Plot
McMurphy (Bleir) comes to Denver, Colorado to see Polly Pry (Nessin) about the Packer case. As Pry leaves for her scheduled meeting with McMurphy, she is stalked and shot at by a gunman. The bullets hit her skirts and lessen the blows inflicted on her publishers behind her.
McMurphy and Pry meet in a tavern to discuss the Packer story over whiskey. She begins with the five prospectors who will become victims meeting up for the first time at a boardinghouse, where the landlady (Ruth Seder) tells them that Alfred Packer is the best guide in the area.
The men find Packer in a small prison, and pay his bail so that he can be their guide. They join together with the larger group, but are soon split up, and they get suckered into the hospitality of a trapper (Morgan) and his sidekick, Weasel (Farrar), who intend to rape George Noon (Dratfield).
Packer and the men escape, but get hopelessly lost in Ute territory. When Packer is scouting ahead, he returns to find that Shannon Wilson Bell (Haines), a Mormon missionary, has killed and begun to eat the other prospectors. Packer and Bell fight; Bell falls, landing on a knife, and is killed.
After several months, Packer comes out of the mountains into the nearest town and makes his report to General Adams (Don Donovan). Later, while at Dolan's Bar, his story having been investigated, he is captured and brought to trial. The remainder of the film depicts his trial. Judge Gerry (Sam Kirbens) reads his sentence as per the court records, though omitting the two consecutive repeats of "dead." As Packer walks through the courthouse door, a blue glow emanates from behind it, the image freezes, and, in voiceover and overlain title cards, Pry briefly summarizes what happened to Packer after the trial.
Read more about this topic: The Legend Of Alfred Packer
Famous quotes containing the word plot:
“Persons attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be prosecuted; persons attempting to find a moral in it will be banished; persons attempting to find a plot in it will be shot.”
—Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835–1910)
“Trade and the streets ensnare us,
Our bodies are weak and worn;
We plot and corrupt each other,
And we despoil the unborn.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“But, when to Sin our byast Nature leans,
The careful Devil is still at hand with means;
And providently Pimps for ill desires:
The Good Old Cause, reviv’d, a Plot requires,
Plots, true or false, are necessary things,
To raise up Common-wealths and ruine Kings.”
—John Dryden (1631–1700)