The Traveling Executioner

Overview:

Jonas Candide performs his job as state executioner in early 20th century Mississippi like a combination preacher and carnival barker, persuading condemned men to accept their deaths before electrocuting them on his electric chair. After he's assigned his first woman to execute, however, Jonas' sense of purpose is shaken.

Released: 1970-01-01

Duration: 01:35:00

Genre: Comedy, Drama, Western

Director: Jack Smight

Writer: Garrie Bateson

Cast: Stacy Keach, Marianna Hill, M. Emmet Walsh, ...

Director: Jack Smight

Writer: Garrie Bateson

Cast: Stacy Keach Marianna Hill M. Emmet Walsh Bud Cort Graham Jarvis James Sloyan

Genre: Comedy Drama Western

Description

In 1918 Jonas Candide, equipped with his own electric chair, travels from prison to prison charging $100 per execution. At Fairweather Prison in Alabama, he is hired to electrocute siblings Willy and Gundred Herzallerliebst. After he executes Willy, Jonas is seduced by Gundred and, hoping for her pardon, postpones her execution. When no pardon is forthcoming, Jonas attempts to persuade prison physician Doc Prittle to assist in simulating her execution. Prittle's price is so high, however, that the executioner gambles and pimps to get the money. Refused a supplementary bank loan, Jonas kills a guard. Although he frees Gundred, she deserts the executioner when he returns to town to retrieve his equipment. Gundred's sentence is commuted to life imprisonment, and Jonas is executed by his young assistant Jimmy, who ineptly transforms the electric chair into a funeral pyre.