Stacy Keach used to be a convict, then he was a convict. Now in the second decade of the 20th Century, he travels around with his portable electric chair, offering the latest in death sentences throughout the state. He takes what he does seriously, offering comfort to his clients, and passing on the wisdom he has learned in his profession. Business is good, and Bud Cort wants to learn what he does. Then he falls for one of his clients, Marianna Hill, and his life takes a nasty turn.
It's directed by Jack Smight, and you'd expect him to do a bang-up job with what is obviously a black comedy. There's a hole in the script, though: there's no one in the movie to be the audience's mediator, and so it becomes not a comedy, but philippic, a denouncing of capital punishment. Perhaps the hole isn't in the script, but the performances; everyone is serious about what's going on, particularly Keach. He gives a bang-up performance, but there's no sense of madness other than the society. It's scolding, rather than darkly funny.
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