Jaffilms/Paramount. Director Robert Benton; Producer Stanley R. Jaffe; Screenplay David Newman, Robert Benton; Camera Gordon Willis; Editor Ralph Rosenblum, Ron Kalish; Music Harvey Schmidt; Art Director Paul Sylbert
Jeff Bridges
Barry Brown
Jim Davis
David Huddleston
John Savage
Jerry Houser
Bad Company is an excellent film which combines wry humor and gritty action with in-depth characterizations of two youths on the lam in the Civil War west. The production is generally sensitive in its treatment, though pockmarked with some incongruous 'fun-and-poetic' type violence unworthy of the otherwise quality story-telling. Robert Benton, who co-wrote the fine original script, makes a noteworthy directorial debut.
It's an intriguing story of the maturing-under-fire of Barry Brown, a midwest draft dodger but otherwise of 'good' stock, who gradually develops the educated, pragmatic survival instinct necessary in the old west. In this he is influenced primarily by Jeff Bridges, a more primitive con-artist character who knows the ropes of street-fighting and finagling.
Among the many highlights of the film is an outstanding performance by Brown.
(Color) Available on VHS. Extract of a review from 1972. Running time: 91 MIN.
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