The wisp of a plot finds Newman as a naïve Texas cowboy, desperate for money, who enters into a questionable deal to supply Mexican cattle to a shady rodeo supplier played by Strother Martin. Filming began in spring 1971 in Arizona, New Mexico, and Mexico, with the finished film released by National General Pictures in February 1972.

For this first release, the company bought the rights to a 1970 novel by J. The film was developed and produced by an independent company, First Artists, that Newman established with Sidney Poitier and Barbra Streisand, before Steve McQueen and Dustin Hoffman also joined the fold. (Rosenberg would direct Newman for a fourth time in The Drowning Pool, 1975.) Coop (1971) and Junior Bonner (1972), Pocket Money (1972) is a lightly comedic contemporary western that marked the third collaboration between director Stuart Rosenberg and star Paul Newman, following Cool Hand Luke (1967) and WUSA (1970).

One of several “twilight” cowboy movies made in the early 1970s, such as Monte Walsh (1970), J.

Pocket money 1972