Cockfighter

Cockfighter also known as Born to Kill is a 1974 film by director Monte Hellman, starring Warren Oates, Harry Dean Stanton and featuring Laurie Bird and Ed Begley, Jr. The screenplay is based on the novel of the same name by Charles Willeford.

Frank visits his home town, his family farm, and his longtime fiance Mary Elizabeth played by Patricia Pearcy. Mary Elizabeth has long grown tired of Mansfields cockfighter ways and asks him to settle down with her. Frank decides in favor of cockfighting, leaves Mary Elizabeth, sells the family farm for money to reinvest in chickens, and starts a partnership with Omar Baradinsky played by Richard B. Shull. The partnership takes them all the way to the cockfighting championships.Willeford adapted the novel to the screen himself and made several major plot changes among many smaller changes in detail. The author indicated that Cockfighter is based loosely on the structure of the Odyssey, so it is most significant that the author removed the entire subplot with the beautiful widow Berenice, perhaps the Calypso character. Removing this character also excluded the protagonists shortlived music career from the plot, although the movie does show Mansfield plucking a guitar at one point. Two other significant characters in the novel are also missing from the movie Doc Riordan a pharmacist inventor who supplies Mansfield with conditioning medicines for his chickens and the Judge who sells the Mansfield farm. The final scene of the movie also presents a dramatic shift from the end of the book Mansfield claims that Mary Elizabeth loves him as she walks off, whereas in the book he realizes the relationship is over and he is free. ........

Source: Wikipedia