McCabe and Mrs Miller – Or “How the Whores Won the West,” director Robert Altman’s 1971 film debunking myths of the West, is set in the Pacific Northwest, somewhere outside Seattle about 1900. It’s a gritty, bleak picture of men making a foothold in the wilderness, and as we watched it the temperature outside had dropped below zero from a high of 2ºF across a white wintry landscape.

An entrepreneurial vagabond, rumored to be a gunslinger, John McCabe (Warren Beatty), shows up in the small town of some 125 miners and lumberjacks and sets up a saloon and whorehouse with the willing assistance of a professional madam, Constance Miller (Julie Christie). After McCabe, thinking he can negotiate a better price, refuses the offer from a pair of representatives of a mining firm to buy the town from him, he has to deal with three hired guns from the firm. Soundtrack includes Leonard Cohen songs.

Click here for links to places to buy or rent this movie in video and/or DVD format, or to buy the soundtrack, posters, books, even used videos, games, electronics and lots of other stuff. I suggest you shop at least two of these places before buying anything. Prices seem to vary continuously. For more information on this film, click on this link to The Internet Movie Database. Type in the name of the movie in the search box and press enter. You will be able to find background information on the film, the actors, and links to much more information.

Copyright © 2007 Patrick Ivers. All rights reserved.
Reproduced with the permission of the copyright holder.

Patrick Ivers can be reached via e-mail at .