Posted: Fri., Dec. 31, 1971, 11:00pm PT

Prime Cut

By Variety Staff

Cinema Center. Director Michael Ritchie; Producer Joe W izan; Screenplay Robert Dillon; Camera Gene Polito; Editor Carl Pingitore; Music Lalo Schifrin; Art Director Bill Malley

Lee Marvin Gene Hackman Angel Tompkins Gregory Walcott Sissy Spacek Janit Baldwin

Prime Cut is another contemporary underworld bloodletting, which is drawn, quartered and ground according to an overused recipe for hash. Lee Marvin and Gene Hackman provide the dressing along with the scenery of Calgary.

Writer Robert Dillon sends collection-agent Marvin to Eddie Egan, a Chi gangster who no longer is getting his cut from Hackman, a Kansas cattle king who also deals in dope and girls, among whom are Sissy Spacek and Janit Baldwin.

Director Michael Ritchie moves the pawns about inventively and with sterile precision.

There are no serious dramatic demands made of the players. Marvin and Hackman do this sort of thing all the time. Spacek and Baldwin look good in their feature debut and Gregory Walcott is most effective as a supersadist.

(Color) Widescreen. Available on VHS. Extract of a review from 1972. Running time: 86 MIN.