money, as well as Pitman's body, and rides back to the prison. However, upon his arrival, he abruptly decides to leave the body and gallops off, absconding to Mexico with the money. Cast Kirk Douglas as Paris Pitman Jr. Henry Fonda as Sheriff Woodward W. Lopeman Hume Cronyn as Dudley Whinner Warren Oates as Floyd Moon Burgess Meredith as The Missouri Kid John Randolph as Cyrus McNutt Lee Grant as Mrs. Bullard Arthur O'Connell as Mr. Lomax Martin Gabel as Warden Francis E. LeGoff Michael Blodgett as Coy Cavendish C.K. Yang as Ah-Ping Alan Hale Jr. as Tobaccy Victor French as Whiskey Claudia McNeil as Madam Bert Freed as Skinner Jeanne Cooper as Prostitute Barbara Rhoades as Miss Jessie Brundidge, the Schoolteacher Gene Evans as Colonel Wolff Pamela Hensley as Edwina J. Edward McKinley as The Governor Ann Doran as Mrs. Lomax Production Location filming took place at Joshua Tree National Park, where an 1880s prison set spanning 4 acres was constructed over seven weeks at a cost of $300,000. Further shooting was done at Old Tucson Studios in Arizona and at Warner Bros.-Seven Arts studio in Burbank, California. During production, Mankiewicz suffered a slipped disc in his spine in an accident at his home and had to direct from a motorized wheelchair for a time. Reception Vincent Canby of The New York Times was generally positive: "Although There Was A Crooked Man... is rather low-keyed and takes its own sweet time to reveal itself, it is a movie of the sort of taste, intelligence and somewhat bitter humor I associate with Mr. Mankiewicz who, in real life, is one of America's most sophisticated, least folksy raconteurs, especially of stories about the old Hollywood." Variety wrote that the cast of stars, Newman and Benton script and director/producer Mankiewicz "are the formidable elements that don't jell in this picaresque tale set in a bleak western desert prison. It is the type of action drama in which neither the actors nor director appear to believe the script or characters, opt for the broadness euphemistically termed 'entertainment,' and which makes its best boxoffice in multiples exploiting the cast and elements." Gene Siskel of the Chicago Tribune gave the film 3 stars out of 4 and wrote, "While the film meanders between satire and straight melodrama it is unified by the wit of Mankiewicz." Charles Champlin of the Los Angeles Times stated that the