I saw this for the first time recently. Got pulled into seeing this only cos of Marvin n Hackman.
The film is not ur regular gangster or hitman film. It has a different vibe to it. Both the actors gave memorable performances. Hackman's character is despicable wheras Marvin's character is a case study in professionalism.
The field chase sequence is noteworthy n the film has a western style showdown.
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Hey_Sweden15 January 2014An interesting item on the resume of Michael Ritchie, the late director whose other credits include "Downhill Racer", "The Candidate", and "Fletch", the fast-paced and tongue-in-cheek crime drama "Prime Cut" succeeds at being an amusing piece of work. It's just sleazy and off kilter enough to make it a good if not memorable entertainment. It's well worth viewing for fans of the cast, establishing its tone early on when the mob in Chicago learn of the fate of one of their hired guns. Ritchie mines the rural settings for lots of atmosphere and uses the 2.35:1 aspect ratio to his advantage. There are also some real highlights in terms of action: a chase and a climactic shootout, both of which happen in fields. Enhancing all of it is a wonderful score by Lalo Schifrin.
Star Lee Marvin doesn't exactly have to stretch himself here, exuding that trademark cool as Nick Devlin, a mob enforcer assigned the task of collecting a debt from a Kansas rancher, played by Gene Hackman. (Another indication of this movie's tone is the fact that Hackman's character has a female name, Mary Ann!) Mary Ann doesn't want to pay his debt because he has no respect for the Chicago mafia. So Nick and a few others travel to Kansas City to pay Mary Ann a visit. Naturally, Mary Ann makes full use of his slaughterhouse, turning all of his enemies into cuts of meat! Nick also learns that his quarry is depraved enough to sell young girls as sex slaves, and rescues one of these girls, Poppy, played by the endearing Sissy Spacek.
Hackman's performance is great fun, and also appearing on screen are the delectable Angel Tompkins as Nick's former flame Clarabelle, Gregory Walcott as Mary Ann's thuggish brother "Weenie", Janit Baldwin as Poppy's friend Violet, and legendary police officer Eddie Egan as mob boss Jake. They all make this movie a pleasing diversion, one that, as previously mentioned, injects some trashy elements but never dwells too much on the darkness in the story. The big confrontation at the end is very moody and well done overall, and there's a satisfying wrap-up at the end.
Seven out of 10. -
ElMaruecan823 September 2013Days have been so hot lately I had to keep the air conditioner on all the night to prevent the room from turning into a human furnace. The trouble is that the machine is quite noisy and I had to reduce the volume on TV to let my wife sleep. Now, where am I going with these pointless details? I'm telling you.
Yesterday I had the unpleasant discovery that the subtitles option didn't work on my "Prime Cut" DVD, so I could hardly hear what was said between characters. And the oddest thing is that it didn't undermine my understanding, let alone my enjoyment, not at all. Now I can see why Roger Ebert compared Michael Ritchie's movie to a comic strip: it's a movie defined by actions, reactions and interactions rather than a complex and intelligible plot, and in fact, what the film could afford was precisely what it needed.
However, I doubt such a film can be possibly made today, when high-budgets and all-star casts became the new standard. Now, viewers need their minds to be blown and eyes stunned by the unusual, the stuff that elevates them, for 100 minutes, above their ordinariness and "Prime Cut" doesn't have such ambitious purposes. But it works for one simple reason: it's a film that knows where it goes, and trusts the presence of two great actors: Lee Marvin and Gene Hackman, with a honorable mention for Sissy Spacek, in her first and much promising film debut.
These are faces that can do without wisecracks or clever one-liners, when you see them; you know exactly what role they're assigned to. Marvin is the experienced and bad-ass debt collector, Hackman is the charismatic corrupt cattle owner and slaughterhouse operator and Spacek is the innocent fair-haired victim. Marvin has the obligatory macho magnetism, Hackman that lively sparkle that makes him even more likable than his enemy and Spacek, as usual, magnificently conveys the poignant fragility of the poor rural girl, victim of unfortunate circumstances.
And when these personality traits are all set-up, we confidently follow the action, trusting the actors' capacity to transcend the limits of these two-dimensional archetypes and provide great entertainment. But faces aren't sometimes enough and the director enriches a rather rudimentary narrative with a unique touch: the setting. Marvin belongs to the Chicago mob, but it's in Hackman's territory that the job must be done, in Arkansas. And don't be fooled by its bucolic appeal, the film hides an even dirtier business than anything you could find in the city.
Indeed, the film doesn't feature drug dealers, no pimps, no ethnic gangsters, no screeching police sirens, no cats crawling under trash cans, the bad guys are all typically wasp with hair as blonde as the wheat fields their monotonous lives have always basked in. This is the underrated Mid-West, America's wheat-belt that gives the film an unlikely escapist value, almost Western-like, à la Sam Peckinpah with Lee Marvin replacing Steve McQueen or Warren Oates. And on the violence department, the film has nothing to envy from 'Bloody Sam' work.
