Amazing movie - one of the very best!!!

inframan

I cannot understand why this film has been so totally ignored by everyone - fans, critics, the French, you name it. For starters, it has an opening shot that is at least equal & in many ways superior to the opening of Touch of Evil. It alone is worth the price of the video & it will take several viewings to realize what you're watching: i.e. not a pastiche of an industrial film, but rather a key element in the plot. The problem is, much is lost in the stupid reformatting for video. & so much else about this work is so phenomenal: the cornfed milkdrinking killers, the country fair, the chase scene in the endless sea of wheat, the farm machine (a combine, I believe) that gobbles up the big black caddie & above all...Gene Hackman as "Mary Ann" who "eats guts" as Lee Marvin so succinctly puts it. The livestock show is quite a number, too. This was the peak of the last gasp of the golden age of film: 1972. They don't get better than this. This movie deserves to be totally restored & rereleased on DVD. Meanwhile, the VHS is better than nothing. Go For It!!!

score 10/10

inframan 21 July 1999

Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw0125691/