There Was a Crooked Man... 1970

In 1883, a bold robbery unfolds as a crew led by Paris Pitman Jr. and their partners infiltrates the home of a wealthy rancher, Mr. Lomax, and makes off with a staggering sum—$500,000—stored in a safe cleverly disguised as a table. The ensuing gunfire shreds the household, and Pitman, after a brutal display that costs several of his own men their lives, escapes with the lone survivor’s brutality intact. He then buries the loot in a rattlesnake den out in the desert, turning the prize into a hidden fate he hopes to claim later. Meanwhile, Lomax, left broke and despairing, drifts into a bordello where he’s a familiar sight. The proprietress, moved by pity, lets him climb to a private viewing area to spy through a peephole on Pitman as he entertains a client—an unsettling reminder of the life he once had and the man who robbed him.

Pitman’s fate takes a harsher turn when he is caught, tried, and convicted, ending up in a penitentiary in the Arizona territory with a ten-year sentence. Inside, the prison becomes a microcosm of its own harsh economy, housing a spectrum of inmates: two con men who tried to fleece parishioners, a young man who accidentally killed his girlfriend’s father with a billiard ball, a broad-shouldered but blunt gunman who once shot a sheriff’s leg in a drunken stupor, a mute immigrant from China reputed to be a homicidal menace, and the legendary thief known as The Missouri Kid. The warden at first is corrupt and sees Pitman as a potential pawn; he offers a lucrative deal—Pitman could break out for a share of the loot. Pitman signs on to the plan, but the uprising that ensues during a prison riot ends with the warden LeGoff being killed, derailing the escape.

A new dynamic takes over as Woodward Lopeman steps in as the reform-minded warden. Lopeman sweeps away the harsh labor regime, curtails cruel punishments, and begins to restore a sense of dignity to the inmate population. He identifies leadership potential in Pitman and assigns him to oversee the construction of a dining hall, all while Pitman continues to prod his fellow prisoners toward a breakout by promising them a slice of the hidden fortune. The governor’s impending visit becomes the cover for Pitman’s final bid for freedom, and the prison erupts again into violence as a riot provides a distraction. In the chaos, three inmates fall, and Pitman takes the lives of two more of his associates as he presses toward the prize.

As Pitman makes his way to the money, Lopeman remains in relentless pursuit. The moment Pitman reaches the stash and begins to retrieve the bags, he is bitten by a rattlesnake, a cruel twist of fate that slows him just long enough for Lopeman to close in. Yet Pitman dies before he can reclaim the wealth in full, and Lopeman, seizing the moment, brings back both Pitman’s body and the money to the prison. However, in a final, chilling turn, Lopeman doesn’t hand the treasure over. Instead, he sends the mule bearing Pitman’s corpse into the prison yard and, with the loot in hand, slips away to Mexico, leaving the institution—and Pitman—behind with a twist ending that preserves the money for the person who could claim it last.