EPiSODE 82.

How do you solve the aesthetic-philosophical problem of Michael Ritchie, the not-quite-auteur/not-quite-journeyman director of satirical social comedies like The Candidate and Smile and such eccentric comedy classics as The Bad News Bears and Fletch? Christopher Funderburg and John Cribbs decided to go at it the hard way by diving into Prime Cut, Ritchie's sort-of second feature (it debuted a day before The Candidate) and hands-down weirdest and nastiest movie.

What on the page seems like an easy grand slam - a 70's crime thriller that pits an M76-packing Lee Marvin against Gene Hackman under the vast and gorgeous Kansas sky - is in practice more an outlandish curio with its scenes of mob rivals fed through a slaughterhouse, young naked women auctioned in pens like cattle and extended set piece featuring Marvin and rookie star Sissy Spacek running from a deadly combine harvester that threatens to harvest them. Is it a case of Ritchie tripping himself up, finding his sensibilities as a filmmaker at odds with the gritty material, or is there more to it than that? Join us in appreciating the clear merits and murkier demerits of this bizarre tale of meat and machine guns.

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