The Missouri Breaks
| The Missouri Breaks | |
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| Directed by | Arthur Penn |
| Produced by |
Elliott Kastner Robert M. Sherman |
| Written by | Thomas McGuane |
| Starring |
Marlon Brando Jack Nicholson Randy Quaid Kathleen Lloyd Frederic Forrest Harry Dean Stanton |
| Music by | John Williams |
| Cinematography | Michael Butler |
| Edited by |
Dede Allen Gerald B. Greenberg Steven A. Rotter |
| Distributed by | United Artists |
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Release date
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Running time
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126 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Box office | $14 million |
The Missouri Breaks is a 1976 American western film starring Marlon Brando and Jack Nicholson. The film was directed by Arthur Penn, with supporting performances by Randy Quaid, Harry Dean Stanton, Frederic Forrest, John McLiam and Kathleen Lloyd. The score was composed by John Williams.
The title of the movie refers to a forlorn and very rugged area of north central Montana, where over eons the Missouri River has made countless deep cuts or "breaks" in the land.
Tom Logan is a rustler experiencing hard times. He and his gang are particularly upset by the hanging of a friend by Braxton, a land baron who takes the law into his own hands.
Logan's men pull off a daring train robbery, only to lose much of the money. They decide to seek vengeance against Braxton by killing his foreman Pete Marker and by buying a small property close to Braxton's ranch, then rustling his stock. First the gang, without Logan, rides off across the Missouri River and north of the border to steal horses belonging to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. In their absence, Logan plants crops and enters into a relationship with Braxton's virginal daughter, Jane.
Braxton is obsessed with both his rustling problem and his daughter. He sends for Robert E. Lee Clayton, a notorious "regulator" who, for a price, will take care of rustlers personally. Clayton arrives with a fancy wardrobe, a perfumed scent, an Irish brogue and a Creedmoor rifle (a Model 1859 Sharps rifle) with which he is deadly accurate from a very long distance.
Quickly suspicious of Logan, who doesn't strike him as a farmer, Clayton dons a variety of disguises and begins to pick off Logan's gang, one by one. Identifying himself as "Jim Ferguson," he kills Logan's young friend Little Tod by dragging him with a rope through the raging Missouri.
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Wikipedia