The real-life incident and the action portrayed in the film both happened in Mexico, that’s one thing that’s the same, but the film had to be shot in the South of France, because the Mexican government didn’t want to participate.īreakout’s release was unique for its time, because Universal Studios sent 1,300 prints to theatres. The film was slightly based on a true incident, but of course most of the story was fabricated for dramatic effect. They get so desperate that there is a sequence of Randy Quaid in drag-which is a very terrifying sight to behold, you will have nightmares for weeks. She hires Nick Colton (Charles Bronson) and his partner Hawk (Randy Quaid) to fly in and scoop him out of prison, but as you might imagine, it’s a little more complicated than that. The generic title sums up this tale, in which wrongly accused husband Jay Wagner (Robert Duvall) is thrown into a Mexican jail, and his wife Ann (Jill Ireland) makes desperate attempts to get him out. It was directed by Tom Gries, a total hack whose other best-known film is another Bronson vehicle, the odd western flick Breakheart Pass. The film’s big problem was that it didn’t know what to do with the talent assembled for what was in actuality a very bland prison-break action flick.
Breakout is a film from the early ’70s that had an extraordinary cast, including Charles Bronson, Jill Ireland, Robert Duvall, John Huston, Sheree North and Randy Quaid.
