Breakout (1975 film)

Breakout
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Tom Gries
Produced by	Robert Chartoff Irwin Winkler
Written by	Eliot Asinof (book) Elliott Baker
Starring	Charles Bronson Robert Duvall Jill Ireland
Music by	Jerry Goldsmith
Cinematography	Lucien Ballard
Edited by	Bud S. Isaacs
Distributed by	Columbia Pictures
Release date	May 22, 1975 (1975-05-22)
Running time	96 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Box office	$16,000,000

Breakout is a 1975 action film from Columbia Pictures starring Charles Bronson, Jill Ireland, Robert Duvall, John Huston, Sheree North and Randy Quaid. Bronson and Ireland, the lead actor and actress, were married in real life. The film is notable for giving the usually serious Bronson a more comedic, lighthearted role.

Harris Wagner (Huston) frames Jay Wagner (Duvall). In order to keep him silent, Jay is incarcerated in a Mexican prison.

Jay's wife Ann (Ireland) is unhappy at this turn of events and hires a Texas bush pilot in Brownsville, Texas, Nick Colton (Bronson) and his partner Hawk (Quaid), to fly into the prison and rescue her husband.

The first attempts don't work, so Colton quickly learns how to pilot a helicopter.

While Hawk and accomplice Myrna (North) feign a rape to distract the prison guards, Colton pilots a helicopter into the prison complex, Wagner boards the helicopter, and they escape. The group (Colton, Hawk, Myrna, Wagner) return to Texas in a four-passenger light aircraft.

Alerted to the escape, Harris Wagner orders his agent Cable (Mantee) to Texas to intercept the group. Cable, driving a Citroën SM with Washington, D.C. license plates, locates Ann Wagner and follows her Chevrolet Impala convertible, knowing she will lead him to Jay Wagner.

Cable uses false identification to lure Jay Wagner away from the group when they land. Cable nearly succeeds in kidnapping Wagner, but Colton becomes suspicious and pursues them. The film ends with a runway incursion as Cable and Colton fight among departing airplanes at Brownsville Airport.