Prime Cut

Prime Cut is a 1972 American action crime film produced by Joe Wizan, directed by Michael Ritchie from a screenplay written by Robert Dillon, and starring Lee Marvin, who portrays a mob enforcer from the Chicago Irish Mob sent to Kansas to collect a debt from a meatpacker boss played by Gene Hackman. The picture co-stars Sissy Spacek in her first credited on-screen role as a young orphan being sold into prostitution as well as Angel Tompkins and Eddie Egan. The film was considered highly risqué for its time based on its violence and the hint of a homosexual relationship between two brothers. Its graphic depiction of female slavery includes a scene depicting naked young women (including Sissy Spacek and Janit Baldwin) in pens being auctioned like cattle. It is also noted for its depiction of the beef slaughtering process and for a chase scene involving a combine harvester in an open field. Plot A slaughterhouse process follows the unloading of cattle to the making of sausages. A wristwatch and a shoe appear on a conveyor line, making it clear that a human cadaver is processed among the cattle. A woman operating the sausage machine is interrupted by "Weenie", who has timed the machine using his watch. He wraps up a string of sausages, then marks the package with an address in Chicago. Weenie is the brother of "Mary Ann", the crooked operator of the slaughterhouse in Kansas City, Kansas. The particular sausages that Weenie was wrapping were made from the remains of an enforcer from the Chicago Irish Mob sent to Kansas City to collect $500,000 from Mary Ann.