Danger is always present "naturally" starting with the impressive depiction of the slaughterhouse during the opening credits, when we follow the poor cows lead by the machinery that will turn them into steaks. I strongly suspect that among the millions of people who saw the film since its release, a few of them were converted to vegetarianism after witnessing the macabre spectacle. The credits ends with an intriguing oddity reminding us that it's still a gangster film: a shoe accidentally falls down from the sausage-maker. We get the point, whoever operates the slaughter house (it turns out to be Hackman) his enemies might end up sleeping with the cows.
And this is not even the most shocking aspect of the plot that seems like a breath of fresh air, from the boring perspective of our prudish political correct days. In fact, the notion of meat and flesh is so ambiguous that even the titles "Prime Cut" carries some disturbing undertones. And the surprise comes less from the revelation than its graphic depiction: poor naked girls being held in cattle pens and auctioned to avid rich men. Please, think about it twice before branding it as 'misogynistic': no film today would dare such sights, but aren't they metaphorically significant?
Isn't the only difference between that human slavery and what goes today contentment? Aren't girls eager today to be posing as fresh meats for greedy voyeurs, except that movies and social networks replaced the cattle pens? There's a thin line between forced and deliberate prostitution the film clearly exposes. It's made even more explicit through the fourth memorable character of the film: Angel Tompkins as Hackman's luscious wife, so amorally seductive that the word 'gold-digger' becomes a euphemism that doesn't fool anyone. It's for such gutsy moves like that that I will forever cherish the "New Hollywood" period when the humblest action-packed flicks weren't to be underestimated.
And "Prime Cut" flirts with subversive subjects through little glimpses, but it knows we needn't to be too preached about, and action must prevail. And for the thrills, the film provides an unforgettable wheat-field chase where hand-in-hand Marvin and Spacek escape from a combine harvester. And despite their predictable outcome, the gunfights and final shootouts are not without surprises. Michael Ritchie also directed "The Candidate" the same year, a film I enjoyed but wished it dug a bit deeper in its subject, but for "Prime Cut", packed-up in less than ninety minutes, it was enough.
So I would cheerfully compare "Prime Cut" to its defining element: meat. I enjoyed the film the way I enjoy a good steak: raw, with some tender sides, others 'harder-to-swallow", bloody the way it should, and not too overcooked. And when the plate is empty and you think you want more, a few minutes later, you realize you were plenty satisfied. -
alicecbr3 January 2000So what if 'Dog Day', made a decade later, repeats the threshing machine chase. It only underscores the success of the original, in which the 'teeth' of the threshing machine seem almost human. Watching them grind up the limo makes you feel almost sorry for the car. There are other scenes and themes I doubt that you will ever see in another movie: the packing house expose of what that meat you eat really goes through as it goes from the moo-cow to the sausage, for one. At least we don't see the guy actually made into the sausage the brother keeps eating!!
Hackman plays his evil best as an all-American who 'gives the public what they want' from meat to dope to virgins raised in an orphanage quite unlike the one in 'Cider House Rules'. Sissy Spacek does a good job in her first onscreen role, but come on!!! No one could be so stupid as to be unaware that they are wearing a completely transparent gown!! A few other holes in the film exist, but it is certainly a unique experience. -
damianphelps21 October 2020I am watching this nearly 50 years after its release so perhaps back in the day it was a bit different. I started watching and it seemed a bit simple, almost quaint, with some good ole boys doing their thing, the next thing we have a bunch of sex slaves basically being bred at a ranch...WTF!
It came out of nowhere...
Beyond that it is really a simple tale of attack and counter attack between the baddie we like and the baddie we don't like.
If Marvin played this movie any more cool he'd be a penguin!
Good movie :) -
mdewey29 November 2006Mr. Marvin is his usual cut-to-the-chase, laconic bad guy in a so-so film with a minimal plot line and lots of action sequences. The fact that most of this melodrama is set somewhere in a Kansas farm region automatically makes this movie a bit different from others of this genre, rather than being filmed in the usual urban settings. Although this is a nice touch and the villains are also a bit different from what we are normally accustomed to, the movie tends to drag a little due in large part to the over emphasis on the visceral and under emphasis on plot and character development. Of course, this movie may have been intended to be shown in this manner, but I (a no-name part-time movie critic!) prefer more plot involvement, a la "Point Blank".
Great acting by the principals (Lee, Gene H., Sissy) helps redeem the film, especially a very young Sissy S. as one of Gene H.'s abducted sex slaves. But it's bad guy Lee doing a heroic turnabout by going on a rescue mission to save the "girls" from the really bad guy, Gene H., who already is in "Dutch" with Lee because of past transgressions.
