Jack Nicholson’s 1966 Cult Western With a Perfect Score Never Had a Theatrical Release

Summary:

• Jack Nicholson’s legend status in Hollywood is marked by a myriad of his highly acclaimed roles, though his filmography still has some hidden gems that were never given enough credit.
• Back in 1966, Nicholson starred in a promising Western that, due to certain circumstances, never got to the theaters.
• Years after its failed release, the movie is still worth the shot proving itself to be an outstanding genre classic.

Jack Nicholson may have played numerous iconic villains throughout his long-standing career, but this movie probably started the actor’s vicious path in the cinema not less than 60 years ago.

Being a true hidden gem in Nicholson’s abundant filmography, the 1966 Western was quick to become a cult classic of the genre, yet it initially faced some major problems that would’ve easily let it sink into oblivion.

Directed by Monte Hellman, The Shooting now is an easy option to pick on the streaming, but back in the day things got to be much more complicated when it came to the movie’s performance in the theaters.

Released in 1966, The Shooting follows two men, Willet and Coley, portrayed by Warren Oates and Will Hutchins respectively, who are hired by a mysterious woman to keep her safe on the way to a town that lies across the several-mile-long desert. The woman’s gut feeling proves to be reasonable all along as the company is pursued by a gunslinger played by Nicholson.

Upon its release back in the day, The Shooting had a major misfortune when none of the potential distributors showed interest in picking the movie up for its theatrical run. The rights for the film then had to go around being passed from one owner to another, thus making The Shooting eventually end up with no theatrical release at all.

Despite all that, the film still made its way to the critics that attributed it a massive score of 100%, which was a whole new level for a movie that never hit the cinemas after all.

With all the bad luck that The Shooting undeservedly got at the time, the 60-year-old movie still has a chance to impress modern viewers given that now it’s available digitally. Even those who got to see the film a bit later after its release drama stated that Hellman’s Western is still the genre classic, yet somehow does stand out from all the other similar flicks due to its eerie atmosphere that deliberately prevails over the storyline itself.

On top of that, Nicholson as the movie’s main villain proves his ability to keep the viewer on the edge of their seat right up to the ending.

The Shooting can now be streamed on Max.