Directed by William Castle
Produced by Sam Katzman
Story and Screen Play by Bernard Gordon (as John T. Williams)*
Director of Photography: Henry Freulich, ASC
Music under the supervision of Mischa Bakaleinikoff
Film Editor: Aaron Stell, ACE
CAST: Scott Brady (Billy The Kid), Betta St. John (Nita Maxwell), James Griffith (Pat Garrett), Alan Hale Jr. (Bob Ollinger), Paul Cavanagh (John H. Tunstall), William ‘Bill’ Phillips (Charley Bowdre), Benny Rubin (Arnold Dodge).
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The William Castle Blogathon devotes a few days of online pontification to one of my favorite filmmakers.
Castle was a huge part of my movie-geek childhood (one that I’m trying to pass on to my daughter). You’ll find other Castle posts here.
In 1954, Sam Katzman produced a series of Westerns about famous real-life outlaws and lawmen — Jesse James Vs. The Daltons (which was in 3D), The Law Vs. Billy The Kid and Masterson Of Kansas. All three were directed by William Castle, still a few years from finding his niche in gimmick-y horror movies aimed at kids, such as House On Haunted Hill (1958) and The Tingler (1959).
The Law Vs. Billy The Kid was written by Bernard Gordon, who’d written The Lawless Breed (1952), an excellent tale of John Wesley Hardin that Raoul Walsh directed for Universal-International, starring Rock Hudson and Julie Adams. A blacklisted screenwriter, Gordon was selling plastics when he was contacted by Charles Schneer, an assistant producer at Columbia who looking for a Western script. (Schneer would got on to produce Ray Harryheusen’s Dynamation films.)
Bernard Gordon: “I borrowed a synopsis from a friend, Philip Stevenson, another blacklisted writer who had written an unproduced play about Billy The Kid. This story was approved. I went to work writing the script and shared the minimum pay for the original story with Stevenson and another blacklisted writer, Bob Williams, who collaborated with me so I could continue to work selling plastics. My script was accepted… The success of this work started me, with many fits and starts, into a busy career as a blacklisted screenwriter.”
The picture hits a few of the milestones of Billy The Kid’s life: his friendship with Pat Garrett, job with John Tunstall, involvement in the Lincoln County War, and his shooting by Pat Garrett. Those facts are as close as we get to actual biography. Here, the Kid (Scott Brady) is simply too old; Billy was only 21 when he was killed. There’s a cooked-up romantic subplot with Tunstall’s niece, played by Betta St. John. And as we’d see in Arthur Penn’s The Left-Handed Gun (1958), there’s an attempt to portray the Kid as a troubled young man forced into his life of crime.
For a guy from Brooklyn, Scott Brady sure made a lot of Westerns, including his own TV series, Shotgun Slade (1959-61). During the 50s, he worked with some of the genre’s best directors: Allan Dwan (The Restless Breed), Budd Boetticher (Bronco Buster), Joe Kane (The Maverick Queen) and Nicholas Ray (Johnny Guitar). There were also a couple Regalscope Westerns, Blood Arrow and Ambush At Cimarron Pass (both 1958).
As Pat Garrett, James Griffith walks away with the film — just as he’d do as Doc Holliday in Masterson Of Kansas (1954). By underplaying, he gives Garrett plenty of strength. His performance really elevates the film.
In his essential book Step Right Up! I’m Gonna Scare The Pants Off America, Castle didn’t devote much time to his Katzman Westerns, though he had nothing but praise for Katzman as a showman. By this time, Castle was a solid contract director — and he certainly knew his way around Hollywood locations like Melody Ranch and Walker Ranch. He wrote of this period of his career, “I was now on another treadmill, turning out a full-length feature every month.” He was still four years away from his independent breakthrough with Macabre (1958).
Castle keeps The Law Vs. Billy The Kid moving at a good clip and gets pretty good performances from his cast. His direction is efficient and assured, even if he was cranking out pictures like sausages. There are no frills, no 3D, no floating skeleton, no Coward’s Corner. It doesn’t need them. The Law Vs. Billy The Kid stands as another a good example of a middle-budget Columbia 50s Western. It was made fast and lean — remember, it was produced by Sam Katzman’s unit. But the pros, craftsmen and artists who made the film work wonders. One of these craftsmen would be Director of Photography Henry Freulich — who spent the bulk of his career at Columbia, shooting everything from Three Stooges shorts to The Durango Kid pictures to the Blondie movies to a slew of William Castle films. (He deserves a plaque here in the Roan house.) Freulich gives Castle’s Technicolor Westerns a bright, crisp look, and I really like the way he used the then-new 1.85 aspect ratio.
* In 1997, the Writers Guild of America restored Bernard’s credit for The Law Vs. Billy The Kid.
50 Westerns From The 50s. 
Nice job Toby. I’ve only seen a handful of Castle’s westerns; I really like The Americano, not so fussed on Cave of Outlaws. I also have Battle of Rogue River & Masterson of Kansas to watch on my shelf.
This sounds like an interesting effort at any rate.
Very good piece. I owe Toby for giving these Castle Westerns more of a chance after I’d undervalued him. MASTERSON OF KANSAS is especially good, even more than this, but this is good too, even though there are so many other Billy the Kid movies out there to compete with it. I too liked what they did with the character of Garrett here. I don’t think anyone in my experience after brought the kind of deserved attention to criminally underrated James Griffith that Toby has.
Great stuff Toby,…Like so many baby boomers my first memories of William Castle are through FAMOUS MONSTERS OF FILMLAND magazine, HOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL, THE TINGLER, MACABRE, etc.
A friend of mine (circa 1960) who was a few years older than me went to the theater to see HOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL and assured me that skeletons actually came bounding from the screen out into the audience. I was afraid to see this movie, at least for a couple of years.
As for Castle’s Westerns, I was never aware that he had made any back then. I saw JESSE JAMES VS. THE DALTONS, LAW VS. BILLY THE KID & MASTERSON OF KANSAS on the old b&w tv and liked them then, but that was most likely due to the subject matter, Jesse James, Billy the Kid, the Daltons, listed in the titles rather than the production abilities.
Now I can set my sights a little higher…
Really liked MASTERSON OF KANSAS, tight, taunt.
Hoping to see the others receive the same quality release treatment.
Thanks for the kind words. Masterson Of Kansas is a real pet movie of mine, and I love the fact that people are seeing it and appreciating it.
This prompted me to dig into my Castle titles and i watched Masterson of Kansas tonight.
I remember you wrote enthusiastically about the film before and I have to say I found it very enjoyable too. Sure it’s a low budget affair, with some stock footage blended in yet there’s a very attractive quality to it all.
I appreciated Castle’s tight, sparing direction, the economy of the piece. And the acting was fine. I thought Montgomery gave a tight-lipped, unsentimental portrayal of Bat Masterson that was appropriate for a lawman in a tough environment. I have a lot of time for Nancy Gates (her work on Comanche Station is excellent) and felt she was very credible in her role. However, the real standout turn is James Griffith’s Doc Holliday; his elegant fatalism is the equal of any of the other screen versions of the character.
Glad you got to see it, Colin. “Elegant fatalism” is a great way to describe Griffith’s take on Holliday.
Columbia, and Castle, made a slew of these things. They’re all enjoyable, but the ones where everything clicked are just terrific.
There’s nothing quite like a B movie where all the pieces and parts come together.
“There’s nothing quite like a B movie where all the pieces and parts come together.”
You said it. And since it’s never happening again, they are all the more precious now.