Trailer
Plot summary
During his stay in 1955, Marty McFly finds a letter from Doc Brown, who has been thrown 70 years into the past. With the younger Doc's help, Marty digs up the buried DeLorean and aims it at 1885. Before departing, he sees a headstone bearing Doc's name and naming Buford "Mad Dog" Tannen as the man who shot him, yet he travels to the frontier anyway. He lands in the middle of a cavalry chase, wrecks the car's fuel line, and angers Buford and his gang in the young town of Hill Valley. Doc pulls him free of an attempted lynching. With no gasoline, the DeLorean cannot hit 88 miles per hour, and Doc proposes a steam locomotive as the pusher. Doc has also grown fond of Clara Clayton, the schoolteacher new to town.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Back to the Future Part III (1990)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Robert Zemeckis considered casting Ronald Reagan as the Mayor of Hill Valley in 1885; Reagan had recently finished his second term as president and had not appeared in a film since 1964's The Killers. Zemeckis asked Reagan's agent Lew Wasserman, and Reagan declined the role.
- The film's Western setting came from a question Robert Zemeckis asked Michael J. Fox while shooting the original film: which time period he would like to visit. Fox chose the Old West and cowboys, and Zemeckis and Bob Gale saved the idea for Part III.
- The role of Clara Clayton was written with Mary Steenburgen in mind. She was reluctant to commit to the film until her children, who had loved the first film, hounded her into taking it.
- The Hill Valley Festival Dance scene proved the most dangerous for Christopher Lloyd and Mary Steenburgen: overzealous dancing left Steenburgen with a torn ligament in her foot.
- Thomas F. Wilson, who played Buford "Mad Dog" Tannen, did his own stunts instead of using a stunt double and spent a great deal of time learning to ride a horse and throw a lariat.
