Feature Film | Western | USA | English | 1h47m
Dir: David Miller | Scr: Dalton Trumbo | Novel: Edward Abbey | Ph: Philip Lathrop | Prod: Edward Lewis | Mus: Jerry Goldsmith | Ed: Leon Barsha | AD: Alexander Golitzen & Robert Smith | Cast: Kirk Douglas, Gena Rowlands, Walter Matthau, Michael Kane, Carroll O'Connor, William Schallert, George Kennedy
An out-of-his-time cowboy deliberately starts a (hugely entertaining) barroom brawl and assaults a police officer in order to get sent to gaol, from where he intends to break out his recently incarcerated writer friend. However, when said scribe proves reluctant to risk his family's future, he sets off for the Mexican border alone on horseback, closely followed by the jeep-driving local sheriff and his deputies, in Miller’s absorbingly fatalistic, though surprisingly humorous, modern western. Douglas, in the central role, and Matthau, as the dry-witted sheriff, both excel in a generally very well-crafted film.
