Intensity	Stupidity:Nudity Ratio 2:1	Budget Studio

What! Burgess Meredith growing pot! Gay con men! Cowboys taking baths! Back stabbing cowboys! Does John Wayne know about this?

The movie starts with a series of vignettes which show how all the major characters get to the prison. Paris Pitman, Jr. soon has the run of the place but a prison riot ends the career (and life) of the warden. The new warden does not seem all that interested in Pitman's offer of money. He is intent on making the prison a better place and instilling pride in the prisoners by having them do the work. Pitman seems to go along with it but at the same time is making plans to escape. At the grand opening of the new mess hall Pitman starts a food fight that gets way out of hand culminating in explosions that knock out the prison walls. A lot of the prisoners are shot attempting to escape including one by Pitman himself. Pitman rides off to collect his money with the warden hot on his trail. While retrieving the money from the nest of rattlesnakes he left guarding it, Pitman kills almost all the snakes. The warden finds his body and the money. He returns the body to the prison and heads to Mexico with the money.

The 60's were an interesting time. At the end of the 50's the Hays code still held sway over Hollywood and one of its strongest tenets was that bad guys can't win. Evil must always be vanquished by the end of the movie and breaking the law must always be punished. This was taken to extremes in cowboy movies. In the 70's it would be parodied in films like "Blazing Saddles" and "Rustler's Rhapsody", but in the 60's the Hays code was increasingly beaten to a pulp culminating in 1969's "The Wild Bunch". While "The Wild Bunch" pushed the envelope for violence, Crooked Man really hits at morality and we have a terrible time telling the good guys from the bad guys.

Starting with Paris Pitman, Jr. (Kirk Douglas). We find out immediately he is a bad guy. He leads a robbery of wealthy man and when a gun fight breaks out, he merely watches and then shots one of his own men. (There is a hint that this was done to protect the victim's daughter.) Grabbing the money we see Pitman stash most of it away in a nest of rattlesnakes and then he heads off to the local whorehouse. The victim is shown knocking on the door of the very same whorehouse. He relates his tale of woe to the madame, lamenting that he no longer can afford the solace he previously sought at the house. Turns out that madame has a heart of gold and is willing to let him use one of the peepholes for free. As luck would have it, the peepee (or whatever you call a peeper's object of interest) is none other than the guy who robbed him. He raises a ruckus and the criminal is captured. It should be noted that while Douglas was in bed with two women, the only nudity in the scene is Douglas' butt. Shudder.

We meet Coy Cavendish (Michael Blodgett) as he attempts to have sex on a pool table with Edwina (Pamela Hensley). When her dad barges in and accuses Coy of defiling his daughter again, Edwina does not try to dissuade her dad of this notion, in fact, she cries rape. Coy throws a billiard ball at dad apparently killing him. Dudley and Cyrus (Hume Cronyn and John Randolph) are introduced as con men preying on a small congregation under the watchful eye of the local sheriff. When Dudley, who is supposed to be deaf and dumb, accidentally backs into to the stove he screams in pain and the lawman gets his men. I am not sure how bilking a congregation out of a few bucks gets you sent to the same prison as killing someone, but maybe they just had really bad lawyers.

By this point you may be noticing a pattern. None of these characters seem particularly honest. Before Pitman robs the place, we get to see the servants pretending to be happy; before bringing out supper the maid stops at the door, puts on a happy face and then proceeds into the dining room. The robbery victim frequents the local brothel. The prison warden is willing to help Pitman escape for part of the money. Jeez are there no honest men anymore? Well maybe so. After the demise of the prison warden, someone volunteers for the gig; the same lawman who tried to talk Floyd Moon (Warren Oates) into putting down his gun by putting down his own gun first. Needless to say, Floyd shot him. While that did not work out so well for him (or Floyd as the bartender bopped him on the head hard enough that he wore a bandage on his head for most of the movie), it did drive him to resign his commission and take the now vacant warden position. Determined to continue his practice of treating all men, even criminals, with respect and dignity, he stops the men from working on the rock pile and instead directs them to build a new mess hall. Trouble ensues when one of the guards insults the oriental guy. The warden being a slow learner again tries to calm the situation down by walking up and talking to the enraged inmate. Once again, he is almost killed and is saved by Pitman this time. I've got to believe that this scene was inspired by James Stewart's character in "The man who shot Liberty Valance". Much like Stewart's character, Warden Lopeman (Henry Fonda) doesn't believe that violence is the appropriate response to violence. Also much like Stewart's character, he profits from someone else's violent behavior.

