Lucky Lady is a 1975 American comedy-drama film directed by Stanley Donen and starring Liza Minnelli, Gene Hackman, Burt Reynolds and Robby Benson.

Walker Ellis, a loser with whom she has long been having an affair, agrees to help wind up her business in Tijuana, which includes smuggling a last truckload of illegal Mexican immigrants across the border; this does not go according to plan.

Instead of moving the goods overland, Walker hires Billy Mason to captain a sailboat to transport the contraband via water.

As Walker, Claire, Kibby, and Billy navigate the waters on this venture, they find two inherent risks.

Instead, Moseley works to "starve" rum runners, who can only sail up and down the coast, blocked from entering a U.S. port.

Through it all, Claire has convinced Kibby and an initially reluctant Walker that their three partner business should extend into the bedroom.

"[4] She came across an article in American Mercury magazine about rumrunners operating off Ensenada during prohibition and, feeling that it had never been used for a film before, started researching the period.

When Huyck got out of the army they brought the idea to Mike Gruskoff, a producer, who liked the similarities to Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and agreed to finance them writing it for $75,000[4] They worked on the script for six months.

"[4] When they handed the script in, Gruskoff sold the film within eighteen hours to 20th Century Fox for $450,000, which was then a record amount for an original screenplay.

"[4] The writers said their inspiration for the lead characters were Jean Harlow, Clark Gable and Spencer Tracy.

Donen says this was due to problems with billing, pay and the fact the woman's role was central made it difficult to find male stars to play opposite her.

[6] "We thought the idea of three stars was a terrific notion because it would make Lucky Lady very salable and very castable," said Katz.

"[4] The only two female stars considered "bankable" at the time were Barbra Streisand and Liza Minnelli.

[12] Gene Hackman initially did not want to do the film, but 20th Century Fox kept offering him more and more money.

Finally, Fox offered him $1.25 million, and according to talent agent Sue Mengers, "it was almost obscene for him not to do the film.

It was an exceedingly difficult shoot, compounded by the isolation of the location, poor weather, and the fact so much of it was shot on water.

[17]In the original script, the two male leads were killed by government agents and the final scene happened ten years later with Liza Minnelli's character married to a boring businessman remembering the men she once loved.

During this time Donen became concerned about the ending, feeling that the film had become much lighter than originally intended, and tried several different ones, including simply cutting off the final ten minutes.

He eventually decided the film needed a happy ending and Fox agreed to finance a reshot scene.

The only good preview we had was when the film broke, and Stanley Donen, the director, did a dance for the audience while it was being spliced.

"[22] Vincent Canby of The New York Times called the film "ridiculous without the compensation of being funny or fun.

"[23] Pauline Kael of The New Yorker wrote, "This mercenaries' film is so coarsely conceived it obliterates any emotion, any art.

"[25] Gene Siskel of the Chicago Tribune gave the film 2 stars out of 4 and stated, "There's an arrogance to this project I don't like.

Apparently the filmmakers believed that the public would be sufficiently impressed with the antics of Gene, Liza, and Burt that it wouldn't care if the story made sense.

"[26] Charles Champlin of the Los Angeles Times declared, "By squinting hard in the mind's eye, you can almost make out what it was that made 'Lucky Lady' seem worth doing.

"[27] Gary Arnold of The Washington Post wrote, "If you were looking forward to an entertainment with a little class ... 'Lucky Lady' ... is likely to prove a resounding letdown.

Despite all the big-time reputations involved, class is the last word that would spring to mind while one was watching the film.

It achieved some minor notoriety at the time for retaining the original ending, which reflected the earlier draft script from which Holland worked.