At any rate, check it out and see for yourself: it's still fun! -
jzappa9 October 2009Prime Cut may feature charmingly gravelly Lee Marvin, always brilliant Gene Hackman and Sissy Spacek when she was young and pretty, and its plot may be a turn through an interesting alley in the gangster genre, but it is still essentially a cheesy action movie that settles everything interesting about the story with the same shootouts we've been watching since Edwin Porter dazzled us for 11 minutes in 1903. I like guys in suits from New York collecting debts as much as the next guy, just as said guy and I like guys from New York collecting debts from Confederate neanderthals, and movies from the 1970s right down to the score by Lalo Schifrin. Nonetheless, it is not very fair to be absorbed in a story like this only for director Michael Winner to sit comfortably half-facing us within the confines of auto-pilot genre conventions.
Marvin plays a two-dimensional mob enforcer from Chicago sent to Kansas to collect a debt from Hackman's intriguingly characterized meatpacking boss. Spacek debuts as a young orphan sold into prostitution. There are already scores of ways scores of writers and directors could make an instant classic out of this material. There are some fantastically effective scenes in particular, a great deal of which derive from the reason why this otherwise assembly-line dirty-ol'-basterd picture was regarded as notably risqué for its time. The opening credits sequence is a composition of cleverly discreet images depicting the beef slaughtering process, with a very discreet twist. There is a striking portrayal of sex slavery in a scene where Hackman partakes in the auctioning of young women. There is a noted chase scene involving a combine in an open field.
There are also fast-sketch expository scenes like one with Hackman and the character Weenie, his brother and right-hand man, where their day-to-day dialogue is interrupted by their sudden urge to rassle, Hackman's accountants making an effort to remain furniture no matter where the fight leads. Marvin's boss in Chicago gives him some back-up muscle in the form of a driver whose life he once saved and three other younger members of the Irish mob. There is a style here that seems to have influenced the chic male-centric palette of Guy Ritchie's thug films. There is a brief scene where one of these baby-faced enforcers makes Marvin meet his mother as they leave Chicago. It is a swift, omniscient and interesting little inference of this character before he becomes another pop-up board for the various sundry bullets he will be obligated to exchange with other pop-up men.
A shootout never hurt a great movie, and not too many good ones. But this is one that could have been one of them had it not jumped to the guns so hastily without taking a stab at working out the thematic dilemmas first. The first inclinations when dealing with such a premise would be the themes of man and nature, culture clash, North and South, and other elements that could say a lot about the dual nature leading to opposing means of taking on the same criminal enterprises. Instead, it's simply Marvin the good guy and Hackman the bad guy, and they slice through their respective thickets of underlings until they come face to face, only then addressing the superiority of man over beast with a stunning irony I can only hope was intentional. But I don't think so. -
stevetseitz15 July 2002I sought out this gem of a film after being impressed by "Point Blank". Lee Marvin exudes the kind of toughness that most modern day actors can't equal. Only Eastwood comes close. This is a raw, gritty and entertaining revenge/mob picture. Gene Hackman plays the heavy, but who is heavier than Lee Marvin? You just don't want to mess with him. I think this is one of Sissy Spacek's first appearances. Look at most modern "action" movies. There is a cookie-cutter formula. They try to be all things to all people. I call it the "Bruckheimer Effect" You have to force the "hip" humor for those with attention-span problems. You have to include a romantic interest/sex-sysmbol for the girlfriends and the drooling twelve-year-olds. You have to tie it all in with large explosions and car chases. Are you as bored as I am of these films? Watch "Prime Cut" and you won't see the extra grisle and fat of a modern hollywood action film . You will see a U.S.D.A. Choice kick ass movie.
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angelsunchained12 August 2020Sadistic gangster flick which is brutal and demented just to get the audience to buy tickets. Middle-aged Lee Marvin is a psycho killer with a heart of gold. Women half his age find him irresistible, but he is too busy killing to notice. Basic theme is City Mob goes up against Country Boys gone berserk.
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paul2001sw-15 December 2005Two legendary Hollywood hard men, Lee Marvin and Gene Hackman, go head-to-head in this interesting thriller from director Michael Ritchie. Hackmann can act, Marvin just plays his stock character, but it's actually the latter to exudes more charisma, although the script is on his side: this is very much a Lee Marvin vehicle, structured not unlike 'Point Blank'. But that film had a distinctive, alienating air and ultimately showed clearly that its hero was no different, no better, to those he was pursuing. In 'Prime Cut', however, the villains of piece are (more typically, and more disappointingly) shown to be so depraved that Marvin is justified in sub-machining them down. Moreover, the sub-plot that explains this, their involvement in the trafficking of women to the sex trade, is presented in such a way as to seem sexist in itself. In other ways too the film appears dated: the editing is stuck somewhere between naturalistic and slick (not quite feeling like either), and the undeniably effective soundtrack is also horrid. What's more interesting is the setting: the story takes place in rural Missouri, but this is not America the beautiful. Instead, its the land of agribusiness and as such portrayed with an element of truth: although Ritchie does appear caught between emphasising its differences from the city, and its similarities.
