VANISHING POINT director Richard C. Sarafian and budding superstar Burt Reynolds teamed for THE MAN WHO LOVED CAT DANCING, based on a then-popular Gothic Western novel and almost the kind of horsepower road movie that Sarafian already had down pat...
But more a deliberate adventure in reverse, beginning with a train robbery introduction to a bank robbing gang led by a quiet-silent Renyolds; a tough-as-nails Jack Warden; a passive Indian and Bo Hopkins, again playing an unpredictable, hopped-up hillbilly ala Sam Peckinpah cinema...
And someone more unhinged like Sam would've been a much better fit since, lovely landscapes aside, the pace mirrors a Spaghetti Western that desperately needed a tighter revenge plot: herein a predictable romance with rich girl Sarah Miles having left her husband, and, taken in by the grimy bandits, it's obvious she'll hook up with the protective Burt (who makes a last-minute rescue straight out of DELIVERANCE)...
Yet by the time the extremely overlong last half happens, the side-characters... who made an intriguing, potentially explosive ensemble... had already fallen by the wayside, turning an otherwise romantic Western into a limited adventure: dragging out a tired HUNTING PARTY-style beauty/beast love story, with no real bite.
But more a deliberate adventure in reverse, beginning with a train robbery introduction to a bank robbing gang led by a quiet-silent Renyolds; a tough-as-nails Jack Warden; a passive Indian and Bo Hopkins, again playing an unpredictable, hopped-up hillbilly ala Sam Peckinpah cinema...
And someone more unhinged like Sam would've been a much better fit since, lovely landscapes aside, the pace mirrors a Spaghetti Western that desperately needed a tighter revenge plot: herein a predictable romance with rich girl Sarah Miles having left her husband, and, taken in by the grimy bandits, it's obvious she'll hook up with the protective Burt (who makes a last-minute rescue straight out of DELIVERANCE)...
Yet by the time the extremely overlong last half happens, the side-characters... who made an intriguing, potentially explosive ensemble... had already fallen by the wayside, turning an otherwise romantic Western into a limited adventure: dragging out a tired HUNTING PARTY-style beauty/beast love story, with no real bite.