Michael_Elliott
Billy the Kid (1930) * 1/2 (out of 4) Extremely disappointing film from Vidor features Johnny Mack Brown as Billy the Kid and Wallace Beery as Pat Garrett. After his boss and friend is murdered, Billy swears vengeance on any man who helped kill him. Along with his friends, Billy sets out for revenge only to find himself trapped inside a building in a long stand off. It's funny that this film starts off with a message from the then governor of New Mexico talking about how great Billy the Kid was and how this film was "mostly" truthful. This film was famous for being shot 1.20:1 but also in the 70mm Realife widescreen format but sadly all known prints of this are now lost. The film was also shot with two endings and the one I viewed was beyond silly and goes against what the governor said. With that out of the way, I found this film pretty hard to get through so I'm somewhat shocked at how many great reviews this one has out there. Being an early talkie I was surprised at how good the film sounded and that included all the dialogue plus the various sound effects. What shocked me was how old fashioned the film looked because just seeing the "style" of this picture made me wonder how much Vidor really directed and if this full screen version was second thought to everyone on the set. The movie is incredibly ugly with mostly medium shots that really don't do anything for the film. The ugly and still fashion of the film really takes it toll on the action in the film because it makes it just as boring. Even worse are some of the performance that suffer because of this. I though Brown and Beery were both decent in their roles but certainly nothing to write home about. Kay Johnson was rather bland as the love interest but future FREAKS cast member Roscoe Ates steals the film as the comedy relief.
alexandre michel liberman (tmwest)
If you look at this film as the story of Billy you will be disappointed because it will seem naive and unrealistic. But the greatness lies in everything else. The panoramic views of the covered wagons and the scenery of New Mexico where it was actually filmed. The town people, especially the women and how they cope with the Lincoln County war that was going on. The characters of Tunston and his partner McSween, good hearted men, against the cruel Donovan, who practically owns the town and reminds one of Judge Roy Bean. The scene where Gov. Lew Wallace shows up with the army to talk to Billy. Happy moments like when Billy is dancing. Wallace Beery is an interesting Pat Garret and Johnny McBrown has a good performance as Billy, whose's guns are the ones he used in the film. Movies have evolved technically throughout the years, but a western made in 1930 tells a story in a much better way then most films nowadays. When I saw this film the credits showed the name as "The Highwayman Rides", but I guess it was changed after.
Ron Oliver
British homesteaders in Lincoln County, New Mexico, find that their best protection against the local murderous sheriff is a shy young cowboy called BILLY THE KID.Director King Vidor produced for MGM one of the first epic talkie Westerns, with plenty of action and violence and frequent musical forays to explore the new medium of sound. The acting is good and the authentic outdoor locations are expansive & eye-catching.In one of his best roles, Johnny Mack Brown portrays Billy as a quiet, dependable fellow, deadly with a gun but reluctant to boast or brag, attractive to the ladies and a determined seeker for justice over evil. Everything one could want in a Cowboy Hero. He's also just a little bit dull. This allows Wallace Beery, as Billy's friendly nemesis Pat Garrett, to steal the film, using his doughy face and shapeless body to great effect. Beery was right on the edge of becoming a major movie star and it was roles like this that would push him over the edge.Lovely Kay Johnson is on hand as the wife of unfortunate Russell Simpson, one of the men Billy initially defends, but the demands of her role are few and she gets to do little besides look worried. Silent comic star Karl Dane & champion stutterer Roscoe Ates portray friends of Simpson & Billy, and they are both welcome additions to the film. Dane, however, is given very little screen time, his thick accent obviously a problem for MGM.Silent screen cowboy William S. Hart acted as creative consultant on the film, but his only contribution seems to have been the loan to Johnny Mack Brown of a pistol which had once belonged to Billy.BILLY THE KID was originally filmed in the 70 mm widescreen Realife process (no copies are known to remain) with two very different endings - one for American theaters in which Billy eludes capture and one in which he is shot dead, for European audiences.***********************************In the film's written prologue, New Mexico's Governor R. C. Dillon admits to the movie's ‘liberties' with the truth. Indeed, there are few true facts in the film. Most radically altered is the character of Billy himself, who in reality seems to have been a particularly loathsome human specimen, unsavory & disagreeable in almost every way. But early in production MGM's Irving Thalberg realized the studio would have a hard time promoting a film about a disgusting murderer and he ordered a radical rewrite on Billy's biography, turning him into a pleasant, noble hombre. Good entertainment, bad history.There are a lot of ambiguities about Billy. We know he was born in New York City on 23 November, but both 1859 & 1860 have been cited for the year. We don't even know the guy's real name. Was it William H. Bonney, Jr., or Henry McCarty? (For awhile he muddied the waters further by calling himself Kid Antrim.) Billy's family had moved West, and after the death of his father Billy had travelled with his mother's new husband to the territory of New Mexico, ending up at Silver City in 1873.We may never know what toxic mixture of heredity & environment stained Billy's soul, but we do know that he became a hellion young. He claimed to have committed his first murder at the age of 12 - he would kill at least 27 men during his lifetime. Billy became involved in an outlaw gang that created havoc on both sides of the Mexican border, with robbery, murder & cattle rustling all part of the routine. At the end of the decade, Billy became a gun for hire in the so-called Lincoln County War, that particularly nasty confrontation between cattlemen, townsfolk & corrupt law officers.Billy ran a gang that killed a sheriff and a deputy, for which he was arrested by Pat Garrett in December of 1880. Billy was sentenced to hang, but during a daring escape on 28 April 1881, Billy murdered two more deputies before hightailing it out of town. After weeks on his trail, Garrett finally tracked Billy to a ranch house near Fort Sumner, N.M. and on 14 July Garrett killed him there. The punk was dead, but the legend was born.Patrick Floyd Garrett (born 5 June 1850) had been a cowboy & buffalo hunter in his youth and moved to Lincoln County in 1879, where he became deputy and then sheriff. After he killed Billy, Garrett became a rancher near Roswell, N.M. from 1882 until 1896. Returning to law enforcement, he became first the deputy and then the sheriff of Dona Ana County from 1896 until 1902. He was the collector of customs in El Paso, Texas from 1902-1906. Garrett then bought a horse ranch near Las Cruces, N.M., but a violent dispute over a lease left him gunned down in the road on 29 February 1908. A fellow named Wayne Brazel claimed Garrett drew on him first, a witness agreed it was self defense, and Brazel was let go. Garrett was 57 years old. It was a nasty way to die for the man who got Billy the Kid.
Neal99
This film was full of surprises for me, given its less-than-stellar reputation. One has to view it in terms of Hollywood myth-making and not as if it's an episode of `Biography.' King Vidor's camerawork is startlingly fluid - he uses camera movement and cutting very effectively. One of the biggest surprises was the brutality (not to be confused with gore) of certain scenes. The film also does an excellent job of creating a mood of futility. As for Johnny Mack Brown, at first I thought he was inappropriately cast. But as the movie continued, his characterization seemed more valid. And of course, the location shots are stunning. This film is underrated and overdue for critical re-evaluation. Perhaps that will happen if an archivist finds a widescreen print!
