Maxie (1973)

everything you have heard about this movie is true.

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

I saw this amateurish effort until the title of THE BUTCHERS. It's a very cheap and low rent production about a couple of butchers who end up serving human meat thanks to their association with the local mob. Some thriller aspects of the story come into play when a young mute girl witnesses their nefarious activities and is destined to die, but things never go exactly as planned.In all fairness, THE BUTCHERS is rubbish. The film is about as exciting as its original title, MAXIE. Nothing much happens from beginning to end, and the only realism comes from numerous shots of real chickens having their heads chopped off, which isn't exactly pleasant to watch. The acting is resolutely poor although Talia Shire, who would of course go on to fame as Adrian in the ROCKY franchise, is pretty good in a rather minor role. In the end, though, THE BUTCHERS has more in common with an Andy Milligan film than anything approaching real cinema; i.e., it's complete rubbish.

I must have seen this movie when I was 9 or 10. I am 27 now and some of the scenes of this movie still stick to me immensely. I happened to be on one of my Wikipedia marathons at work and somehow wikipedia'ed Alice- which led me to Wiki Vic- which in turn reminded me that Vic had been in a weird movie where he said "Chop Chop!" and I remembered there was a mute girl in the movie. Wikipedia did not list this movie so I came to this site- and as I expected, IMDb listed it! What I remember is that the scenes with Vic almost made me think the movie was a comedy-- but then i remembered about the mute girl.the final scene is what I can't shake out of my mind: there is a bad car crash and a guy bites his tongue off?? so he in turn becomes mute like Maxie? Then also remember somebody learning how to talk? Anyway- the last scene with the car crash was disturbing to watch as a 10 year old, and as with most disturbing things--- I'm DYING to get my hands on this movie to watch it now, almost 20 years later!

I have this title under Murderer's Keep on VHS and The Butchers on DVD. I actually enjoy this flick very much. The scenes and camera angles are well thought out and interesting. The acting is above average and although the horror is subdued a bit and the film creeps along some, it has a certain charm that elevates it a bit. I can tell by the lack of reviews this flick gets ignored. It's a shame really, because it's a very well done affair and worth a watch, you could do much worse (and probably have) Vic Tayback, better known as that gruff, greasy diner cook with a heart of gold on TV's Alice plays Smedke, a gruff, greasy butcher with an accent of gold in a flick that deals with a butchers desire to pass cost savings onto his customers by cutting the middle man(Sometime dressed in a Santa suit) into little pieces and charging $1.15 a pound (What a deal!) His apprentice, a simpleton with gray teeth is learning the trade. All is going well except that cute little deaf mute Maxie might have seen something she shouldn't but ol Smedke isn't too worried about it since the girl can't talk. The beautiful Talia Shire (Yo Adrian!!) shows up sans Rocky and along with her doctor pal decide to teach Maxieto talk since her crappy dad won't. Vic gets nervous at this prospect for obvious reasons. Mayhem ensues.

*SPOILERS* When I see the names Talia Shire or Vic Taybeck, I usually assume that the production they are associated with will have a certain quality to it, even if it is made for television. When I saw these names together in one movie, I was expecting one hell of a film. That's the first mistake many of us make when we go to a movie. Often not only does expectation diminish the quality of the production, it diminishes the films original intention. Having said this, I will say that I tried very hard to watch `The Butcher' (or Maxie, or Murderers Keep, take your pick) from a critical standpoint, and in my book that means no expectations, and brutal honesty. First off, The direction was poor, some of the footage was light struck, and the editing was sometimes unforgivable and always choppy. However the script was mostly believable, and even entertaining for an undemanding audience, the acting, though only mediocre, was at least tolerable, and the characters seemed well drawn. The premise of `The Butcher' is quite simple. A young mute girl discovers that the local butcher is using human meat in his market. Vic Taybeck is menacing (though not as much as he should have been) as Smedke the butcher, and Talia Shire is as mousy as ever playing a concerned social worker. `The Butcher' was by no means an awful movie, however with these kind of actors, and a script that wasn't all bad, it should have been much better.