This famous western deals with the most noted gunslinger of the southwest , William Bonney , a juvenile tough, a teenager wanted dead or alive throughout the west . This is a fiction story of the strange teen-age desperado known to legend as Billy the Kid . Billy was said to be sympathetic , attractive and favourite with girls , these characteristics well represented by the protagonist (Jack Buetel) . He'll confront Sheriff Pat Garret (Thomas Mitchell) and Doc Holliday (Walter Huston) and falls in love for a wonderful girl (Jane Russell) . The film isn't based on real events , it's a fiction story by the prestigious screenwriter Jules Furthman with ironic dialogs and a plot with little sense. Thus , here don't appear Tunstall , Chisum , nor others roles , neither deeds (Lincoln county war or getaway from gaol) of the Billy Kid's life that have been treated in other pictures . Exception for historical character Pat Garret who has an important role , while actually Doc Holliday nothing to do with Billy . The picture is produced by RKO (Radio Pictures Inc) and Howard Hughes who at the time was Jane Russell's lover . Howard Hawks began the filming in 1941 and he shot scenes with the cameraman Lucien Ballard but had complications with Hughes and he took the direction hiring the excellent photographer Gregg Toland (Citizen Kane) . However , the censorship made him to modify numerous shots takes . At last, after three years delay , public saw a daring production exactly as it was filmed , with no a scene cut . It would become a mythical film as an erotic Western . That's why Jane Russell , as she appears moody , mean, magnificent and terrific , too startling to describe , Russell was an authentic sensation by the time , she keeps her better attributes on the bosom. Today all the fuss seem totally wrongly . The film has real sensations , thrills , pursuits , go riding , primitive love , action , but it results to be a bit boring .