'Point Blank' was a film ahead of its time in terms of style and tone. 'Prime Cut' is more like a typical thriller from the early 1970s. But either way, they don't make men like Marvin any more. -
ashleyallinson7 June 2005Here we have Gene Hackman as the head of the Kansas City mafia. Leaving the city behind, Hackman makes his money on pork and prostitution.
We quickly find out that Hackman is indebted to the Chicago mob for 500 large. They send one of their hoods down there to collect, but Hackman literally turns him into hotdog meat and mails the "franks" back to Chicago.
Ready to play hardball, the Chicago mob retort by sending Lee Marvin down there to take out the trash, saving a young Sissy Spacek along the way. The ruckus that ensues is worth the price of the DVD alone, or at least a rental. -
JoeytheBrit30 September 2011What a bonkers movie this is: gangsters turned into sausages, naked teenage virgins sold at cattle markets, a hard man called Mary Ann, car-eating combine harvesters, sausage-wielding hit-men - this one's got them all. It's also got Lee Marvin acting very cool as a dapper fixer for the Irish mob in Chicago who's dispatched to the mid-west to secure payment from a defaulting Gene Hackman who literally turned their last enforcer into sausage-meat. This one has a real 70s feel to it even though it's not generally recognised as a classic - which, of course, it isn't: character development is zero and the bad guys are like something out of a 1940's comic strip. Despite that, it's great fun - and Sissy Spacek, who isn't generally regarded as a classic beauty, looks gorgeous.
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bensonmum25 July 2006The best thing about Prime Cut is the chance to see both Lee Marvin and Gene Hackman. Marvin is the understated bad-ass we've seen before and Gene Hackman is the greasy bad guy we've seen before. If you like these two in familiar roles that don't require them to stretch their acting abilities, Prime Cut is for you. There are some good action sequences (especially the scene in the wheat field), but it's the two stars that make this one worthwhile. The plot certainly isn't the attraction. In fact, the plot is the weakest part of the movie. Why? Because there is no plot. Instead, Prime Cut is a series of action sequences strung together with a bare minimum of story. When the movie ended, I had more questions than when it began. What's the history between Marvin and Hackman? What is the relationship between Marvin and Hackman's wife? Does anyone in the movie have a backstory? Are the Kansas City area police completely oblivious to everything going on around them? Was that just some random fat guy on the combine trying to kill Marvin? Do people in Kansas City really wear overalls with no shirt or shoes? It's these burning questions that I wanted answers to.
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jbarnett769 August 2004It helps if you are a big Lee Marvin fan to enjoy this movie - but even if you're not especially, there's still enough in here to raise it above run-of-the-mill.
The cinematography is first-rate; lots of use of natural light and dingy locations of the city contrasted with the golden Kansas sunshine. Both Marvin and Gene Hackman are terrific and each exude good screen presence as gangsters at odds with each other, culminating in the shoot-out in the sunflower field and cattle house.
The film is slightly let down by the sentimental and unnecessary last scene at the orphanage, which feels grafted on, although the very final shot of the children running into the countryside hints at some kind of hope for the future (post Vietnam), not least between Nick Devlin (Marvin) and his new girl Sissy Spacek.
Worth watching -
On paper. Falls short in reality. Well short.
Hackman, Marvin and co are mobsters involved in a spat over money.
Let the shooting, beating and butchering begin. Throw in human trafficking for good measure.
All this set in rural America and Marvin's car.
Acting, directing and action are passable. Chase in the fields and homicidal harvester are memorable. Should be a good movie but it never really is. Just off somehow.
These guys have done better work so they can be forgiven. Spacek will help you make it a full pardon .
Any and every criticism just died at the first sight of her. Beautiful doesn't even begin to cover it. The woman is walking around naked but you would have to first get your eyes off that face to notice. Hypnotic. Makes an otherwise miss, a must see. Will watch this again for her alone.
Still radiant in her sixties. Sadly they don't make them like her any more.
Wish them well.
Thank you. -
KyleFurr223 September 2005It's hard to believe that Michael Ritchie directed this movie the same year he directed The Candidate. The movie starts out in Chicago with Lee Marvin as a top hit-man who is sent down to Kansas City to get $500,000 from Gene Hackman. Hackman's character is named Mary Ann and he left Chicago so he could be top man in Kansas. Hackman runs his business with his brother and they killed the guys who were sent to collect the money before Marvin was sent out. Sissy Spacek in her first movie, is a girl who was basically kidnapped and doped up and now used as a whore for Hackman. Marvin takes Spacek from Hackman and Hackman tries to kill Marvin. It's a pretty good movie and Gene Hackman is a great villain.
