.Overall, the show felt a bit voyeuristic - I felt that I was peering in on the personal lives of some odd show-biz people. The grainy, old film clips of them just added to that imagery. There were ultimately 3 of them (a young fellow later joined them) and their lives were centered around entertaining, caring for their exotic cats and living with each other.Besides the feeling of voyeurism, I'm not sure what I ultimately got out of the show - besides the obvious idea that dealing with wild cats is dangerous ... and that the ménage à trois lifestyle was alive and well with these people. It was interesting, but felt a little too long (too many unnecessary details) for the story that they were telling.

Texshan I happened to catch this documentary this morning while I was getting ready to go to work. The archival footage isn't of the greatest quality, but as most of it is home movies, that's to be expected. I love cats of all sizes, so I really enjoyed seeing the video of the cats performing as well as hanging out at home.As anyone watching this will figure out long before the end, two of the three main characters in this documentary are no longer with us. That leaves just one to tell their story. It's interesting, but I found myself so distracted by Mr. Holiday's hair and plastic surgery that I couldn't really pay attention to what he was saying some of the time.The main problem I had with this documentary isn't its style or quality -- it is the actions of Mr. Holiday. At the end, a screen card comes up saying that the place where he boarded his last two tigers evicted everyone, so rather than turn them over to a refuge or investigate other boarding places, he had them put to sleep. These were older animals, yes, but they appeared to be in good health. After listening to Holiday talk for an hour about how much he supposedly loved the cats, I found it horrible that he chose this option for them. Animals should never be put to sleep unless they are a danger to others or are very sick. That wasn't the case with these two. I found it jarring and unexplainable, and immediately lost any sympathy I might have felt for Holiday.