Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid (1973)

I enjoyed the film very much, in part because Peckinpah continues his theme, as he did in "Ballad of Cable Hogue" and "The Wild Bunch", of the illusion of who is "good" and who is "evil." Also, Peckinpah mourns the passing of people such as Garrett and Billy; at one point Garrett says to Poe, "This country's getting old, and I'm to get old with it." Garrett knows that he and Billy, among others, are to disappear from the West as big business and civilization advance, and Garrett tries to avoid this by selling out to Chisum (Barry Sullivan) and the Santa Fe Ring. But Garrett is a torn man; he is trying to avoid the tide of history by avoiding the eventual meeting with Billy, while also trying to avoid the financial forces (e.g., Chisum) that are making individuals such as himself disappear, so that big business will take over. The entire film is really a depiction of Garrett and Billy avoiding each other in order to resist historical forces that they would have a better chance of surviving if both of them left New Mexico or if both of them were on the same side. However, Garrett feels that aligning himself with the ranchers is better for survival, but in the end the hand that fed him, so to speak, is the same hand that destroys him. A truly poetic, and quite elegiac film, one that I feel is underrated among Peckinpah's films.

Fmovies: Sam Peckinpah's "Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid" has much in common with "One-Eyed Jacks"; Marlon Brando's take on the Billy the Kid story, which was based on Charles Neider's novel, "The Authentic Death of Hendry Jones".

Although Neider's book, ridiculously renamed "Guns Up" in a Pan paperback edition (the one I read), is a fictionalised account, it is an unforgettable masterpiece, invoking a unique sense of nostalgia for the Old West. Peckinpah loved the book and was inspired to write what turned out to be the first screenplay for "One-Eyed Jacks", later made by Marlin Brando who changed just about every element.

Although Peckinpah dropped out of that project early, when he finally got a chance to make his version, he moved a long way from Neider's book. In fact, the script moved closer to the historical record. However, although Neider's book is not credited, it's obvious that Peckinpah tried to capture its spirit.

The story tells how Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid once rode together, but eventually found themselves on opposites sides of the law. When Billy brutally escapes from jail, in one of the film's best sequences, it sets in motion a ruthless hunt by Pat Garrett, which can only have one ending.

Peckinpah actually frames the film with the death of Garrett. This sequence along with others have the trademark Peckinpah slow motion deaths with arching blood spray - techniques that had already become a little hackneyed even by 1973.

However, the central problem was in Peckinpah's casting of Kris Kristofferson. Not so much, as many reviewers have suggested, that at 37 he was too old to play Billy the Kid, but more because he just didn't project the necessary sense of danger; he comes across as too affable, too laid back. Brando in "One Eyed Jacks" gave a stunning performance as a man with a dangerous edge, and although it might seem unfair to compare the two, that lack of threat is a key weakness in Peckinpah's film.

Bob Dylan is in the movie and also provides a couple of very nasally songs on the soundtrack; his presence isn't just anachronistic, it's bizarre.

On the other hand, James Coburn is just about perfect as Pat Garrett, and the rest of the cast is probably the greatest coming together of iconic stars from western movies ever - Chill Wills, Slim Pickens, Jack Elam, LQ Jones, Katy Jurado, Gene Evans, Paul Fix and others - one of the joys of the film is in spotting them.

Apparently the film was badly cut by the studio. Despite that, and some strange decisions by Peckinpah himself, the film is nothing less than interesting. But because of all the tampering, like Brando's film, it misses out on greatness. As for Neider's book, it still awaits the right filmmaker to give it the definitive treatment on the screen.

Opening with the gunning down of Pat Garrett in 1909, we flash back to 1881 where Garrett has been hired to bring his ex-partner in crime Billy the Kid to justice. The story unfolds against a backdrop of a west that is moving forward, driven by businessmen (represented by Chisum) leaving behind the 'old ways'.

Of modern (ie after 50's and 60's) westerns Once Upon a Time in the West stands out as the best. However I feel that this film covers similar themes, of the death of the cowboy way and passing of times. The story is not really a duel between Pat and Billy but more a look at times changing around them – with Garrett changing with them and Billy trying to remain still. The story is well told with plenty of good characters, great setups and interesting dialogue. The relationships and the look at the old west 'code' easily hold the interest.

