- Dustin Hoffman, Straw Dogs, 1971. A (bad) Sam Peckinpah Western set in a Cornwall, almost entirely inhabited by (violent) village idiots. In the mix for the (milque-toast) hero were Nicholson, Beau Bridges, Stacy Keach, Sidney Poitier and Donald Sutherland. Plus Elliott Gould who naturally being booked by Ingmar Bergman for The Touch. (Peckinpah nearly hired another Gould, his then lover, Joie Gould, as the hero’s missus! She was his producer’s assistant on The Getaway, 1972). They probably all agreed with Chicago Sun-Times critic Roger Ebert’s later review: “The most offensive thing about the movie is its hypocrisy; it is totally committed to the pornography of violence, but lays on the moral outrage with a shovel.”
Birth year: Death year: Other name: Casting Calls: 1