Nicholson, Brando star in the gritty Western few have seen

EDITOR’S NOTE: This is another in The Bulletin staff’s series of reviews of movies available on various streaming services.

Made in 1976 and directed by Arthur Penn, “The Missouri Breaks” stars (among others) Marlon Brando, Jack Nicholson, Randy Quaid, Kathleen Lloyd and John McLiam. The score is by John Williams.

I’ve introduced this film to a lot of people through the years, and few knew it existed, despite its all-star cast and musical genius. It’s a masterpiece of a Western that somehow slipped through the cracks in the same year that “The Outlaw Josey Wales” was released.

It’s part classic Western: Horse thieves, a hanging, belligerent ranchers, a train robbery and lots of shooting.

It’s part love story: Nicholson’s and Lloyd’s characters have a tumultuous (and often hysterical) romp that helps carry the plot.

It’s part action film: Lots of tension and chases, albeit on horseback.

The movie opens with three men on horseback talking about the beauty of David Braxton’s (McLiam) ranch. The scene is an early indicator of the cinematography the viewer can expect going forward, which is stellar. It’s also a lead-in to the larger plot, as it slowly becomes apparent that the middle rider is appreciating the beautiful scenery for the last time. He’s about to be hanged for stealing horses from Braxton’s ranch.

A couple states away, Tom Logan (Nicholson) sits in a rustic cabin with his small band of horse thieves, and they are told by Little Tod (Quaid) that he witnessed the hanging, and it didn’t happen fast. Their friend strangled and dangled before finally dying. They share stories – funny and sad – about their departed friend, and then they hatch a plan to get even with Braxton by buying some land near his ranch, where they can stage horses – Braxton’s among them – to move along the Missouri Breaks.

To get the money they’ll need, they stage a train robbery. No spoilers, but you may wet yourself laughing at parts of it, and you’ll definitely want to be prepared for the guy who eventually pleads guilty to the robbery and asks to be remembered as “The Lonesome Kid.”

Along the way, enter Lee Clayton (Brando), who rides up to Braxton’s ranch concealed by his own horse, startling Braxton’s daughter, Jane (Lloyd), before barging into the home, where Braxton’s ranch manager lies in state, having been hung from the same tree as the young horse thief.

Clayton is introduced to the assembled ranchers as a “regulator,” who will hunt down the ranch manager’s killers and slay them with his trusty Claymore rifle.

The plot is now set in stone – Clayton vs. Logan and crew – and things go racing wildly forward from there.

Clayton is, to put it mildly, eccentric. But he’s also a creative killer with true aim and a keen ability to track and execute. He sometimes cross dresses and refers to himself as “Granny.” More often, he wears a frilly white outfit and enjoys a large chaw of terbacky while scoping things out with his binoculars. He loves his horse, and he hates his mule.

Logan is wily and oddly charming, as well as exceptionally bright and ruthless. While his men are out stealing, he tends a small garden.

They both know their trades, and the result is a rollicking Western set against beautiful music and shot amid stunning scenery.

The love story that unfolds in an ungainly fashion between Logan and Jane Braxton gives the viewer some much-needed breaks from the movie’s otherwise near-constant tummy-twisting tension as the hunter and the hunted do their respective things.

The Canadian Mounties even get in on the action. Having set up their staging ranch near Braxton’s spread, Logan sends some of his men north to stage a daring Sunday morning heist of the Mounty’s horses while they sing in church.

This section of the movie contains two of its most hysterical lines: “Damn, I don’t know why they had to put Canada way up here,” says a ride-weary Little Tod.

And, when the Mounties successfully catch up to the thieves and begin shooting, Little Tod gets off another zinger amid the gunsmoke: “We’re in America. Is this even legal?”

I won’t spoil the outcome of either the Mounty heist or Clayton’s quest for blood that runs through the film, other than to say it’s all worth watching, and my experience tells me most Western lovers will want to watch it more than once.

There is considerable violence and strong language throughout, so it’s not a film I’d share with my granddaughters for a few years, but my son and I have enjoyed in on a few lazy afternoons. “The Missouri Breaks” just never gets old. I give it five shiny stars, and it stars about five film legends.