PAT GARRETT AND BILLY THE KID
Directed SAM PECKINPAH
1973 US
The critics are still divided over this film - Pauline Kael said it was a druggy, whoozy piece of work with no central engine while Variety said it was a masterpiece far superior to The Wild Bunch.
There are so many different versions available though the current DVD release is the closest we're likely to get to the director's original vision.
It was a troubled shoot - the director liked to start each day with a whiskey breakfast, Kris Kristofferson was pissed that his character was more a symbol than a part of the movie and Bob Dylan's scenes had to be cut back until he becomes little more than pointless to the overall movie.
However out of all this conflict and confusion, the studio were constantly threatening to close the production, comes a
strange but elegiac and beautiful ode to the west that never was. Indeed the killing of Billy can be seen as the director closing the door on his slightly mythical but very macho version of the wild west.The film bombed at the box office and virtually killed the western - in fact the next big box office western was another Billy the Kid story and that was 1988's Young Guns. However these days the film is regarded a classic and the replacement of the bookend scenes where Garrett is killed to the DVD release makes for a far more satisfying film than the original cinematic version.
Forget all the negatives about this films and, if you haven't seen it, then get hold of it now. It truly is a classic and I, myself, actually prefer it to The Wild Bunch which is mostly seen as Peckinpah's finest moment. The scene where the old character looks out across the western landscape, knowing he is dying, to the tune of Bob Dylan's Knocking on Heaven's Door is a wonderful piece of cinema.
A brilliant but flawed film.
WILD WEST MONDAY UPDATE:
This wild west monday I'll be - (Joanne (Terry James) Walpole)
"I'm going to donate about fifteen old westerns I've read to a local charity - probably the Salvation Army. If I can tie it in with the release of my western Long Shadows I might be able to get some publicity in the local paper. This should promote the charity, my book and the western genre."
(long shadows by Terry James is avilable this MAY from Black Horse Westerns.
10 comments:
I saw this once many many years ago. I don't remember much about it. Perhaps I should try to watch it again.
Charles - you should. I think it would be your sort of thing as you love Once Upon a Time...which is a similarly sprawling western. To my mind Peckinpah's best western was Ride The High Country but this film is superb in its own right.
The movie did flop at the box office, but Western movies were already on the decline. I don't think the failure of PAT GARRETT, in and of itself, was a significant factor. The genre was pretty much kept on life support in the '70s by John Wayne and Clint Eastwood. HIGH PLAINS DRIFTER, released around the same time as PAT GARRETT, probably placed at least in the Box Office top 20 for the year. The failure of PAT GARRETT didn't even sink Peckinpah's career, since he came back the next year with ALFREDO GARCIA. For me, one of the beauties of PAT GARRETT is the amazing cast of returnees from previous Peckinpah movies (Coburn, Robards, RG Armstrong, John Davis Chandler), veteran Western actors (Chill Wills, Slim Pickens, Katy Jurado, Jack Elam, Richard Jaekel, Paul Fix, Gene Evans, Barry Sullivan), and '70s talent (Richard Bright, Charlie Martin Smith, Harry Dean Stanton, Matt Clark). I guess the stunt casting of Kristofferson and Dylan probably looked good on paper, but to my mind Kristofferson had zero charisma, and Dylan simply looked silly.
Fred - course the original cinema release was mauled by the studios - the current cut is much better. I think this would have also contributed to the box office flop.
Sadly, amigo, probably so. I also wonder how many people have only seen PAT GARRETT in the U.S. TV broadcast version from the late '70s and early '80s, which committed further butchery on the movie.
Yeah the movie is ripe for rediscovery - the current DVD release is probably the best version available at the moment. And maybe the best there ever will be - I love this movie.
I've watched Ride the High Country and The Wild Bunch on DVD in recent times, but this is one that clearly I have to catch up with! I don't know how Gary finds his time and energy. I'm envious.
Keith
There's a great joke in MY NAME IS NOBODY: Nobody (Terence Hill) and Jack Beauregard (Henry Fonda) are wandering through a graveyard on an Indian reservation, and Nobody notices the inscription on one of the headstones.
"Sam Peck-in-pah," he reads. "That's a beautiful name in Navajo."
I need to watch this again. The only thing I remember is Bob Dylan reading the labels of cans of beans.
My lasting memory of Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid is R.G. Armstrong's brilliant as Bob Ollinger. "Repent you S.O.B.!!!"
They don't, won't, and can't make character actors like him anymore.
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