Notable for being the debut directorial outing for Arthur Penn, not for the last time dipping into American crime folk-lore to celebrate the life and times of a well-known anti-hero who meets an early demise at the hands of the law.
On this occasion, it's the outlaw Billy the Kid, as played by Paul Newman who gets the bio-treatment. We join the film as Billy, worn out on the trail, is taken in by prosperous local rancher John Tunstall, who however is a target for local rivals backed in their vendetta by the neighbourhood sheriff and his deputy. Tunstall hangs around just long enough to teach Billy to read and mentor him almost like the father he never seems to have had. When Tunstall duly becomes a victim of his enemies, an inconsolable Billy hooks up with two of his cohorts and sets out to take down the four men responsible for Tunstall's end.
Unfortunately for him, along the way, he encounters the significant figure of Pat Garrett, a respected, law-abiding citizen who, out of affection for the Kid, initially resists the call put on the badge and bring him in, but when Billy ruthlessly shoots down his quarry during Garrett's wedding, an enraged Pat becomes sheriff and with his posse hunts him down. We all know our history of these two forever bracketed-together names from the Old West to know how this finishes...
Criticised for straying from the Kid's true story and for the disparity in the ages of certain actors in the cast to their real-life counterparts, most obviously in Newman's fully-grown Kid but also the character of Tunstall, I was never quite convinced by either the direction or the acting to be on Billy's side. Newman brings his familiar ticks and tricks to the party, his unendearing kookiness and overdone seriousness while Penn as the director, while occasionally displaying flair (I'm sure I saw a brief pre-Peckinpah slow-motion death) struggles to create a convincing narrative, fails to prevent some of his cast from obviously overacting and really should have cut back on the use of background incidental music. I read somewhere that he wasn't allowed to cut the movie himself so maybe I should cut him some slack, but he still allowed his name to be put on the film. Of the rest of the cast, I was more impressed by John Dehner as Garrett at the calm centre of the movie and putting forward his character's case to be included in the film's title as of course would come to pass in future years.
A bit of a mixed-up, shook-up western then, rather like the Kid himself...
On this occasion, it's the outlaw Billy the Kid, as played by Paul Newman who gets the bio-treatment. We join the film as Billy, worn out on the trail, is taken in by prosperous local rancher John Tunstall, who however is a target for local rivals backed in their vendetta by the neighbourhood sheriff and his deputy. Tunstall hangs around just long enough to teach Billy to read and mentor him almost like the father he never seems to have had. When Tunstall duly becomes a victim of his enemies, an inconsolable Billy hooks up with two of his cohorts and sets out to take down the four men responsible for Tunstall's end.
Unfortunately for him, along the way, he encounters the significant figure of Pat Garrett, a respected, law-abiding citizen who, out of affection for the Kid, initially resists the call put on the badge and bring him in, but when Billy ruthlessly shoots down his quarry during Garrett's wedding, an enraged Pat becomes sheriff and with his posse hunts him down. We all know our history of these two forever bracketed-together names from the Old West to know how this finishes...
Criticised for straying from the Kid's true story and for the disparity in the ages of certain actors in the cast to their real-life counterparts, most obviously in Newman's fully-grown Kid but also the character of Tunstall, I was never quite convinced by either the direction or the acting to be on Billy's side. Newman brings his familiar ticks and tricks to the party, his unendearing kookiness and overdone seriousness while Penn as the director, while occasionally displaying flair (I'm sure I saw a brief pre-Peckinpah slow-motion death) struggles to create a convincing narrative, fails to prevent some of his cast from obviously overacting and really should have cut back on the use of background incidental music. I read somewhere that he wasn't allowed to cut the movie himself so maybe I should cut him some slack, but he still allowed his name to be put on the film. Of the rest of the cast, I was more impressed by John Dehner as Garrett at the calm centre of the movie and putting forward his character's case to be included in the film's title as of course would come to pass in future years.
A bit of a mixed-up, shook-up western then, rather like the Kid himself...