Peckinpah does plenty of good work here – for example intercutting the killing of Garrett with the killing of chickens etc, making it visually clever too. However his best move is the use of Bob Dylan's score – it could have been intrusive and made the film feel tacky and like it tries too hard to be hip. Instead the score works well and gives the film a soulful feel.

The cast is not only superb but deep with talent. Coburn is as good as ever as Garrett, struggling to move with times he doesn't approve of. Kristofferson is good, but his character of Billy is not well developed, but he still has a strong role to play. The support cast is full of famous faces from Westerns and a few actors just starting out – slim Pickens, Chill Wills, Jack Elam, Luke Ashew, Charles Martin Smith, Harry Dean Stanton and a good part for Bob Dylan.

If you're watching it – make sure you've got the restored version that adds 15 minutes and uses the score better. The director's version makes more of the role of Boss Chisum and fills the story out with playful brothel scenes and delivers a few more cameos. It makes a big difference to the film and lifts the story above being Garrett versus Billy the Kid.

Overall an excellent western from one of the greats at this type of thing.

Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid fmovies. Especially the director's cut, this is one of the finest Westerns ever made. Yes, Bob Dylan didn't make the best soundtrack (with the exception with the beginning music and the river music), and the studio version lacks quality, this is Sam Peckinpah at his finest since "The Wild Bunch". Peckinaph is one of my all time favorite directors because most of his movies are great, and this one is no different. James Coburn and Kris Kristofferson in the title roles are excellent, especially the always great Coburn (R.I.P.). What is also great is most of the Peckinpah regulars and recognizable Western characters making a great support cast, including Chill Wills, L.Q. Jones, R.G. Armstrong, Matt Clark, Slim Pickens, Katy Jurado, Jack Elam, Harry Dean Stanton, Emilio Fernandez, Richard Jaeckel, Barry Sullivan, Dub Taylor, Elisha Cook Jr., and John Beck. Even Peckinaph has a great cameo. Bob Dylan isn't the best actor, but his character plays an important part. He represents the story teller that passes down the legend of this story to all generations. This is a film that all Peckinpah and Western fans can't miss. It's a shame Sam never lived to make another Western like this.

I finally got to see the recent DVD Special Edition, with what probably is the film that Peckinpah set out to make, or close to it. This is definitely not the film I saw in 1973; and, yes, it is much better. The restoration has emphasized the real beauty of much of the cinematography. And it is not only the restored 9 minutes that give the film added power, but a slight but important rearrangement of scenes that manages to convey the all-important development of Pat Garrett's character, which is the real heart of the film.

It must be noted that this was a career-defining moment for James Coburn as Pat Garrett. Garrett, a former outlaw getting on the "right side" of the law in order to "live to be old and rich", is a problematic personality: he wants to be noble, but he's too scared of aging; he sets his old colleagues against each other, leading to the deaths of many of them - he becomes an angel of death for the Old West itself, yet (unlike, say, George Steven's Shane) he doesn't represent any civilizing force to replace it with. He can't admit any of this to himself, but he can't avoid it.

Consequently, by accepting the role, Coburn accepted an opportunity to set aside his most famous incarnation as the goofy hipster of such films as "President's Analyst" and "Our Man Flint", and to pursue a path closed off with the lost opportunity in Leone's rugged but incomplete "Duck, You Sucker", to play a complex, brooding and violent man haunted by an unforgiving past. Coburn's performance, at once quiet and strong, as complex as the character demands, really makes this film; and that it is Garrett's film, not Billy's, is now clear.

Are there weaknesses to the film? Yes. The historic background to the main story is lost; this being Garrett's film, we don't really need as much of Billy as we get from the film; finally, there are moments of self-indulgence on Peckinpah's part that are distracting and unnecessary.

