The Shooting

The Shooting is a 1966 western film directed by Monte Hellman, with a screenplay by Carole Eastman (using the pseudonym "Adrien Joyce"). It stars Warren Oates, Millie Perkins, Will Hutchins, and Jack Nicholson, and was produced by Nicholson and Hellman. The story is about two men who are hired by a mysterious woman to accompany her to a town located many miles across the desert. During their journey, they are closely tracked by a black-clad gunslinger who seems intent on killing all of them. The film was shot in 1965 in the Utah desert, back-to-back with Hellman's similar western, Ride in the Whirlwind, which also starred Nicholson. Both films were shown at several international film festivals but it was not until 1968 that the U.S. distribution rights were purchased by the Walter Reade Organization. No other domestic distributor had expressed any interest in the films. Walter Reade decided to bypass a theatrical release, and the two titles were sold directly to television.