Prime Cut

Prime Cut
Theatrical release poster by Tom Jung
Directed by	Michael Ritchie
Produced by	Joe Wizan
Written by	Robert Dillon
Starring	Lee Marvin Gene Hackman Sissy Spacek
Music by	Lalo Schifrin
Cinematography	Gene Polito
Edited by	Carl Pingitore
Production company	Cinema Center Films
Distributed by	National General Pictures
Release date	United States: June 28, 1972
Running time	88 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English

Prime Cut is a 1972 American film produced by Joe Wizan and directed by Michael Ritchie, with a screenplay written by Robert Dillon.

The film stars Lee Marvin as a mob enforcer from Chicago sent to Kansas to collect a debt from a meatpacker boss played by Gene Hackman. It co-stars Sissy Spacek, in her first credited on-screen role as a young orphan being sold into prostitution, and Angel Tompkins.

The film was considered highly risqué for its time based on its violence and the hint of a homosexual relationship between two brothers. Its graphic depiction of female slavery includes a scene depicting naked young women in pens being auctioned like beef cattle. It is also noted for its depiction of the beef slaughtering process and for a chase scene involving a combine in an open field.

A slaughterhouse process follows the unloading of cattle to the making of sausages. A wristwatch and a shoe appear on a conveyor line, making it clear that a human cadaver is processed among the cattle. A woman operating the sausage machine is interrupted by "Weenie" (Gregory Walcott), who has timed the machine using his watch. He wraps up a string of sausages, then marks the package with an address in Chicago.

Weenie is the brother of "Mary Ann" (Gene Hackman), the crooked operator of the slaughterhouse in Kansas City, Kansas. The particular sausages that Weenie was wrapping were made from the remains of an enforcer from the Chicago Irish mob sent to Kansas City to collect $500,000 from Mary Ann.