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Three years after TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD, Alan Pakula, Robert Mulligan, Horton Foote & Elmer Bernstein (producer, helmer, writer & composer, respectively) regrouped for this modest rural piece. It's about a parolee (Steve McQueen in Paul Newman mode) whose dreams of rockabilly respectability hit a wall when his wife & kid come to town just as his vindictive mom puts the hex on him as she lays dying. It’s Foote at his most Faulkneresque & they almost get away with it. The pic earns black marks for McQueen’s rotten dubbing, for an ineptly staged fight sequence & for that annoying Gothic harpsichord motif, but Lee Remick & Don Murray are pitch-perfect in hand-me-down roles. These two deserved far better offers than they got after this one.
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