Prime Cut

So 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.

What 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.

Prime Cut (1972)

*** (out of 4)

Fun crime picture has a Chicago enforcer (Lee Marvin) heading to Kansas City where an evil cattle baron (Gene Hackman) owes the big boys some money but he doesn't plan on cutting them in on his business. PRIME CUT is a film that not too many people know, which is pretty surprising when you consider how popular these type of crime films are. Not to mention the film is probably the only one in history to feature three Oscar winners as well as a man who appeared in PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE. Overall director Michael Ritchie does a very good job at keeping the picture running very smoothly and while the picture certainly has some flaws, it's still a highly entertaining and at times sleazy picture. One of the highlights come early on when Marvin and his men show up at a "cattle" auction only to discover that Hackman has a major business of selling off women. The women, all in cages like cattle, serve up quite the image. The film also manages to have some great violence, although none of it really goes over-the-top or gets too graphic. There's a terrific sequence during a fair as well as another in a sunflower field. I'm not going to ruin either sequences but they contain some nice suspense. Of course, one of the greatest aspects is the terrific cast. While each cast member has been better in other movies, there's no doubt that it's still very fun to see them all together. Marvin and Hackman really appear to be having fun in their roles and we also get Angel Tompkins in a brief role as the woman who was with both of them. Sissy Spacek appears in a pretty thankless role but it's still fun seeing her. Gregory Walcott, a veteran of Edward D. Wood, Jr., appears as one of the major bad guys. As I said, there are certainly some flaws including the entire relationship between Marvin and Spacek but fans of 70's crime pictures will still want to check this out.

An 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.

Days 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.