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poolandrews15 July 2007Prime Cut starts as Chicago mob boss Jake (Eddie Egan) hires 'problem solver' Nick Devlin (Lee Marvin) for 50k to go to Kanas City & recover the half a million dollars that cattle rancher Mary Ann (Gene Hackman) owes the mob, Nick accepts the job & Jake gives him three of his boy's to go with him. Once there Nick ask's Mary nicely to hand over the half a mil, Mary isn't keen on the idea so Nick has to use more convincing methods to make Mary part with the cash which in turn makes Mary use more convincing methods to make Nick realise he isn't going to hand it over. Cue lots of shooting & violence...
Directed by Michael Ritchie this is a pretty entertaining action thriller from the early 70's. The straight forward & somewhat predictable script by Robert Dillon moves along at a nice enough pace, it never bores or outstays it's welcome & it has a nice exploitative edge about it. From turning people into sausage's to Mary operating a prostitution racket where he sells teenage girls off to the highest bidder in a sleazy little unexpected sub-plot. The script doesn't seem to take itself too seriously either, from a shoe turning up on a sausage production line to a scene where a car is mashed up & spit out by a combine harvester! The character's are good although we never learn why Gene Hackman's character is called Mary & the dialogue is effective enough without resorting to constant obscenities. So what we have here is a nice sleazy little crime thriller with some decent action scenes, nudity & a sense of black humour along with Gene Hackman & Lee Marvin as heavies, what more do you want? Well, the action scenes are a bit short & as a whole while it's good the film is maybe a little forgettable, I enjoyed it for what it was but I doubt I'll remember much about it by the end of the week.
Director Ritchie does OK & the opening sequence in the abattoir as we follow the making of sausage's is one of the coolest openings ever & sets the tone of the film up right away. The shoot-outs at the local fête & a sun flower field are both well staged if a little short & uneventful. I think Prime Cut could have used a really good car chase, there's a scene at the end with a large truck but it's not really a chase. The violence isn't excessive although there's some full frontal nudity if that's your thing.
Technically the film is very good with impressive widescreen cinematography that capture the Kanas City farmland very well, it's an unusual setting for this type of film & it's a neat location. The strong cast includes Lee Marvin & Gene Hackman who are both class in this & a first appearance by Sissy Spacek who gets naked. Several times.
Prime Cut is an enjoyable action thriller with two great leading men having fun with machine guns, I liked it but despite the nice location & cool opening sequence it's a touch forgettable & it could have done with slightly stronger action scenes. -
Michael Ritchie's lurid--maybe vile is the better choice--gangster against gangster flick, Prime Cut is beyond description because, 30+ years after seeing it, I still don't know what kind of movie it was trying to be.
Let's see. We have a grizzled he-man, gentleman hit-man in Lee Marvin, a rapist-pillager with a woman's name in Gene Hackman, a Hackman brother who reminded me of the goons in the old Popeye cartoons, and a young woman who is so surreal in her beauty (Sissy Spacek) that there is no way she could have been brought up in an orphanage specifically to be sold as a sex slave.
There's meat-packing, milk-tasting, white-slaving, and the Cadillac Fleetwood getting eaten by a thresher. Don't forget the Irish mobsters, all loyalty and mother's love, Hackman sneering at Chicago being a rotten old sow looking for fresh cream (I kid you not), and that dinner with Marvin's Nick Devlin and Poppy (Spacek).
I might get an argument from some about the natural loveliness of a young Spacek. Those eyes could just burn holes through you. I don't know her life story, but I'm wondering if she, as a kid, would turn that look on, and she would get whatever she wanted.
In Prime Cut, for some reason, Ritchie puts Spacek--who knows nothing about proper, adult manners in a restaurant, or propriety in clothing choices, for that matter--in a nice, at-the-top-of-a-hotel eatery across from Marvin. He shows her which utensils to use and when. He gives her fatherly smiles of calming encouragement. He gives an I'm-going-to-kill-you look to a middle-aged man who is staring at Spacek. Her gown is see-through.
Now, don't get me wrong. For years this has been my favorite part of Prime Cut, the care and feeding of the iguana residing inside my old brain. But the more I think about it, using my upper primate- hairless ape brain, the more appalled I am at this scene.
Spacek is a victim of sexual slavery. She has been purchased by Marvin to save her. He dresses her, feeds her, reassures her, then parades her into a restaurant wearing something that covers only her lap. Marvin doesn't rape Spacek, but it's that feeling that he's showing off a fresh piece of meat to the world, that he has power and authority. Kind of like a "benign dictator."
If you can get your iguana to settle down, you may find that the restaurant scene ruins the movie.
