Peck does a nice job playing a middle age crazy sheriff who meets and goes over the edge for a rawboned hillbilly girl. He has a decent, loving wife at home but his discontent with his life leads to his making one stupid mistake after another in not only his private life but his professional as well. Well played out film with top notch performances by the entire cast and a sound track by Johnny Cash which intertwines nicely with the picture.

The subject of small town boredom and emotional unrest; Gregory Peck portrays the sheriff in a small rural Tennessee town. He has a mid-life crisis(before it was fashionable to call it that).

Estelle Parsons is the long-suffering wife, and Tuesday Weld the femme fatal. There is also a part with Charles Durning, as a racist small- minded police officer, who feels his job is to run everyone out of town who is not a "good church-going man". Some of the dialog and themes explored in this movie are interesting, and if one has ever traveled to this part of the country, there are still small towns a bit similar to this, even though they may now have a Wal-Mart 100 miles away.

Gregory Peck's performance is excellent, though his involvement with a penniless moonshiner's daughter is a bit hard to swallow. You will enjoy the cinematography, and a depiction of American life which does still exist. This film is not as extreme as "Deliverance" but if you drive along Route 26 through North Carolina and Tennessee mountains, you will still see people living without heat, with plastic on their windows to keep out the cold.

A totally under-appreciated and unseen film (except for some Gregory Peck fans) with Estelle Parsons and Ralph Meeker and the glorious totally bashed actress (in movies since age 12) and this is AFTER Pretty Poison, a witty and insightful script directed by (apparently a one-shot guy, Noel Black) that nobody got to see!

1970 was a great year for films and this didn't make my top TEN, but it's very interesting...with a moral that actually plays out in a semi-realistic and human AMERICAN way, but unfortunately, it was considered drive-in fare by whatever studio released it. Try to find this one. It's like Deliverance combined with Love with the Proper Stranger and it's quite unique, mainly because of Tuesday Weld's performance. An 8 out of 10 in a very good year. Best performance = T. Weld.