Prime Cut (1972)

70% of critics liked it
(10 reviews)
62% of users liked it
(1,854 ratings)

Michael Ritchie, better known for his gentle satires of American social institutions, enters Don Siegel territory in the unusual crime thriller Prime Cut. Lee Marvin is surly collection agent Nick Devlin, who is hired by Chicago racketeer Jake (Eddie Egan) to collect an overdue payment from Kansas… More Michael Ritchie, better known for his gentle satires of American social institutions, enters Don Siegel territory in the unusual crime thriller Prime Cut. Lee Marvin is surly collection agent Nick Devlin, who is hired by Chicago racketeer Jake (Eddie Egan) to collect an overdue payment from Kansas cattle baron Mary Ann (yes, Mary Ann!) (Gene Hackman). When Devlin travels west to get Jake's money from Mary Ann, he finds the cattle king mixed up in complex drug deals and pimping wild women -- two of which are Poppy and Violet (Sissy Spacek and Janit Baldwin -- both in their film debuts). ~ Paul Brenner, Rovi

Rating, Runtime: R, 1 hr. 26 min.
Directed By: Michael Ritchie
Written By: Robert Dillon
Genres: Drama, Action & Adventure, Mystery & Suspense, Classics

In Theaters: Jun 28, 1972 Wide
On DVD: Jun 14, 2005

Critic Reviews

Fernando F. Croce, CinePassion
Enchantingly perverse fairy-tale
Pablo Villaca, Cinema em Cena
A imbecilidade deste filme pode ser resumida pela ridícula cena de perseguição envolvendo uma ceifadeira. Não vale nem como curiosidade por ter marcado a estréia de Spacek no cinema.
Chuck O'Leary, FulvueDrive-in.com
A prime piece of machismo.
Christopher Null, Filmcritic.com
more watchable than it ought to be
David Nusair, Reel Film Reviews
...you really can't go wrong with a film that casts Gene Hackman as a sleazy villain named Mary Ann.
Steve Crum, Kansas City Kansan
Nasty stockyard mob tale filled with human link-sausages.
Dan Lybarger, Nitrate Online
Mesmerisingly tacky crime film about evildoing in a Midwester meat empire that could only have been made by people who never set foot in Kansas.

Read all 7 critic reviews

Critic ratings and reviews powered by RottenTomatoes.com

Fresh (60% or more critics rated the movie positively)

Rotten (59% or fewer critics rated the movie positively)

Featured Audience Ratings

Dean M

Sissy Spacek made her film debut in this sleazy but energetic crime thriller about big-times gangsters and the slaughterhouse they use to convert their enemies into sausage is a highly entertaining gangster film with co-stars Lee Marvin and Gene Hackman. Michael Ritchie takes iconic… More
Sissy Spacek made her film debut in this sleazy but energetic crime thriller about big-times gangsters and the slaughterhouse they use to convert their enemies into sausage is a highly entertaining gangster film with co-stars Lee Marvin and Gene Hackman. Michael Ritchie takes iconic actors like Marvin and Hackman, who only have to be visible to make an effect. He puts in lots of destruction of property, and neo-Nazi blond bad boys falling by the score. There's shotguns and submachine guns and carnivorous farm equipment and 18-wheel trucks and all sorts of unlikely weapons. And the usual movie dichotomy of country good, city bad is stood on its head, with agriculture fairs and cornfields and sunflower fields as dangerous to life and limb as you could hope for (paging Alfred Hitchcock!). And young Spacek looked so beautiful and hot in her nudity scenes. Whooo!
Curtis L

This movie made me kinda sick. Nothing like women being sold like meat to make you feel all good inside.
Walter M

[font=Century Gothic]In "Prime Cut", Mary Ann(Gene Hackman) hides his prostitute and drug operations behind his legitimate livestock business in rural Kansas. Since he owes the Chicago mob $500,000, they have sent three men out to have a quiet chat with him about it. The… More
[font=Century Gothic]In "Prime Cut", Mary Ann(Gene Hackman) hides his prostitute and drug operations behind his legitimate livestock business in rural Kansas. Since he owes the Chicago mob $500,000, they have sent three men out to have a quiet chat with him about it. The first two are killed and the third is shipped back in hot dog casings. Then, the mob decides to get serious and sends Nick Devlin(Lee Marvin) and friends to engage in more forceful discussions. While at Mary Ann's ranch, Devlin liberates one of his human "livestock", Poppy(Sissy Spacek, in her first prominent role), on the way out.[/font] [font=Century Gothic][/font] [font=Century Gothic]"Prime Cut" is an off-beat gangster movie(accentuated by the quirky Lalo Schiffrin score). It is fun in a violent way and there is some good action but the hinted back story for the characters only manages to confuse things.[/font] [font=Century Gothic][/font] [font=Century Gothic]The movie is about how human beings should not be treated like animals.(Note to animal rights activists: animals should not be treated like human beings.) There is a subtext here about the conflict between urban and rural areas.[/font]
Danny R

A Chicago mob enforcer Nick Devlin played in grand performance by Lee Marvin who is as always a charismatic and compulsively watchable screen presence, is sent to Kansas City to settle a debt with depraved cattle rancher named "Mary Ann" who owes the Chicago mob $500,000, he… More
A Chicago mob enforcer Nick Devlin played in grand performance by Lee Marvin who is as always a charismatic and compulsively watchable screen presence, is sent to Kansas City to settle a debt with depraved cattle rancher named "Mary Ann" who owes the Chicago mob $500,000, he is played by Gene Hackman who proves once again that he is master in playing larger-than-life-villains. Mary Ann is a serious kind of sadistic monster who not only grinds his enemies into sausages, but sells teenage naked girls drugged into passivity as sex slaves. One of the young girls is played by Sissy Spacek in her film debut, she is rescued by Devlin which enrages Mary Ann who is now out to kill Devlin. Excellent tongue-in-cheek crime melodrama, well-cast with a effective supporting performance by Gregory Walcott as a sadist named Weenie. Fine direction by Michael Ritchie and beautiful cinematography by Gene Polite. This movie rocks a great period the 70s, and pulls no punches in all the right places. A prime delight. Highly Recommended.