I've found myself hating Prime Cut because of its almost- pornographic attention to throwing in anything and everything amoral just to get a rise out of the audience.
But Prime Cut is almost a traffic-accident in its ability to draw your attention. It's the rescue aspect of the story, mixed in with the good-bad guys sent to discipline the bad-bad guys tension, the weird names for Hackman and Gregory Walcott, the evil lure of seeing all those drugged, naked girls for sale in pens, Lee Marvin sent to do a job for Eddie Egan wearing white bucks, the way you'll never really feel comfortable eating wieners again, Spacek's innocent appreciation of Marvin's benevolence while you and the guy at the next table are staring at her nipples, the shooting of the fat guy in the combine, the masticulation of the Caddy, and that moment when I knew Prime Cut was beyond classification, when Marvin looks down in disgust at Hackman's plate at the girl sale.
He states/asks/accuses, "You eat guts."
I have weird dreams on a regular basis, nothing bad, just weird. I wake up rested but feeling a little disjointed, and sometimes the dreams are so vivid, it takes a moment for me to return to reality.
Prime Cut is like one of my dreams, only I have to go searching for it (on average, once every two to three years) instead of it coming to me.
And, as far as Sissy Spacek's nipples are concerned, why do you think I sleep on my side instead of on my back? -
tonstant viewer17 January 2007Director Michael Ritchie tore the innards out of the beauty contest culture with "Smile," competitive sports with "Downhill Racer" and politics with "The Candidate."
Here he does the same service for the Great American Crime Film. Robert Dillon's script is an extended Irish joke, a la John Huston ("The Treasure of Sierra Madre," "Beat the Devil," "The List of Adrian Messenger"). A plausible surface does not mean a realistic film.
Michael Ritchie takes iconic actors like Lee Marvin and Gene Hackman, who only have to be visible to make an effect. He puts in lots of destruction of property, and neo-Nazi blond bad boys falling by the score. There's shotguns and submachine guns and carnivorous farm equipment and 18-wheel trucks and all sorts of unlikely weapons. And the usual movie dichotomy of country good, city bad is stood on its head, with agriculture fairs and cornfields and sunflower fields as dangerous to life and limb as you could hope for (paging Alfred Hitchcock!).
There are complaints in some reviews here that the film is vulgar. It is, and it knows it is, and is not simple-minded about it at all. There are complaints that it is violent. It is, and the violence is deliberately exaggerated to remind you at all times that you are watching a movie. There are complaints that we never learn enough about the characters' previous lives. The film knows it, and systematically gives you just less than enough information. The idea is for you to use your imagination afterwards, rather than have the film hold you by the scruff of the neck and rub your nose in stuff that really doesn't matter except to tie things up with a bow.
What matters is not who the characters are, because they aren't. There are few real people here, and none of them are important to the story. It's in what the characters do, and what gets done back at them, and how does this reflect other movies, and the culture that produces movies like this in the first place? When you watch a hit-man with a heart of gold, a bad guy named Mary Ann who traffics in narcotics and prostitution, and learn more about the stockyards than you probably want to know, it's not because the filmmakers are stupid or incompetent. It's because they're deliberately trying to skew everything you see a little to one side and play around with your expectations.
Some people don't like the sensation of being thrown off balance. But if you think you might like it, by all means give this picture a try. It's funny. -
A tough crime thriller, styled like a western, bolstered by two hard man performances from the leads, some great action, and most importantly a simmering mood of heat and violence which you know is bound to erupt sooner or later. In PRIME CUT, we have a film where the atmosphere and look is more important than the plot, which is neither here nor there; a film which swaps the stony cities of THE FRENCH CONNECTION and DIRTY HARRY for dirty shoot-outs in bleached corn fields, wooden barns, and country fairs. Undoubtedly this is a flawed film, which doesn't offer a great deal of action and takes a little too much time dealing with the dialogue and extraneous characters instead of where the importance lies, but this matters not because there are some good scenes waiting to be enjoyed.
The standout moment for me is the corn field chase, in which Lee Marvin finds himself fleeing for his life with a young Sissy Spacek in tow as shotgun-wielding yokels move in for the kill. The ensuing battle with the combine harvester is classic, memorable stuff, as is the harvester's run in with the limousine which is surprisingly gripping stuff. A later moment in which a huge truck drives through a massive greenhouse is also similarly spectacular and portrayed with style. The various shoot-outs are also very exciting, as is the case with most '70s crime cinema, and one of the major reasons why the 1970s is still my favourite decade for film production.
