Mrs. Sundance (1974)

Director: Marvin J. Chomsky

Writer: Christopher Knopf

Composer: Patrick Williams

Starring: Elizabeth Montgomery, Robert Foxworth, L.Q. Jones, Arthur Hunnicutt, Lurene Tuttle, Claudette Nevins, Lorna Thayer, Robbert Donner, Byron Mabe, Dean Smith, Jack Williams, Todd Shelhorse

More info: IMDb

Tagline: After Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid were killed dead in a hail of lead, she was left still alive with a price of $10,000 on her hide.

Plot: Bouty hunters all over the Southwest are on the lookout for Etta Place (Montgomery), also known as Mrs. Sundance. Most cowboys on the wrong side of the law are convinced that Mrs. Sundance knows the exact location of the untold millions in hidden gold stolen over the years by her husband. Shrewd and wily from the tricks she learned through The Kid, Mrs. Sundance proves just as tough to catch as her husband was!

My rating: 6.5/10

Will I watch it again? No.

Geez, in the span of one week I've seen, completely by chance, three movies with Robert Foxworth - PROPHECY (1979), THE QUESTOR TAPES (1974) and now this. And I barely knew who the guy was.  I know now.  It's essentially his and Elizabeth Montgomery's show.  It was great seeing L.Q. Jones in the role of the lead bounty hunter.  It's a TV movie so there's no escaping the trappings of what medium it was made for but it is a pretty good one.  The score is fantastic, though, and not what you'd expect for the time.  It's so good that I thought it might have been by the great Jerry Fielding. That's a high compliment to Patrick Williams' fine work on this film.  There's a moment near the end, when it looks like the chips are down and there's no escaping the bounty hunters, when Etta (Montgomery) reminisces to Jack (Foxworth) about the good old days with Butch & Sundance.  There's a beautiful, melancholy rendition of "Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head", the song featured in the earlier film, BUTCH CASSIDY AND THE SUNDANCE KID (1969).  It was so good I was taken aback.  The way it sneaks up on you and plays out really made that scene special.  The conclusion played out differently than I expected which was a good thing.  There are some other familiar faces in the picture that will have you recalling some fond memories from their earlier work.  TV movies from the 70s were a big thing.  A TV Movie-of-the-Week was generally something the family would prepare for.  They were of a higher quality than what you got in the 80s and 90s as cable and home video saturated the market.  Don't let yourself pass one up just because it was made for TV.  You might miss something of quality.