Walter Hill's debut feature film as director is the perfect action movie that just oozes character developement from the primary actors to the secondary, peripheral ones, and is filled with quotable dialog and terrific bare-knuckle action set-pieces. Bronson is perfect as the mysterious drifter who lets his fists do his talking, Coburn as the fast-talking wheeler-dealer whose out-of-control gambling sets in motion the climactic brawl, but it is the stoned Strother Martin who steals the movie as Poe, the medic and descendant of Edgar Allen Poe (..."hear the tinkle of the bells..."). It's time for a special edition DVD release for this underrated classic.