David S. Ward specialized in writing and directing feature films which often used a familiar backdrop to tell an unfamiliar tale. He got his big break when he sold "Steelyard Blues/The Final Crash", a film about a D.A. embarrassed by his ex-con brother and his ex-hooker girlfriend, to Michael and Julia Phillips in 1971. Released in 1973, the film starred Howard Hesseman as the lawyer, Donald Sutherland as his brother and Jane Fonda as the girl. Most critics found it entertaining, but it was not as popular as the other Ward-Phillips 1973 collaboration, "The Sting". Starring Paul Newman and