Peckinpah uses the film to rid himself of one of his supposed influences: the fourth major scene in the film is a remake of a scene toward's the end of Arthur Penn's "Left-Handed Gun" - by bringing it to the fore, Peckinpah is obviously getting it out of the way as quickly as possible. (Penn, not the Peckinpah of "The Wild Bunch", was the director who introduced the notion of a gunfight ending in a "bullet ballet" in "Bonnie and Clyde" - a fact some critics of the early '70s used to insist that "Wild Bunch" was somehow derivative of that film.) However, as the film goes on, a new influence shows up, and in spades - Sergio Leone's "Once Upon a Time In the West". From Coburn's dressing in black and smoking a cigar when he firsts captures Billy, to the moment when Garrett and two colleagues approach the house where Billy's staying at the end, Leone's visuals and themes rise to the taste like hot-sauce in a bowl of chili.

Peckinpah's film is not really derivative - after all, Peckinpah's West is not that of Leone - Peckinpah's West is rich in color, and surprisingly green; trees don't make any appearance at all in Leone's deserted Monument Valley (and it's Spanish equivalent)location photography; in Peckinpah's West they play a substantial role as reminders of an ever-young nature infested with aging gunmen.

Yet the fact that Peckinpah and his crew felt a need to find

Sam Peckinpah really is not the full problem or liability with Pat Garret & Billy the Kid, though he's not totally innocent in what shortcomings come with the film. The story by Rudy Wurlizter provides a mix of extraordinary scenes and some all-too laid-back ones or scenes that don't feel like there is any real dramatic pull or total interest in the dialog. The other great scenes, which make up the most memorable bits of the film, provide Peckinpah with enough to put his distinctive visual style and subversive approach to character dynamics and conventions of the Western genre, but the parts end up becoming greater than the whole. The version I saw, the 2005 cut, doesn't seem like it would do any more or less better with fine tuning, and it does feel like a Peckinpah movie more often than not. The story is simple, and has been told more times than one could try to count unless in historical context of the genre: Billy the Kid is a murderous criminal out on the lam, and Pat Garret, the sheriff, is out to get him by hook or by crook. The twist that Peckinpah provides at the core is that it's not a completely intense thriller with a lot of chases, but more of a journey where the two men- who before becoming Dead-or-Alive Wanted-man and newly appointed Sheriff were sort of on friendly terms (as first scene shows well and clear)- are not in a big rush to meet their fates, even if the whole experience is starting to make things all the more embittered.

Pat Garret & Billy the Kid does provide, at the very least, some very great scenes throughout- some of the best I've seen in any Peckinpah film- and is a reminder of why the director was an important figure, and remains as such, in American cinema. Scenes like the river-side bit where Pat Garret shoots at the same bottle floating in the river as the guy with his family on the river-raft does; the astoundingly dead-pan shooting scene between Billy (Kris Kristofferson) and Alamosa (Jack Elam) where they sit down for a peaceful meal and go to it without much of a fuss in front of Alamosa's family; the scene with Garret getting the man to drink in the bar too much as Alias (Bob Dylan) reads off the products on the other side of the room in order to shoot him down; the scenes (in the 2005 cut that seem fairly important) showing Garret and his attitude towards women, either with his wife or with the prostitutes. It's a shame then that after the first twenty minutes or so, which includes that unforgettable shoot-out (one of the best in Peckinpah's Westerns) as Garret first corners Billy at the hide-out and drags him off to a not-quite jail before his escape, it then goes sort of up and down in full interest.

It's not that I wouldn't recommend Pat Garret & Billy the Kid, far from it, and especially for fans of the genre looking for a grim turn of the screws on one of those old-time mythic Western stories. The only main issue is that, in an odd way, the other side of the coin that Peckinpah and his writer are working with here- subversion- has the side of almost being too at ease with itself, of being too comfortable just rolling along. This might be in part due to the leads themselves; Coburn, to be sure, is a pro as always and is especially good in the almost anti-climax at the Fort, but Kristofferson is not very well-rounded, and comes off as being sort of all grins and smiles when he should be living up a little more to his reputation. It's so against-the-grain of the old-west that it comes close (though it doesn't, cont