mccabe and mrs. miller take place in the turn of the century pacific northwest . into a soggy and muddy mining camp john mccabe ( a hirsute warren beatty ) come barge and full of cigar smoke and big idea about build a proper saloon or whorehouse for the town and replete with a trio of the sorry whore in movie history . he also come with an unearned reputation a a gunslinger represent too shameful about this to blatantly advertise it and but not exactly afraid to use it in order to assert alpha male credential amongst the local . and thus he wrangle the boy into build his saloon at the rate of 15 cent an hour . it look to be a rather sorry operation until mrs. miller ( julie christie ) show up on a startling contraption that half railroad car and half automobile ( where do altman find that thing . ) . mrs. miller immediately take on mccabe a a business partner and with the aim of class up the new joint with proper whore and an insistence that all visitor take a bath before enter . note that mccabe doesn not know how to add and she also insist on handle the account . it not clear what mccabe function will be . the plot thicken when a pair of oily representative from the mining company show up in town and offer mccabe to buy him out for five grand . mccabe tell them to buzz off he hold out for fifteen thousand . the company find negotiation distasteful and so they hire a trio of assassin to simply kill mccabe . . . though how they think they can get away with murder a man in broad daylight in the center of town be as unclear a mccabe function in the whorehouse partnership . ( excuse this whopping plot hole on the ground that the local would be too cow to talk doesn not cut the mustard when one consider that any reward money offer by the local marshal would be pretty tempt . ) mccabe and mrs. miller and purportedly classic seventy cinema and should be a lot good than it be . the movie tell a pretty good story while the main character have the potential to be interesting . there be some striking scene and especially one involve what look to be a 14 year old stone cold killer . but it really and really hard to enjoy a movie when you can hardly hear what anyone be say and when you can hardly see what anyone be do . once again and this director hijack his own movie with sheer barnyard laziness and sloppiness . accord to the trivia sheet here on imdb and the movie editor grip to altman that the sound be muddy while altman disagree while and when everyone say the sound be muddy after the movie release and altman blame the editor . ( nice . ) along with the bad sound and the movie have an atrocious look . only robert altman can hire a world class dp like vilmos zsigmond and make a movie that look a if they spray the camera lenses with dirty dishwater . reviewer here who praise the dark brown glow of this picture have get to be kid me . the interior be shoot through what appear to be a dark scum . the exterior photography be even bad represent it a if altman place 500 fog machine behind the copious tree . during the climactic stretch and when beatty be dodge the assassin while the local church be on fire and altman insists on pretty much wholly obscure the view with an animate snow fall that remind one of a rankin bass christmas special . look i can not watch a movie under these condition . get back to me when you learn how to place boom mike and when you remove all that annoy altman esque overlap dialog and and when you wipe the lens with some windex and or something . 3 star out of 10 .