As for the acting, most of the focus is on Lee Marvin and Gene Hackman, who vie for best performance and try to outdo each other all the time in terms of screen presence and power. Hackman has the edge, moving effortlessly from his honourable cop in THE FRENCH CONNECTION to a dirty, slightly psychotic villain, whilst Lee Marvin puts his typically gruff veteran hero stuff to good use in his charismatic performance as the lead. Most surprising of all is Sissy Spacek, looking young, beautiful and sexy (miles away from her creepy part in CARRIE) as an addict whose live is saved by Marvin and who subsequently falls in love with him. Also good value is Gregory Walcott as Hackman's demented brother (whose madness is encapsulated by a hilarious revelation at the climax), although Angel Tompkins' character of Clarabelle seems unnecessary and her scenes with Marvin slow the whole thing down. Not a classic movie, but offers plenty of entertainment for fans of hard boiled cinema. -
RodrigAndrisan15 October 2017Well, Sissy Spacek is very young and sweet (her first film). Gene Hackman, great talent but not great role here, he's like a negative character caricature. Lee Marvin, tough guy as usual, also does not have a great role (is the script's fault, which is not one of the best). But, as it is, not a great script, another director, like Sergio Leone for example, would have made something exceptional of it. Lalo Schifrin's music also is not one of his best. I love Sissy Spacek, Gene Hackman and Lee Marvin very very much, they are all three among my favorite actors ever but, I will not watch this one again, once it's enough.
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ferbs5410 September 2012Just a year after copping the 1971 Best Actor Oscar for his portrayal of one of the most dogged detectives in screen history--"Popeye" Doyle, in "The French Connection"--Gene Hackman was back in theaters playing a character very much on the other side of the law. In the woefully underrated "Prime Cut," which opened in June '72, Hackman played a dope-peddling, slave-trafficking gangster named (shades of Johnny Cash's "A Boy Named Sue") Mary Ann, who is also the legitimate operator of Mary Ann's Meats, a slaughterhouse and meatpacking plant outside Kansas City, Kansas. As the film opens, we see the inner workings of this factory, in a scene guaranteed to turn the stomachs of not only the audience's vegetarians, but possibly its carnivores, as well. The strange sight of a man's shoe on the assembly line is soon explained, as we learn that Chicago mob boss Jake (Eddie Egan) has just been sent a package of sausage made from the remains of a recent "enforcer" that he had sent to Mary Ann's place to collect $500,000 in owed monies; the third enforcer to wind up dead after being sent to the slaughterhouse. Thus, Jake has no choice but to resort to his old buddy Nick Devlin (supercool Lee Marvin), who, despite being semiretired, cannot resist the $50,000 fee to do this bit of dirty collecting. And so off Nick goes, accompanied by three young Irish toughs and a limo driver, and armed with a submachine gun, on the long drive from Chicago to KC. But when the team arrives at Mary Ann's compound, it finds not only a stubbornly defiant Mary Ann, but also stock pens filled with drugged and naked young women, ready to be sold to the highest bidders. And after rescuing the pretty Poppy (Sissy Spacek, in her film debut), Devlin must soon contend with Mary Ann, his brutish brother Weenie (Gregory Walcott), and all of Mary Ann's assorted rural henchmen....
Featuring some surprisingly gorgeous photography of the heartland countryside, unexpected bursts of strong violence, a witty script from Robert Dillon and three terrific performances by its three leads, "Prime Cut" turns out to be a real winner, indeed. The film boasts at least three action highlights: in the first, Nick and Poppy flee from Mary Ann's country goons through a county fair and into a camouflaging field of wheat; in the next, which comes immediately after this Hitchcockian sequence, the two must escape the razor-sharp blades of a fast-moving combine harvester; and in the third, brilliantly shot action scene, Nick and his men engage in a pitched gun battle with Mary Ann's gang in a field of gigantic sunflowers. This last is a particularly well-done sequence, preceded by a moody lightning storm; I love the way the camera follows behind Devlin as he makes his way through those garishly bright flower heads. As revealed in Spacek's new autobiography, "My Extraordinary Ordinary Life," the film was actually shot outside Calgary, Alberta, whose wide-open wheat fields certainly do a fine job of simulating Kansas. Spacek also reveals in her book that Marvin was very easy to work with--the two DO have a strangely effective chemistry on screen, despite the differences in their ages and personae--and that he warned her that, when he was drinking, if his green eyes ever turned blue, she should keep her distance from him...advice that she apparently respected! Spacek surprisingly appears topless in this, her first screen role, and indeed, this scene is not the film's only risqué moment; well do I recall the spread that "Playboy" magazine did on "Prime Cut" that month, showcasing all the many female slaves, naked and doped up in their pens.
