There Was a Crooked Man...

In 1883 Arizona, a smooth-talking career criminal named Paris Pitman Jr. is sent to a territorial prison, leaving behind a fortune in stolen money he has hidden in the desert. He intends to get out and retrieve it. Charming and manipulative, he sets about winning over his fellow inmates, offering them a share of the loot in return for their help. Standing in his way is Woodward W. Lopeman, the prison's new warden, a reformer who takes a personal interest in Pitman's case and has ideas of his own about how to handle him.

Joseph L. Mankiewicz directed and produced the film, the thirteenth of the fourteen features he directed, following Cleopatra and preceding Sleuth. The screenplay was written by Robert Benton, David Newman and Lee Adams. Kirk Douglas plays Pitman opposite Henry Fonda as Lopeman, with Hume Cronyn, Warren Oates, Burgess Meredith and John Randolph among the supporting players; seventy-nine cast members are credited in all.

Released by Warner Bros. Pictures on September 18, 1970, the western runs 123 minutes. On IMDb it holds a rating of 6.8 from around 5,700 votes, while on TMDB it also stands at 6.8 from about 150 votes. A critics' score of 7 out of 10 from eleven reviews places professional opinion slightly ahead of the generally favourable audience response.