The role that Shelley Winters plays is so interesting on so many levels. She is grossly mistreated by "Mr. Howie", beaten, verbally abused. then treated like a queen by Joseph Lee. She is the only one who sees that they would be better off just giving Sam Bass his furs and be on their way. And gets a black eye for her insight. Her last line is a classic: " Well, hell. They're only men." I think her role added definitely to the overall film.
shareThanks so much for starting this thread. I haven't seen the movie yet, but was planning on buying the DVD just because of my being a huge Shelley Winters fan, and was wondering how relevant was her role in it, since the DVD is over $25 on Amazon right now!
Animal crackers in my soup
Monkeys and rabbits loop the loop
Recently Oscared at the time, she gets second billing to Lancaster and ahead of Davis and Savalas. She earns it.
This was four years before Ms. Winters put more weight on(and age make-up) for "The Poseidon Adventure," but what's interesting here is that weight and middle-age don't stop her from being quite believable as a once-sexy hooker who still has what it takes to keep Top Villain Savalas as her man and to get those Native Americans at the end to "take her away."("They're only men.")
Note in passing: evidently Burt Lancaster and Shelley Winters had a passionate affair in the 1950's. Nice of Burt to bring his old flame on board for a significant role in this movie.