Michael Ritchie’s insane 1972 crime thriller, Prime Cut, presents its most ridiculously evil moments with a deadpan seriousness, because the director really wasn’t kidding around. For a period in the ’70s, Ritchie had a sharp-eyed view of the dark side of striving in America, turning out not only this film but also cutting satires Smile and The Candidate.

Lee Marvin is a grizzled but decent collections agent hired by a Chicago crime boss to secure past-due payments from Kansas City underworld underling Mary Ann (Gene Hackman), who’s gone rogue and stopped sending a cut of the ill-gotten gains to his big-city superiors. Mary Ann zestfully sells beef, drugged young prostitutes (Sissy Spacek makes her film debut) and narcotics as if they were just so many commodities.

In the piece de resistance, Marvin and Spacek are chased across a farm by a thresher. The fields are golden and bountiful, and soon they may be awash in blood.•