Sean Stewart

Paul Newman is magnificent, not only as star but director, if he had concentrated on directing instead of acting he would have gone onto the same directing success as Clint, but for some reason he didn't tackle many more movie's as a director, he did a few but seemed to slip back into acting, nevertheless you will enjoy his creation here as he handles the emotional family scene's and rugged outdoors scenes with incredible confidence. Paul captures the outdoors scenes magnicently from the first opening shots you know this is going to be a high quality movie.Their is a scene in the movie that stays with everyone , the scene is were his friend is trapped under a gigantic log and Paul has to get him out before the river riser's , carefully watch how Paul handles this positioning his camera just above water level in some shots and the building tension is so well played out it with this live or Death struggle.its that scene that to this day has given people nightmares, watch and see what you think.Paul allows his actors to develop at their own pace and expand their characters naturally, their are a number of shock revelation's in the family scene's, listen out for them in the dialogue. Paul was at the height of his success biang voted the number 1 box office star in the world, just coming of the huge success of Butch Cassidy, when he made this, and you can see why he chose this , the story would have attracted him as Paul loves to play men against the odds who never give up.as you'll see as the film unfold .The film was fairly successful, especially in Europe were Paul at that time was treated with mythical status, so audiences cued up in line to see all his movies.the movie was also rereleased a number of times(their was no video in those days,so of often a movie would rerelease with a new publicity campaign) one of the rereleased was as a double bill with Redford's tell them Willey boy is here,so you got Newman and Redford for the price of one ticket, Enjoy the movie , it certainly is worth every penny, and worth watching every few years.