Billy the Kid

"Billy the Kid" was supposed to be a remake of the 1930 classic which starred Johnny Mack Brown and Wallace Beery. About the only things this version has going for it are the beautiful technicolor photography and its supporting cast of recognizable faces.

William Bonney, aka "Billy the Kid" (Robert Taylor) is on the run for gunning down his father's killer some years earlier. He and his sidekick Pedro (Frank Puglia) ride into the town of Lincoln. Billy joins up with local bad guy Hickey (Gene Lockhart) who is trying to drive popular rancher Eric Keating (Ian Hunter) out of business. While on a stampede raid one night, Billy meets up with his childhood friend Jim Sherwood (Brian Donlevy). Sherwood and Keating gradually persuade Billy to come over to their side.

All goes well until first, Pedro and then Keating are murdered. Billy then decides to take matters into his own hands with the predictable results.

Taylor, Donlevy and Lockhart are all woefully miscast. Taylor was just too pretty to be taken seriously as Billy. Donlevy, whose character replaces the Pat Garrett character for some reason, was more at home in gangster films. Similarly, Lockhart did better as evil bankers or corrupt businessmen in contemporary dramas.

Lovers of the "B" series westerns of the period will have fun spotting some of their favorite villains and character actors from that genre. The baddies include Lon Chaney Jr., Grant Withers, Dick Curtis, Cy Kendall and George Cheseboro. On the right side of the law we have Kermit Maynard, Guinn "Big Boy" Williams, Chill Wills and Ray Teal.

Others in the cast include Henry O'Neill as the newspaper editor, Joe Yule (Mickey Rooney's father) as a bartender, Arthur Houseman (the resident "drunk" in the old Laurel & Hardy shorts) as a drunken janitor (what else?), Connie Gilchrist as a saloon lady and a young John Raitt as a singer in the musical number.

As mentioned previously, the outdoor color photography is breathtaking. Unfortunately, they spoiled it by inserting many of those phony looking close up process riding shots.

I expected better from MGM.

BILLY THE KID's outdoor photography of handsome exterior settings gives this western a rugged flavor and ROBERT TAYLOR makes an acceptable Billy the Kid. MGM obviously wanted to toughen his appearance on screen as one of filmdom's handsomest male stars and chose to cast him in this rugged role. Most of the time his tough expression ranges from petulant to suspicious and not much else, but this was before his acting took on more dimension in other sturdier western roles.

However, nobody in the cast can overcome the fact that the screenplay is rather routine. BRIAN DONLEVY is sturdy as the Marshall who grew up with Billy and MARY BRIAN is fine as the love interest. GENE LOCKHART is effective as a cowardly villain and others in the cast give the story some flavor despite a screenplay full of western clichés.

Nice to look at, but easily forgettable as a story of Billy the Kid.

Of all the versions of the Billy the Kid saga this is one of the loosest ones with the facts. Even the names are completely changed in this film with only Robert Taylor retaining Billy's most known alias of William Bonney. Even Brian Donlevy does not get to play Pat Garrett, he's Jim Sherwood in this.

But this is the standard Billy the Kid story, a young outlaw who goes to work for a straight arrow rancher during a range war. Then later when the rancher, in this case Ian Hunter, is gunned down at that point the tragic end that Billy will come to is irreversibly set for him.

This was Robert Taylor's first western and it would be another eight years before he did another. After that westerns became pretty standard film fare for him. Taylor, like his good friend, Ronald Reagan, loved horses and probably if MGM hadn't made him a romantic heart throb, he would have loved to have been a cowboy actor. Like Reagan he certainly looked at home hosting Death Valley Days later on.

Jim Sherwood(Pat Garrett)is a different part for Brian Donlevy to play. Donlevy was at the high point of his career as a screen villain and being a good guy for him is almost a case of an alternate universe. But being the professional he was, Donlevy carries off the portrayal in fine style.

Ian Hunter is just fine as the English gentleman rancher who tries to set Taylor on the straight and narrow. And you will not find a sneakier more loathsome villain than Gene Lockhart as the local boss of the area who is provoking a range war with Hunter.

Billy the Kid is not the best western that Taylor ever did, but it certainly opened a whole new career vista for him.

Fine actor Robert Taylor seems to be a bit long in the tooth (although he was only 30 at the time) to portray "The Kid." Still, if you suspend all knowledge of the Billy legend, he does a stalwart job as an older and wiser Billy. Brian Donlevy is great, as usual, though he plays the good guy Sherwood (Pat Garrett in reality and in subsequent Billy the Kid inspired films)instead of his many tough guy badies (Beau Geste - Academy Award nominee, and Destry Rides Again - to mention two). The writers seem to change all the names to protect...well who?Instead of Tunstall, the english gentleman rancher who tries to change Billy's wayward ways, it's Keating. Instead of Murphy, the instigator of the Lincoln County War, its Hickey. And instead of Pat Garrett, it's Sherwood. But, some good shoot 'em ups and some good dialogue make this a pleasant Saturday afternoon at the westerns. Saddle up.

Check out Ivanhoe, Waterloo Bridge, and Knights of the Round Table to see Robert Taylor at his best. For other Billy movies, see Young Guns, Young Guns II, Chisum, and the Left Handed Gun.

This movie is Billy the Kid in name only. Anyone who has any kind of fascination with the Wild West or the historical William H. Bonney would do well to shy away from this flick. Almost all of the names have been switched around, the plot shares only a marginal familiarity with the true Billy and the lead actor Robert Taylor seems better suited for playing a 1930's era Chicago gangster than he does playing one of the most famous outlaws of all time.

Now that I've got my historical accuracy niggling out of the way - I still find myself unable to say many positive things about this film. But I'll give it a shot.

Some of the dialogue is rather inventive - and I do actually appreciate the relationship that Billy shares with ranch herder Eric Keating. There's an interesting exchange during Keating's introduction wherein he explains to a wary-eyed Billy why he doesn't carry a gun. Keating's naiveté rests upon a mythological ideal of frontier honor - an ideal that comes with a heavy price.

The movie itself is also wonderfully shot. The Technicolor treatment produces stunning visuals that can easily compare to westerns that are produced ten, fifteen, sometimes even twenty years after Billy the Kid.

Sadly, there simply isn't a lot of material available for Billy the Kid enthusiasts. Again, do NOT refer to this movie if you are looking to find insight into the true story of Billy the Kid. The closest you will probably come towards finding the definitive Billy story is in the 1988 fluff film, "Young Guns" and its subsequent continuation in "Young Guns II" - and even they take great spoonfuls of poetic license with history.