O Pecado de um Xerife

I happened upon the film on French television. It was very well done. Gregory Peck gave a wonderful performance. The changes in his character and his anguish were felt. I was impressed that in 1970 there was a nude bedroom scene. I did compare it to Damage with Jeremy Irons and what they visibly display nowadays. G.P. and Tuesday Weld did a great job without that display. Ralph Meeker was a charmer as always. It does not require an R rating. The incest was suggested in a subtle fashion. Albeit an eerie moment. The photography was very interesting. I am not a Johnny Cash fan but his music was fitting. Loved the film. Azignon

Underrated, overlooked gem from director John Frankenheimer has Gregory Peck in fine form playing Tennessee sheriff and family man in a depressed hillbilly town falling for Tuesday Weld, the comely daughter of a moonshiner. The sheriff, torn by sexual longing and responsibilities--and throwing all morality out of his path--strikes a subtle arrangement with the mountain clan to continue seeing their daughter if they keep their business under-wraps...but is this girl just stringing the lawman along? Frankenheimer bookends the film with a collage of sorrowful faces (scored with music by Johnny Cash) and the effect is a bit pretentious (it seems like a put-on); however, the director's dramatic compositions (helped immeasurably by David M. Walsh's superlative cinematography) overcome this arty overreaching and actually take on some meaning. Alvin Sargent's screenplay, adapted from Madison Jones' book "An Exile", is literate and engrossing, and the obtrusiveness of that stilted opening (as well as Cash's songs, pushed too far out in front) can easily be forgiven. Sexual obsession wears surprisingly well on Gregory Peck, and when he asks Weld to run away with him, you believe it. Both performers are terrific (even Peck's arched eyebrow and granite jaw work well for him here) and the supporting cast is equally solid. Atmospheric and charged with emotion. *** from ****

Gregory Peck is rather strangely cast as the sheriff of a small Tennessee town who obviously never saw Tuesday Weld in 'Pretty Poison' or he would have given a wide berth indeed to her as the big screen's latest middle aged-man (Emil Jannings, Hugo Haas, Jimmy Stewart in 'Vertigo') to come a cropper through his infatuation with an enticing young blonde.

Well acted (including flavourful contributions from a touching Estelle Parsons and and a malevolent young Charles Durning) and enhanced by excellent photography and a vivid sense of locale, "The picture I made", Peck later lamented, "was a much better picture than the one that showed up on the screen", as it was insensitively recut after it previewed badly; with the Johnny Cash songs added in the process, presumably to evoke memories of 'Bonnie and Clyde' and 'The Graduate'.

The subject of small town boredom and emotional unrest; Gregory Peck portrays the sheriff in a small rural Tennessee town. He has a mid-life crisis(before it was fashionable to call it that).

Estelle Parsons is the long-suffering wife, and Tuesday Weld the femme fatal. There is also a part with Charles Durning, as a racist small- minded police officer, who feels his job is to run everyone out of town who is not a "good church-going man". Some of the dialog and themes explored in this movie are interesting, and if one has ever traveled to this part of the country, there are still small towns a bit similar to this, even though they may now have a Wal-Mart 100 miles away.

Gregory Peck's performance is excellent, though his involvement with a penniless moonshiner's daughter is a bit hard to swallow. You will enjoy the cinematography, and a depiction of American life which does still exist. This film is not as extreme as "Deliverance" but if you drive along Route 26 through North Carolina and Tennessee mountains, you will still see people living without heat, with plastic on their windows to keep out the cold.

This is a very good film. Tuesday Weld and Gregory Peck give great performances. Never has Peck's 'stiff' style of acting been better suited for a role. He is wound so tight in this part it seems like he will explode any minute. His eyes and silent desperate yearning when he is looking at the truly beautiful Weld tell's the desperate needs of the man he portrays. Any man above forty will feel his pain and desire...and many his ultimate heartbreak. The original sound track by Johnny Cash is pitch perfect. The last scene of the film is truly remarkable and heartbreaking although it can be seen coming from the opening credits. This maybe Peck's most under-rated performance and Tuesday weld's best.