Disappointment for a huge fan!

I have absolutely never seen anything like this movie before. You have to see this movie.

Easily the biggest piece of Right wing non sense propaganda I ever saw.

It's a good bad... and worth a popcorn matinée. While it's easy to lament what could have been...

It's the turn of the century. John McCabe (Warren Beatty) arrives in the remote settlement of Presbyterian Church. Sheehan (René Auberjonois) runs the saloon. McCabe gambles and drinks with the gruff locals. There isn't much else to the place. He goes over to the next town and buys three prostitutes for $200. He sets up a low rent whorehouse. Constance Miller (Julie Christie) comes to town and convinces McCabe to join in partnership. She brings in more girls and classes up the joint. As they gain success, a mining company offers to buy up their properties with threats against refusing their offer. Miller is an opium addict and pushing to sell.Director Robert Altman brings a naturalistic feel to this story. I expected him to make Alma a bigger character but she kind of disappears. There is also the slightly muffled nature of the sound. Altman left everything very natural. I wish the dialog could be clearer. It's a well-made revisionist western. It takes the genre into a less-heroic and more complicated world. Even the climatic shootout is unlike the traditional affair.

Darn if I hadn't heard the line in my summary in another Western and now it's going to drive me crazy. It sounds like something Pat Buttram or Smiley Burnette might have said at one time or other, and if I had the time and patience I'd try to look it up. I'm sure it'll pop up again someday, probably about the time I forget I heard it in this picture.Well I don't see how anyone can consider this a competent Western. For most of the story there's not much going on and to get through it, one has to slog through one of the darkest, muddiest films on record, and I'm not even talking about the streets of Presbyterian Church. Who names a town Presbyterian Church anyway? You know, for most of the movie I thought Warren Beatty's character McCabe was acting stupid on purpose, but it turns out he really was stupid. With no business acumen or sense of initiative, it was a wonder how he got as far as he did establishing McCabe's House of Fortune. That Constance Miller (Julie Christie) took him on as a business partner seems incongruous to me after the fact, she could probably have done much better on her own.There wasn't much about this picture that resonated with this viewer. I can go with dark and gritty when there's some compelling writing and dialog, the more recent "Deadwood" series being a prime example. Apparently there was a time and place in the early Seventies for the kind of revisionist Western on display here. If you enjoy knee deep mud and suffocatingly dark interiors in your Westerns, 1972's "Dirty Little Billy" might be right up your alley. See - the word 'dirty' is right there in the title.

McCabe and Mrs. Miller is another excellent film that helped define the era of film in the 1970's. The decade where "New Hollywood" is off and running. This movie has that authentic 70's feel and it's the slow burn western drama that you would expect to see in the late 1960's, early 1970's. The movie takes its time, but I found the film incredibly engaging because of the performances of Warren Beatty and Julie Christie. I loved the scenery shots of the film, and it really made the Pacific Northwest look beautiful. Another thing that stood out to me is the soundtrack made by the great Leonard Cohen, a gifted songwriter. His songs worked well with the film and it breathed more life into this western.Robert Altman's film is about a businessman named John McCabe who builds a whorehouse in a remote Western town. Soon after his new tavern is built, Mrs. Miller arrives and she offers herself as a business partner to McCabe's booming business. Soon after that, several businessmen arrives asking to buy McCabe's business, but his answer may bring consequences to himself, Mrs. Miller, and the whole town.Also prevalent in 70's movies are films that don't rely on big casts. This film is an example of that statement. The only two big name stars are Beatty and Andrews. They both are excellent, and both share on screen compatibility. I love how the film doesn't really push a romance between the two characters. There is no doubt a sense of affection and perhaps a tough love for each other, but no falling in love kind of thing. At least it wasn't obvious.Overall, McCabe and Mrs. Miller is a very impressive film. The film takes its time to tell the story and sometimes that is a cause of frustration. But I fell deeply in love with the characterization and I wanted to see what happens to both main characters. The tone is often gritty and dark, which I enjoyed. Once again, the film is just beautiful to look at, even without the technology used in today's film. Altman made himself noticeable with MASH, but he opened my eyes with McCabe and Mrs. Miller.My Grade: A-

Despite some horses and odd scenes of fighting, "Mccabe and Mrs.Miller" is not at all a western in the real sense of the word. It cannot be called a western in the traditional sense of the word as its motives are not similar to those of standard westerns. Those who prefer to call it a western ought to know that there are different types of western where the hero is not a hero. He is an ordinary man with certain strengths and weaknesses. In this film, Mccable is no ordinary man with just some ambitions. He has a business plan and a revenue model. Things change a lot when an experienced madam comes to the village. The muddy town setting of the film helps to give an air of authenticity but it must have created a lot of problems while shooting. For a film which deals with brothels, puritans might raise objection to a film about a small American town where people seem to be more interested in god, wine and brothels. For the end result, Altman chose to depict that the overconfidence is not at all good. There are times when even circumstances compel a macho man to collapse. Finally, it is evident that 'To call it a western or not to call it a western is a very vital query. This is something of an essential question which would be on the mind of every viewer who decides to watch American cinema's most intelligent director Robert Altman's classic film.