Set in a snow-covered Pacific Northwest rather than the dusty plains of genre tradition, McCabe and Mrs Miller casts Warren Beatty as the blustering cardsharp John Q. McCabe, an anti-heroic knave who goes into business with (and falls for) opium-addicted prostitute Constance Miller (Julie Christie).
McCabe dreams of turning a mud-caked frontier settlement into a bustling town, but he has hardly begun when he is gunned down by the agents of a sinister mining company.
This is no ordinary Western. Director Robert Altman allows conversations to overlap, encourages the actors to improvise and told Hungarian cameraman Vilmos Zsigmond to use yellow filters for some scenes and underexpose others.
With songs by Leonard Cohen and hazy, sepia-like widescreen photography by Zsigmond, the result is a beguilingly dreamlike vision of times past, texturally unique in the history of the western.
Altman claimed the movie was “less about the spirit of the pioneer than about the spirit of the entrepreneur”.
John Q. McCabe
Warren Beatty Mrs Constance Miller
Julie Christie Patrick Sheehan
René Auberjonois Dog Butler
Hugh Millais Smalley
John Schuck Ida Coyle
Shelley Duvall Mr Elliott
Corey Fischer Gene Sears
Michael Murphy Clement Samuels
William Devane Bart Coyle
Bert Remsen Ernie Hollander
Antony Holland Kid
Manfred Schulz Breed
Jace Van Der Veen Lily Two-for-One
Jackie Crossland Pinto Kate
Elizabeth Murphy Mighty Alma
Carey Lee Mckenzie Archer
Tom Hill Blanche
Linda Sorensen Birdie
Elizabeth Knight Eunice
Janet Wright Maisie
Maysie Hoy Ruth
Linda Kupecek Jeremy Berg
Jeremy Newsom Riley Quinn
Jack Riley Shorty Dunn
Wesley Taylor Mrs Dunn
Anne Cameron Bill Cubbs
Graeme Campbell JJ
J.S. Johnson Joe Sortreed
Joe Clarke Andy Anderson
Harry Frazier Gilchrist
Edwin Collier Quigley
Terence Kelly Buffalo
Don Francks Sumner Washington
Rodney Gage Mrs Washington
Lili Francks
Director
Robert Altman
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