Of course, much of the credit for this film's artistic success must be given to director Michael Ritchie. This was Ritchie's second theatrical film, after years of work on television programs and the Robert Redford vehicle "Downhill Racer" (also featuring Gene Hackman), and he would go on to helm such popular entertainments as "The Candidate" (with Redford again), "The Bad News Bears," "Semi-Tough" and "Fletch." Ritchie here demonstrates a sure hand not only with exciting action scenes, but with quieter, more personal moments as well, and is quite adept at moving that ol' camera around! Kudos also to famed Argentine composer Lalo Schifrin for his understated, moody score; Schifrin was responsible for a whopping 78 film scores during his great career, plus 12 for TV, including, of course, his most famous piece of music: the theme song for TV's "Mission: Impossible." Ultimately, however, it is Lee Marvin's effortless sangfroid that steals the show here; what a wonderfully tough performance from this Hollywood icon! Clocking in at 86 minutes, "Prime Cut" is a compact thrill ride that effectively showcases the talents of all concerned. See it, you must...but NOT, of course, while eating a hamburger or sausage sandwich.... -
The lurid Lee Marvin & Gene Hackman crime thriller "Prime Cut" wasn't the kind of lightweight entertainment that director Michael Ritchie specialized in during his Hollywood career. He made memorable comedies such as "The Candidate," "Downhill Racer," "The Bad News Bears," "Smile," and "Fletch." Ritchie was often far better than the material that he made, but "Prime Cut" qualified as quite a departure. "99 and 44/100% Dead" scenarist Robert Dillon penned this concise, 86-minute, Technicolor shoot'em up that featured Marvin as a mob troubleshooter who is chauffered to Kansas to collect a half-million dollar debut that Mary Ann (Gene Hackman of "The French Connection") owes to Chicago mob boss Jake (Eddie Egan of "The French Connection") but has no intention of paying off.
"Prime Cut" features some interesting R-rated nudity. Academy Award winning actress Sissy Spacek made her cinematic debut as Poppy, a young, clueless girl that Nick Devlin (Lee Marvin of "The Dirty Dozen") buys from Mary Ann. Mary Ann sells flesh and dope along with cattle. When Nick enters the barn on Mary Ann's premises, he sees men gathered around the livestock bins, but the bins don't contain livestock, naked chicks are sprawled in drug-induced hazes in the straw. Nick finds Mary Ann chowing down on a plate of guts when he inquires about the $500-thousand that he owes to Jake. Mary Ann has no intention of paying off his debt. In fact, he sees Chicago as a dying, old sow and believes that only the Heartland of Kansas provides the only salvation from the eastern big cities with their multicultural populations. Predictably, Mary Ann and his witless but violent brother Weenie (Gregory Walcott of "Thunderbolt & Lightfoot") clash with Nick and his henchmen. There is a cool scene when a harvester munches on a limo in a wheat field and an amusing scene in a Kansas City motel when Poppy dines out with Nick in a see-through gown that attracts the attention of other diners. Moreover, Ritchie offers a close-up shot of Spacek's breasts in the sheer, gauzy material.
Ritchie is an imaginative director and the first scene in the slaughterhouse as the livestock is being butchered is neat. Weenie takes over when the naked body of a man, one of Jake's henchmen, shows up on the conveyor belt. When all is said and done, Weenie has the dead mobster ground up into a string of frankfurters. Jake catches up with Nick in a Windy City bar and shows him the message that Mary Ann has sent him. Nick collects a crew and they hit the highway and cruise to Kansas City. Ritchie doesn't draw out "Prime Cut," so this crime melodrama never wears out its welcome. After the initial confrontation with Mary Ann at the barn, Nick shows up at a Mary Ann sponsored fair and the villainous Hackman refuses to ante up the necessary dough. Instead, he tries to have his shotgun-wielding farm boy bodyguards kill Nick. They manage to wound Nick's men and they abduct Poppy, so Nick arms himself with a grease gun, like the one that he used in "The Dirty Dozen" during the training sequences, and crashes an eighteen wheeler into Mary Ann's farm. A brief shoot-out ensues in a barn and the wounded Mary Ann becomes partial luncheon meat for a rowdy hog. The thing that makes Nick a sympathetic character is the act of rescuing Poppy and then at fade-out liberating the orphanage where Mary Ann had her held. -
thingading25 August 2005What a disappointment. Just because something is wacky doesn't mean it's good. I like how Lee Marvin is supposed to be such a good, wholesome guy by rescuing a woman and then pervert-stares at her while she dresses. And how a woman mistreated by men since she was a child suddenly completely feels comfortable and in love with an absolute stranger. The chase scene in the wheat field. Why is it that in one shot it looks like they are going to be chopped up, then in the next they appear to be a safe distance away, and then suddenly they are barely ahead of the combine again? What a joke. Finally, real creative ending. Please tell me, where in the world were all of these now "free" ladies going to go? I got it, just run them around in the field laughing and everything is going to be perfect. By the way, I thought they were all drugged up and hardly able to move? The "there's a difference between a beast and a man" line. Wow, that is just life-altering dialog there. Very, very average movie, if even that.