In many ways this is a very unsettling movie. We come to really like the characters and after some initial violence the movie settles down and you almost start to think it will continue on as a light comedy with a happy ending. Then Floyd ruthlessly murders a guard to set the escape plan in motion. Several of the characters you would expect to make it through the film are killed off in a rather brutal fashion. Of all the guys involved in the escape plan only Pitman makes it out of the prison. He rides off to retrieve his ill-gotten goods only to be a bit careless with the rattlesnakes. As he reaches into one of the money bags, a snake strikes and bites him on the neck. Shortly after Warden Lopeman rides up and finds the money and the body. He puts Pitman's body on a horse and heads back to the prison where he thinks for a bit, and then sends Pitman's horse back to the prison while he high tails it for Mexico with the loot.

It had been a few years since I originally watched this movie, but the plot still stuck in my head. When it got to the end I got a nagging suspicion about Warden Lopeman. I began to suspect that he volunteered because he knew Pitman was at that prison. Once there he got to know Pitman on a personal level, which means there is no way he did not know that Pitman was working for himself. To ask Pitman to make a speech in front of the governor would be a hugely stupid move. After Pitman's escape, the warden rides off solo to bring him back after discussing the situation with the captain of the calvary. Upon recovering Pitman's body we next see Lopeman clean shaven and finishing off a pint of whiskey. I am a bit at a loss as to why he shaved his beard. Probably it was just a bit of foreshadowing to hint that there was a change on the horizon. The ending could be interrupted as the warden finally giving into temptation, but I like it better as a loose, long term plan coming to fruition

One of the things that makes this movie worth viewing are the minor characters. So many current films are star vehicles and the lesser roles are not fleshed out at all, they tend to only exist to mirror the star. Cronyn and Randolph play con men but they are obviously gay. Their relationship is that of a deeply committed married couple. Cronyn's Dudley loves Randolph's Cyrus enough to go along with his schemes but when a line is crossed, he puts his foot down and Cyrus acquiesces. The servant for the robbery victims are found hiding in the kitchen during the gun fight. When the victim's wife insist that they help out, the maid's husband starts to get up. The maid looks at him and says "You are not getting your ass shot up for no white folk" or words to that effect. Lee Grant has a bit part as a widower who beds down with Pitman. In the morning she berates Pitman but there is great bitterness in her tone as her words speak to her own weakness as well. These characters all have a sense of honor mitigated by a sense of reality. This in turn reflects on the main characters. We do sort of expect Pitman to honor his pledge to his fellow escapees and we are more than a little shocked at how callously he uses them but are not completely surprised. In Lopeman's case, if you go with the "final straw" argument then reality finally overcame his honor. If you go with the "knew what he was doing all along" argument, then Lopeman is worse than Pitman was.

The Gang. These are the major supporting players from left to right. CK Yang, Michael Blodgett, John Randolph, Hume Cronyn, Burgess Meredith and Warren Oates. As much as I like B movies, there are times when a big budget makes a difference. Excluding Yang (who was cast based on size and look and does not have a speaking part), you are looking at some seriously talented character actors. In particular Rudolph's Cyrus had the potential to be hideous, but he was able to bring some real believability to the role. Plus this is a still from the movie not a publicity shot. The movie is beautiful to look at.

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Oh, come on, the reference is not that arcane! Randy Newman wrote the song "You can keep your hat on", which was recorded by Joe Cocker and used in the film "Nine 1/2 Weeks" while Kim Basinger stripped.

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