Cast overview, first billed only: | |||
Lee Marvin | ... | Nick Devlin | |
Gene Hackman | ... | Mary Ann | |
Angel Tompkins | ... | Clarabelle | |
Gregory Walcott | ... | Weenie | |
Sissy Spacek | ... | Poppy | |
Janit Baldwin | ... | Violet | |
Bill Morey | ... | Shay (as William Morey) | |
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Clint Ellison | ... | Delaney |
Howard Platt | ... | Shaughnessy | |
Les Lannom | ... | O'Brien | |
Eddie Egan | ... | Jake | |
Therese Reinsch | ... | Jake's Girl | |
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Bob Wilson | ... | Reaper Driver |
Gordon Signer | ... | Brockman | |
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Gladys Watson | ... | Milk Lady |
A Chicago mob enforcer is sent to Kansas City to settle a debt with a cattle rancher who not only grinds his enemies into sausage, but sells women as sex slaves. Written by Brian J. Wright <bjwright@acs.ucalgary.ca>
In the Fifties, in "Violent Saturday," he made a little name as the killer who kept using a nose spray while terrorizing Sylvia Sidney and a bank When Don Siegel made the second version of Hemingway's "The Killers," he was the cool, hard gunman who knew he was being paid to do the job and would definitely do it, come hell or high water
His "Prime Cut," is a study in professionalism Before that came "Point Blank," in which again he was the unstoppable force But watch him in "Prime Cut." Notice the care with which he handles the tools of his trade, the cavalry rifle which takes to pieces and is lovingly kept in a neat executive-style case
He is a "hit man," a torpedo who can be hired by the new breed of businessman-gangster Pressured into a job against his will, he is sent to Kansas City to enforce his employer's demands for payment from another gangster-type From then on, a trail of murder, malice and killing makes the screen run red If the baddies all come to sticky ends so does at least one innocent person, whom Marvin involves as in the case of the truck-driver whose vehicle he hijacks
"Prime Cut" is a tremendously exciting film, if one disregards its moral values At the end Marvin, the paid killer who keeps the weapons of his trade in velvet-lined cases, has destroyed all the other villains yet walks off into the sunset without a hint of retribution