Dustin Hoffman and Susan George both give brilliant performances in this British-made story of a quiet young mathematician who is forced to defend his home in the west country when he takes in a mentally-handicapped man whom the community believes (quite rightly, as it turns out) has killed a girl.

Five of the most belligerent villagers fill themselves with booze and try to take his 'castle' by storm.

The resultant carnage has to be seen to be believed.

It's a Western in all but the setting - and the analogies are all there to see.

Hoffman is the mild-mannered 'sheriff', defending his prisoner against the 'lynch mob' even if it costs him his life.

You can almost see him blow the smoke from his gun as he dispatches one of the villains with some new act of savagery.

Both violence and sex are given their heads, and George is terrific in a horrifying scene where she is raped by a couple of the villagers. It was the ambiguity of this scene that upset the censors - and earning Peckinpah's movie a ban.

Of course, it's not always as good as the ending would have you believe.

But who's to complain?