McCabe & Mrs. Miller

If a man is fool enough to get into business with a woman, she ain't going to think much of him. McCabe and Mrs Miller is directed by Robert Altman and Altman co-adapts the screenplay with Brian McKay. It's adapted from the novel McCabe written by Edmund Naughton. It stars Warren Beatty, Julie Christie, John Schuck, Keith Carradine, Rene Auberjonois and Bert Remson. Music is by Leonard Cohen and cinematography by Vilmos Zsigmond. A gambler and a prostitute become business partners in the remote mining town of Presbyterian Church, as their enterprise booms it comes to the attention of a large…

***Dreary, realistic Western about a brothel in a remote town in the Great Northwest*** A gambling businessman (Warren Beatty) rides into a secluded town near Puget Sound, Washington, and starts a house of ill repute with a professional madam (Julie Christie). When he arrogantly refuses the offers of a major corporation to buy him out, they send grim men to take care of the situation. Being a Robert Altman picture, “McCabe & Mrs. Miller” (1971) isn’t your typical Western, although the gunfight in the third act is reminiscent of “High Noon” (1952). The topic is unsavory, reveling in the ugly…

The elements that are most initially striking about this drama are the cold and the filth. The photography really does immerse us in the grubbiness of the existence of these gold-miners living in squalor and drunken lawlessness amidst the snowy mountains of the American north west. It is to one such hamlet that the ambitious gambler and erstwhile gunman “McCabe” (Warren Beatty) travels full of ideas to “civilise” these folks whilst making a few bucks for himself. He hasn’t much of a clue, really, but that might change upon the arrival of the savvy madam “Mrs. Miller” (Julie Christie) who has…