The Shooting

The Shooting
Directed byMonte Hellman
Written byAdrien Joyce
Produced byJack Nicholson
Monte Hellman
StarringJack Nicholson
Millie Perkins
Will Hutchins
Warren Oates
CinematographyGregory Sandor
Edited byMonte Hellman
Music byRichard Markowitz
Production
companies
Proteus Films
Santa Clara Productions
Distributed byJack H. Harris Enterprises
Favorite Films
Release dates
  • October 23, 1966 (1966-10-23) (SFIFF)
  • February 24, 1971 (1971-02-24) (Dallas)
Running time
82 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Budget$75,000

The Shooting is a 1966 American Western film edited and directed by Monte Hellman, with a screenplay by Carole Eastman (using the pseudonym Adrien Joyce). It stars Warren Oates, Millie Perkins, Will Hutchins, and Jack Nicholson, and was produced by Nicholson and Hellman. The story is about two men who are hired by a mysterious woman to accompany her to a town located many miles across the desert.[1] During their journey, they are closely tracked by a black-clad gunslinger, who seems intent on killing all of them.

The film was shot in 1965 in the Utah desert, back-to-back with Hellman's similar Western Ride in the Whirlwind, which also starred Nicholson and Perkins. Both films were shown at several international film festivals, but the U.S. distribution rights were not purchased until 1968, by the Walter Reade Organization. No other domestic distributor had expressed any interest in the films. Walter Reade decided to bypass a theatrical release, and the two titles were sold directly to television.

  1. ^ Sobczynski, Peter (June 28, 2016). "Badass Intensity and Holy Cool: A Warren Oates Retrospective". RogerEbert.com. Retrieved June 30, 2016.