Prime Cut

3/20/2015

Want to talk about a movie that broke the mould when it was made? Let’s talk about Prime Cut. Starring Lee Marvin, Gene Hackman and Sissy Spacek, this 1972 film is eighty-eight minutes of pulp weirdness – part exploitation flick, part brutal, hard-boiled, crime story. Prime Cut was directed by Michael Ritchie, who did no other work of any consequence (with the possible exception of The Candidate, also made in 1972), and written by another relative unknown, Robert Dillon. Marvin plays Nick Devlin, a tough as nails enforcer who is hired to go to Kansas City and retrieve half a million dollars owed to the Chicago mob by a slaughterhouse Kingpin called Mary Ann (Hackman). Driving all night, Devlin and his men arrive at Mary Ann’s ranch in the middle of a livestock auction. The slaughterho

7/11/2020

Beefy Burgers and Meat Market Malarkey. Prime Cut is directed by Michael Ritchie and written by Robert Dillon. It stars Lee Marvin, Gene Hackman, Sissy Spacek, Angel Tompkins, Gregory Walcott and Janit Baldwin. Music is by Lalo Schifrin and cinematography by Gene Polito. A vicious Kansas City slaughterhouse owner (Hackman) and his hick family are having a bloody war with a Chicago crime syndicate over profits from their joint illegal operations. Chicago heads decide to send top enforcer Nick Devlin (Marvin) to straighten things out. 1972 was something of a tricky year for Lee Marvin, he had made "Pocket Money" with Paul Newman, which was a mess of a film and subsequently failed across the board. He then made "Prime Cut", a film so offbeat and tonally all over the place it still t