McCabe & Mrs. Miller
| McCabe & Mrs. Miller | |
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Theatrical release poster by Richard Amsel
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| Directed by | Robert Altman |
| Produced by | Mitchell Brower David Foster |
| Written by | Robert Altman Brian McKay |
| Based on |
McCabe by Edmund Naughton |
| Starring |
Warren Beatty Julie Christie René Auberjonois |
| Music by | Leonard Cohen |
| Cinematography | Vilmos Zsigmond |
| Edited by | Lou Lombardo |
| Distributed by | Warner Bros. |
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Release date
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Running time
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121 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Box office | $8,200,000 |
McCabe & Mrs. Miller is a 1971 American Revisionist Western film starring Warren Beatty and Julie Christie, and directed by Robert Altman. The screenplay is based on the 1959 novel McCabe by Edmund Naughton. Altman referred to it as an "anti-western film" because the film ignores or subverts a number of Western conventions. In 2010, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being “culturally, historically or aesthetically significant”.
In 1902 Washington State, a gambler named John McCabe (Warren Beatty) arrives mysteriously and mumbling to himself in the town of Presbyterian Church (named after its only substantial building, a tall but mostly unused [in the film] chapel), in the Northwest United States. McCabe quickly takes a dominant position over the town's simple-minded and lethargic miners, thanks to his aggressive personality and rumors that he is a gunfighter.
McCabe establishes a makeshift brothel, consisting of three prostitutes purchased for $200 from a pimp in the nearby town of Bearpaw. British cockney Constance Miller (Julie Christie) arrives in town and tells him she could run a brothel for him more profitably; unknown to him she is addicted to opium. The two become successful business partners, and open a higher class establishment, including a bathhouse for hygiene; both are financially successful. A love interest develops between the two.
As the town becomes richer, Sears (Michael Murphy) and Hollander (Antony Holland), a pair of agents from the Harrison Shaughnessy mining company in Bearpaw, arrive to buy out McCabe's business, as well as the surrounding zinc mines. Shaughnessy is notorious for having people killed when they refuse to sell. McCabe does not want to sell at their initial price of $5,500, but he overplays his hand in the negotiations in spite of Mrs. Miller's warnings that he is underestimating the violence that will ensue if they do not take the money.
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Wikipedia