The Executioner's Song (film) this work. "Time Out- London" said about the film's performances: "Jones (playing Gilmore) goes his own fascinating route to the loser's nirvana without recourse to psycho-style tics, while strong character performances from Arquette and Lahti constantly shift the focus back towards the everyday straitjacket of Utah underdogs." The Executioner's Song (film) The Executioner's Song is a 1982 made-for-television film adaptation of Norman Mailer's 1979 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel of the same name. The film is directed by Lawrence Schiller from a screenplay by Mailer. The movie is about the final nine months of the life of Gary Gilmore, beginning with his
For the Term of His Natural Life "John King," a song about a real inmate at Port Arthur prison, with "You're here in Port Arthur for the rest of your natural life" as the concluding line of each chorus. Like the fictional Rufus Dawes, John King may have been wrongly convicted, yet spent his life in the prison. The song appears in MacDonald's 2011 release Songs Of Freedom, in Big Brass Bed's "Dylan Jam + 2" (2009), and in a YouTube video at <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3vm_qo1s4EY>. In 2013 Patricia Payne reintroduced "For the Term of His Natural Life" in the form of an interactive iPad app The Australian movie