Ned Beatty Trippe in "Deliverance" (1972), starring Jon Voight and Burt Reynolds, and set in northern Georgia. Beatty's character is forced to strip at gunpoint by two mountain men who humiliate and rape him, a scene so unprecedented, horrifying and shocking that it is still referenced as a screen milestone. In 1972, he also appeared in "The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean", a western with Paul Newman. In 1973, Beatty made "The Thief Who Came to Dinner", "The Last American Hero" and "White Lightning". The latter film reunited Beatty with his "Deliverance" co-star, Burt Reynolds. He also appeared in an
The Man Who Loved Cat Dancing (film) Perry admitted the novel was "female fantasizing. But what else was "Wuthering Heights"?" Poll set up the film at MGM where Dan Melnick was head of production. The movie was that studio's biggest budgeted film of the year. Melnick tried to get Steve McQueen and Ali MacGraw to play the leads but was unsuccessful. Perry said the film "cried out for Hepburn and Bogart but we settled on Burt Reynolds." Burt Reynolds was signed in November 1972. Reynolds said he did the movie "because I loved the book. I'd never done a love story, either." The filmmakers wanted Jane Fonda