| Director | Gérard Oury, Sam Peckinpah |
|---|---|
| Budget | $3.3 million |
| Box office | $36.7 million |
Four years into his 10-year-sentence for armed robbery, Carter "Doc" McCoy is denied parole from a Texas prison. When his wife Carol visits him, he tells her to make a deal to free him with Jack Beynon, a parole board member and corrupt businessman in San Antonio. Beynon facilitates Doc's parole on the condition that he plan and take part in a bank robbery with two henchmen, Rudy Butler and Frank Jackson. The robbery initially goes as planned, until Frank kills a security guard. Rudy then kills Frank in their car. At the designated meeting place, an old farmyard, Rudy tries to shoot Doc, but Doc anticipates Rudy's double-cross and shoots Rudy several times. Doc and Carol take the $500,000 million in .}} and flee. Rudy, having secretly worn a bulletproof vest, is only wounded in the shoulder.
When Doc meets with Beynon at his ranch, Carol sneaks in to kill Doc, as per a double-cross Beynon arranged with her. However, Carol draws her gun on Beynon and kills him instead. Doc, having just been taunted by Beynon before Carol shot him, realizes that Carol had sex with Beynon to secure his parole. He angrily gathers the money and, after a bitter quarrel, the couple heads for the Mexican border at El Paso.
Rudy manages to collect himself and drive to the home of rural veterinarian Harold Clinton, who treats his injuries. Rudy kidnaps the doctor and his wife Fran to pursue Doc and Carol. Beynon's brother and his team also track down the McCoys. At a train station, a con man swaps locker keys with Carol and steals their bag of money. Doc follows him onto a train and forcibly takes it back, although the thief has already pocketed a packet of the money. The injured thief and a train passenger—a boy Doc had rebuked for squirting him with a water gun—are taken to the police station, where they identify Doc's mug shot.
Carol buys a car, and they drive to an electronics store. As Doc buys a portable radio, the other radios and the televisions start broadcasting the news of the earlier incidents in which they were involved. Doc leaves immediately, but the proprietor gets a glimpse of his picture on TV and calls the police. Doc steals a shotgun from a neighboring sporting goods store, and shoots up the arriving police car to prevent the officers from chasing them. Before reaching El Paso, Doc and Carol are chased again by the police, this time escaping by hiding in a trash container and surviving the night inside a garbage truck. After being thrown away in a landfill they talk about their relationship, and decide to stay together rather than go separate ways.
The mutual attraction between Rudy and Fran, the veterinarian's wife, leads to them having consensual sex on two occasions in front of her husband, who is tied up in a chair at a motel. Humiliated, the vet hangs himself in the bathroom. Rudy and Fran move on, barely acknowledging the suicide. They check into El Paso's Laughlin Hotel, used by criminals as a safe house, as Rudy anticipates that the McCoys will be heading to the same place. When Doc and Carol check in, they ask for food to be delivered, but the manager, Laughlin, says he is working alone and cannot leave the desk. Doc realizes Laughlin sent his family away because something nasty is about to happen. He urges Carol to dress quickly so they can escape. An armed Rudy comes to their door while Fran poses as a delivery girl. Peering from an adjacent doorway, Doc is surprised to see Rudy alive. He sneaks up and knocks out both Rudy and Fran.
Beynon's brother and his thugs arrive as the McCoys try to leave the hotel. A violent gunfight ensues in the halls, stairwell and elevator, with the brother knocked unconscious in the fallen elevator while all but one of his men are killed; Doc allows him to run away safely. Rudy comes to, follows Doc and Carol outside onto a fire escape and shoots at them. Doc returns fire and kills him. With the police on the way, the couple hijack a pickup truck and force the driver, a cooperative old cowboy, to take them to Mexico. After crossing the border, Doc and Carol pay the cowboy $30,000.}} for his old truck. Overjoyed, the cowboy heads back to El Paso on foot, while the couple continues into Mexico, having gotten away with their crimes and the remainder of the money.