The Missouri Breaks (1976)

Jack Nicholson is Tom Logan, leader of a band of rustlers operating in a rugged Montana country known as the Missouri Breaks.

He returns to camp to find that a young member of the gang named Sandy was caught stealing and hanged by cattle baron David Braxton (John McLiam).

The problem, Logan decides, is that they’re running stolen stock too far over open country. They need a relay station, perhaps a small ranch to serve as cover for their activities.

So he robs a train to finance the purchase of a piece of property, property that just happens to be near Braxton’s ranch.

And someone hangs Braxton’s foreman in the very same Cottonwood tree where Sandy died.

Before the foreman is even buried, Braxton brings in regulator Robert E. Lee Clayton (Marlon Brando), armed with a long-distance rifle and a nasty reputation for putting it to good use.

He’s immediately suspicious of Braxton’s new neighbor. He spies on him regularly. He learns that Logan has begun an affair with Braxton’s pretty daughter Jane (Kathleen Lloyd).

That affair blossomed while the rest of the gang was traveling north of the border to steal horses from the Mounties.

Logan’s also become fond of the property he now owns. And increasingly wary of Clayton.

Jack Nicholson as Tom Logan, meeting David Braxton and daughter Jane for the first time in The Missouri Breaks (1976)

Marlon Brando as Robert Lee Clayton, arriving at the Braxton ranch in The Missouri Breaks (1976)

Review:

The opening hanging grabs the viewer’s attention. An intelligent script and fine performances from the cast tightens that grip.

Like “Once Upon a Time in the West” and “Heaven’s Gate,” this is another of those Westerns that was underappreciated at the time. “The Missouri Breaks” was neither a critical nor commercial success.

Decades later, it’s remembered mostly as the only pairing of Jack Nicholson and Marlon Brando. And their scenes together are certainly memorable, especially the bathtub scene in which the former can’t quite bring himself to pull the trigger on the latter.

Brando rides up to the Braxton ranch hidden by his horse at the —minute mark and promptly serves up one of the most eccentric characters in Western film history. In one of the film’s best lines, a Braxton hand notes that life wasn’t nearly so gloomy when just rustlers were around.

But it’s Nicholson’s character and performance that holds the film together, and John McLiam and Kathleen Lloyd are excellent in supporting roles.

She’s a bit more forward than you’d expect from a cattle baron’s daughter, and not the least bit interested in landing with a man like her father.

He brags about his library, can quote percentages of stock lost to rustlers and isn’t eager to see a no-account rustle his daughter as well.

Kathleen Lloyd as Jane Braxton, in a verbal sparring match with Tom Logan in The Missouri Breaks (1976)

John McLiam as David Braxton, about to make an excellent of a rustler in The Missouri Breaks (1976)

Directed by:
Arthur Penn

Cast:
Marlon Brando … Robert Lee Clayton
Jack Nicholson … Tom Logan
Randy Quaid … Little Tod
Kathleen Lloyd … Jane Braxton
Frederic Forrest … Cary
Harry Dean Stanton … Calvin
John McLiam … David Braxton
John P. Ryan … Si
Sam Gilman … Hank Rate
Steve Franken … The Lonesome Kid
Richard Bradford … Pete Marker
Hunter von Leer … Sandy
R.L. Armstrong … Bob
Virgil Frye … Woody

Runtime: 126 min.

Harry Dean Stanton as Calvin, delivering bad news about Little Tod in The Missouri Breaks (1976)

Randy Quaid as Little Tod, encountering Robert Lee Clayton on his flight from Canada in The Missouri Breaks (1976)

Memorable lines:

Tom Logan: “How did Sandy go out?”
Little Tod: “Pretty good. Pretty good. They hung him up in a Cottonwood though and he … well, he sort of …”
Logan: “He sort of what?”
Little Tod: “He sort of strangled for a while. Braxton was there dressed in a suit, looking like God.”

David Braxton: “Anything you’d like to say to the court before we send you to your just deserts. And, if I may speak for the court, we’d prefer it be something colorful, life on the frontier being what it is.”

Jane Braxton: “Maybe you can buy yourself that Cannon ranch, get yourself started in the cattle business. Cause with an attitude toward human life like you have, you may get to be one of the barons of this prarie. And have your picture up on page one. Or page three anyway of the Chicago newspapers. And for your birthday, you can have a big barrel of fresh oysters on ice, just the way all the other hangmen up this way do.”

Hunter von Leer as Sandy, the rustler caught and hanged by cattle baron Braxton in The Missouri Breaks (1976)

Frederic Forrest as Cary, a member of Logan’s gang of rustlers in The Missouri Breaks (1976)

Tom Logan: “Regulator? Ain’t that like a dry gulcher?”
Robert Lee Clayton: “Well, that’s not the softess term you could use, I’d say.”

Little Tod: “I don’t know why they had to put Canada all the hell way up here.”

Braxton hand: “It wasn’t near as gloomy around here when we only had just rustlers. Never seen nothin’ like him (Clayton). Makes my skin crawl.”

Tom Logan to a bathing Robert Lee Clayton: “Get up, you dry-gulchin’ piece of floatin’ slime.”

Harry Dean Stanton as Calvin and Jack Nicholson as Tom Logan plot their rustling future in The Missouri Breaks (1976)

Liam McLiam as David Braxton and Kathleen Lloyd as his daughter Jane meet an aspriing rancher in The Missouri Breaks (1976)

Kathleen Lloyd as Jane Braxton with Tom Logan (Jack Nicholson), wondering if riding face to face constitutes lewd behavoir in The Missouri Breaks (1976)

Marlon Brando as Robert Lee Clayton, target shooting in Tom Logan’s vicinity in The Missouri Breaks (1976)

Jack Nicholaon as Tom Logan, fed up with Robert Lee Clayton’s antics in The Missouri Breaks (1976)

Marlon Brando as Robert Lee Clayton letting Braxton know he’ll see the job through in The Missouri Breaks (1976)