Review of McCabe & Mrs. Miller (1971) by David L — 17 Feb 2017

Initial critical response to this film was ho-hum and audiences ignored it it upon its release. Julie Christie earned a Best Actress nod for her role as a madam running a brothel owned by McCabe (Warren Beatty) in the Pacific Northwest during the waning days of the Old West period.

Over the years this Robert Altman film has grown in critics eyes as an understated masterpiece. Right off the heels of his wildly successful, anti-war spoof, M*A*S*H, Altman, obviously tuned into the counter-culture of the times, made an anti-western movie.

Despite the well-acted effort by the film's players and the cinematic triumph of capturing the unique setting for the film, the original criticisms were correct. Having just watched McCabe and Mrs.

Miller for a second time, my mind remains unchanged that this film is a tedious bore until, finally, the gunfight that highlights - the only highlight of this dozing inducing film. It's too bad Altman wasn't sufficiently inspired by the unorthodox gunfight the script called for at the film's end to propel the rest of this movie.

But McCabe & Mrs. Miller is an anti-western, so the film offers a lot of introspection and long pauses resulting in a maddeningly slow-paced film. Finally the film's gunfight bring the picture to life and the viewer is rewarded by an expertly shot, one-of-a-kind gun battle in the snow drifts of the mountainous setting, thus saving the film from being a total snoozefest.