On this day in 1881, Pat Garrett shot and killed William H. Bonney (born William Henry McCarty, Jr.), known as “Billy The Kid,” in Fort Sumner, New Mexico.
Of course, the way this actually happened isn’t known, and it’s been portrayed plenty of different ways in Westerns over the years, from King Vidor’s Billy The Kid (1930) to Sam Peckinpah’s Pat Garrett And Billy The Kid (1973, below).
Some even theorize that it’s not Billy reposing in the Fort Sumner dirt.
No one have a comment to make? OK, I guess I will.
It has sometimes seemed to me that of the historical figures around whom cinematic narratives have been woven for Westerns that Billy the Kid (and Pat Garrett, always around somewhere in these films) is the one we’ve seen most. Surprisingly, a fair number of those movies are pretty good and sometimes better than that. And they needn’t be prestigious either.
For example, Toby put me on last year to THE LAW VS. BILLY THE KID, directed by William Castle, in which Scott Brady was fine as Billy and an actor who is favorite of our host James Griffith superb as Pat. And I’ve always found Audie Murphy ideal as Billy in THE KID FROM TEXAS, directed by Kurt Neumann, a modest movie but one with more than a touch of sensitivity and gravity. I haven’t seen the Don Barry movie I SHOT BILLY THE KID but certainly would watch it.
Of the relatively more prestigious movies, early sound BILLY THE KID, directed by King Vidor holds up pretty well now and I was surprised to find seeing it again that the Technicolor BILLY THE KID with Robert Taylor, kind of a remake though has its own character, does too (David Miller is credited director but Frank Borzage, of all people, apparently did some of it).
How about bad movies with Billy the Kid? There is definitely one–I’ll court screaming from some here about this but I think THE OUTLAW is next to risible despite the good performances of Walter Huston and Thomas Mitchell. It could have been good if Howard Hawks had done it all and not been replaced by producer Howard Hughes, who is incredibly stiff and gave a terrible start to the career of Jane Russell, which she herself redeemed later and especially showed what she could do when directed seriously in a Western in Walsh’s THE TALL MEN.
Most people now will support two movies as the standout ones about Billy–first there’s THE LEFT-HANDED GUN, directed by Arthur Penn, and later, in a less great period of the genre there’s PAT GARRETT AND BILLY THE KID, directed by Sam Peckinpah. My vote on these is split, but perhaps not the way some would expect. THE LEFT-HANDED GUN, though it has its good points and about 15 really strong minutes during the later reels, has never worked well for me–it anticipates narcissism in a Western protagonist in a way that plays unappealingly and it’s relentlessly mannered. I should add that I like Penn’s two later Westerns LITTLE BIG MAN and THE MISSOURI BREAKS even less, especially the second. He was very gifted–at least one of his films is great, and I’m referring to the detective movie NIGHT MOVES with Gene Hackman. But I wish he had stayed away from Westerns, and he’s a rare talented director I will say that about. THE LEFT-HANDED GUN might well be thought of as a Western ten years ahead of its time, but not in a good way.
On the other hand, PAT GARRETT AND BILLY THE KID is a beauty, and I would vote for that one as best of all. Making Garrett equal to Billy in the narrative (in truth he is perhaps more the center of it) was a good move and I consider this James Coburn’s career best performance. And say what you want about Sam Peckinpah, he does have a real feeling for the ethos of the West that other modernists in the genre do not.
Thanks for such a thorough response.
I think we’ve discussed this before, but I have real problems with The Left-Handed Gun, mainly Newman’s performance, but there’s a lot about it I still really like. John Dierkes and John Dehner are both terrific in it, and the camerawork is interesting.
It also has an interesting take on the “print the legend” idea, as Billy begins to believe the stories about him, and I find that a cool approach in almost any Western.
Been after THE LAW VS BILLY THE KID for ages;finally sourced an
excellent off-air copy.More factual than most Sam Katzman epics
especially the notorious JACK McCALL DESPERADO but would get
both films especially if the Columbia MOD series put them both out in
widescreen.(I think its really neat that Columbia are releasing their old
non-widescreen films in this format.It makes you want to go for an upgrade
even if you have a mint off-air version.Their recent THE MAD MAGICIAN
is an absolute stunner in hi-def widescreen)
Never liked the Peckinpah version;’would rather listen to John Stewarts
wonderful ballad “Durango”Not too impressed by Kris in that film although
I thought he was brilliant in John Sayles amazing LONE STAR.
Guys; how about THE PARSON AND THE OUTLAW certainly the most
surreal BTK film ever. If Ed Wood and Andy Warhol had teamed up to
make a film bankrolled by Billy Graham it might have turned out something
like THE PARSON AND THE OUTLAW.
Tony Dexter shows why this was his only Western. Sonny Tufts laughable
as Jack Slade;Marie Windsor OTT and hammy as never before.
Only the underrated Robert Lowery emerges from the film with any
dignity;he actually turns in a decent performance;far more than the film
deserves.Lowery is also the best thing about I SHOT BILLY THE KID
too!
Would I get THE PARSON AND THE OUTLAW if there was a Columbia
widescreen MOD? The answer is YES;for all the films many faults there
is something about the film that is hard to resist.
I love The Parson And The Outlaw, and am eager to track it down and write a post on it.
I would’ve made a comment on this — but, believe it or not — 7/14 is also my birthday and I was out camping (complete with cowboy hat). As for what birthday this is — let’s put it this way: I need to hire someone to chew my food for me.
I don’t think there are any really satisfactory Billy the Kid movies. They just don’t deliver (or, at least, I can’t think of one that does). The best fictional depiction was McMurtry’s Something for Billy, which is quite terrific!
BTW — legend has it that Billy caught a slug in the back while he was, ah, ‘watering the flowers.’ Who knows how true that is?
Recently read To Hell On A Fast Horse, which was very good. I’d recommend it to those who want to sort out a bit of the whole Billy/ Pat story.
Oh, and happy birthday.
What, no mention of Chisum, with John Wayne? Perhaps that’s a comment on the movie itself. Glenn Corbett is a stolid Pat Garrett and Geoffrey Deuel is a boyish, unstable and yet rather bland Billy who is trying hard to reform but the way of the gun overpowers turning the other cheek when his beloved boss and mentor (Patric Knowles as Tunstall) is murdered. Chisum for me is another widget rolled off the Andrew McLaglen westerns assembly line but it has pretty cinematography and some humor courtesy Ben Johnson’s mumbling Pepper, who I tend to think steals the movie, but I can’t really say, as I am biased.
I hadn’t seen Vidor’s Billy the Kid until its recent WAC release, and I loved it. If only the real story had worked out that way!
What about everyone’s favorite “Billy The Kid Vs. Dracula”? This must be the most factual of all Billy movies. By the way, Chisum is one of my all time favorites, and not because of Billy.
“Of course, the way this actually happened isn’t known, and it’s been portrayed plenty of different ways in Westerns over the years.”
But couldn’t this be said of just about anything? Who knows what really happened UNLESS the act was caught on film/video and preserved for future generations? We know WHAT happened–Billy got killed–but HOW is usually an iffy thing in history.